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Updated: May 18, 2026

In-vivo Detection of Protein-protein Interactions on Micro-patterned Surfaces
Published on: March 19, 2010
From in Silico Discovery to intra-Cellular Activity: Targeting JNK-Protein Interactions with Small Molecules
Tamer S Kaoud1, Chunli Yan, Shreya Mitra
1Division of Medicinal Chemistry, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030 ; Graduate Programs in Pharmacy, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030.
Abstract:
The JNK-JIP1 interaction represents an attractive target for the selective inhibition of JNK-mediated signaling. We report a virtual screening (VS) workflow, based on a combination of three-dimensional shape and electrostatic similarity to discover novel scaffolds for the development of non-ATP competitive inhibitors of JNK targeting the JNK-JIP interaction. Of 352 (0.13%) compounds selected from the NCI diversity set more than 22% registered as hits in a biochemical kinase assay. Several compounds discovered to inhibit JNK activity under standard kinase assay conditions also impeded JNK activity in HEK293 cells. These studies led to the discovery that the lignan (-)-zuonin A inhibits JNK-protein interactions with a selectivity of 100-fold over ERK2 and p38 MAPKα. These results demonstrate the utility of a virtual screening protocol to identify novel scaffolds for highly selective, cell-permeable inhibitors of JNK-protein interactions.
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