Modelling of insulin receptor tyrosine kinase in its active form: a case study for validation of theoretical methods

An active form of an insulin receptor tyrosine kinase (IRK) catalytic core was modelled based on its experimentally known inactive form and the active form of a serine/threonine kinase, protein kinase A (PKA). This theoretical model was compared with the crystallographic structure of the active form of IRK reported later. The structures are very similar, which shows that all the most important features and interactions have been taken into account in the modelling procedure. The elaborated procedure can be applied to other tyrosine kinases. This would allow designing of a wide class of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, very important potential anti-cancer and/or anti-viral drugs.