Identification of Small-Molecule EGFR Allosteric Inhibitors by High-Throughput Docking

Abstract

AIM: The EGFR inhibitors represent the first-line treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer. However, the emergence of resistance urgently requires the development of new inhibitors targeting drug-resistant mutants. METHODOLOGY: A recently released structure of an EGFR kinase domain in complex with an allosteric inhibitor and a mutant protein model derived from it were used to set up a low-cost high-throughput docking protocol for the fast identification of EGFR allosteric inhibitors. CONCLUSION: The virtual screening of commercially available compounds led to the identification of interesting new hit compounds. The most promising hit was confirmed to be a new allosteric inhibitor of wild-type and T790M/L858R double mutant EGFR which was able to inhibit the growth of non-small-cell lung cancer cell lines.