Discovery of a potent and selective protein kinase CK2 inhibitor by high-throughput docking

To assess the potential of protein kinase CK2 as a target for developing new antitumor agents, we have undertaken a search for inhibitors of this enzyme. As part of this effort, we report here the discovery of the potent and selective CK2 inhibitor (5-oxo-5,6-dihydroindolo[1,2-a]quinazolin-7-yl)acetic acid. We identified this inhibitor of a novel structural type by high-throughput docking of our corporate compound collection in the ATP binding site of a homology model of human CK2, using an appropriate protocol. The synthesis of the inhibitor as well as that of related analogues whose CK2 inhibitory activities give support to the binding mode proposed by the docking program is described. The results obtained suggest that virtual screening of a 3D database by molecular docking is a useful approach for lead finding provided that adapted postdocking filtering and reranking procedures are applied to the primary hit list.