Given the putative role of PHGDH in cancer, development of inhibitors is required to explore its function. In this context, we established and validated a straightforward enzymatic assay suitable for high-throughput screening and we identified inhibitors with similar chemical scaffolds. Through a convergent pharmacophore approach, we synthesized α-ketothioamides that exhibit interesting in vitro PHGDH inhibition and encouraging cellular results. These novel probes may be use to understand the emerging biology of this metabolic target.
Ravez, S., Corbet, C., Spillier, Q., Dutu, A., Robin, A. D., Mullarky, E., Cantley, L. C., Feron, O., & Frédérick, R. (2017). α-Ketothioamide derivatives: a promising tool to interrogate the phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH). Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Accepted/in-press. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b01166 (Original work published 2017)