Research Papers:
Antihepatocellular carcinoma properties of the antialcoholism drug disulfiram discovered to enzymatically inhibit the AMPKrelated kinase SNARK in vitro
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Kaku Goto1, Naoya Kato1, Raymond T. Chung2
1The Advanced Clinical Research Center, The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan
2Liver Center and Gastrointestinal Division, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Correspondence to:
Raymond T. Chung, email: Chung.Raymond@mgh.harvard.edu
Naoya Kato, email: kato-2im@ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Keywords: disulfiram, Antabuse, SNARK, NUAK2, HCC
Received: April 19, 2016 Accepted: August 24, 2016 Published: September 02, 2016
ABSTRACT
We recently described that the anti-apoptotic AMPK-related kinase, SNARK, promotes transforming growth factor (TGF)-β signaling in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells, as a potentially new therapeutic target. Here we explored FDA-approved drugs inhibiting the enzymatic activity of SNARK, using an in vitro luminescence kinase assay system. Interestingly, the long-used anti-alcoholism drug disulfiram (DSF), also known as Antabuse, emerged as the top hit. Enzymatic kinetics analyses revealed that DSF inhibited SNARK kinase activity in a noncompetitive manner to ATP or phosphosubstrates. Comparative in vitro analyses of DSF analogs indicated the significance of the disulfide bond-based molecular integrity for the kinase inhibition. DSF suppressed SNARK-promoted TGF-β signaling and demonstrated anti-HCC effects. The chemical and enzymatic findings herein reveal novel pharmacological effects of and use for DSF and its derivatives, and could be conducive to prevention and inhibition of liver fibrosis and HCC.