A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

An Improved PDE6D Inhibitor Combines with Sildenafil To Inhibit KRAS Mutant Cancer Cell Growth




AuthorsKaya, Pelin; Schaffner-Reckinger, Elisabeth; Manoharan, Ganesh babu; Vukic, Vladimir; Kiriazis, Alexandros; Ledda, Mirko; Burgos Renedo, Maria; Pavic, Karolina; Gaigneaux, Anthoula; Glaab, Enrico; Abankwa, Daniel Kwaku

PublisherAMER CHEMICAL SOC

Publishing placeWASHINGTON

Publication year2024

JournalJournal of Medicinal Chemistry

Journal name in sourceJOURNAL OF MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY

Journal acronymJ MED CHEM

Volume67

Issue11

First page 8569

Last page8584

Number of pages16

ISSN0022-2623

eISSN1520-4804

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02129

Web address https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02129

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/457173232


Abstract

The trafficking chaperone PDE6D (or PDEδ) was proposed as a surrogate target for K-Ras, leading to the development of a series of inhibitors that block its prenyl binding pocket. These inhibitors suffered from low solubility and suspected off-target effects, preventing their clinical development. Here, we developed a highly soluble, low nanomolar PDE6D inhibitor (PDE6Di), Deltaflexin3, which has the lowest off-target activity as compared to three prominent reference compounds. Deltaflexin3 reduces Ras signaling and selectively decreases the growth of KRAS mutant and PDE6D-dependent cancer cells. We further show that PKG2-mediated phosphorylation of Ser181 lowers K-Ras binding to PDE6D. Thus, Deltaflexin3 combines with the approved PKG2 activator Sildenafil to more potently inhibit PDE6D/K-Ras binding, cancer cell proliferation, and microtumor growth. As observed previously, inhibition of Ras trafficking, signaling, and cancer cell proliferation remained overall modest. Our results suggest reevaluating PDE6D as a K-Ras surrogate target in cancer.


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Funding information in the publication
D.K.A. received a Grant4Targets grant (ref.2019-08-2426) from Bayer AG. This work was supported by grants from the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR): AFR individual grant 13589879 to P.K. and PoC20/15269106-inhibitPDE-RASv2 to D.K.A.


Last updated on 2025-11-02 at 15:38