A novel anti-melanoma SRC-family kinase inhibitor

The major drawback of melanoma therapy with BRAF and MAPK inhibitors is the innate and acquired drug resistance. We therefore explored alternative targets and developed a new compound, SAB298, that is a SRC-family kinase (SFK) inhibitor. The drug is cytotoxic to patient-derived melanoma cells regardless of oncogene expression and inhibits tumor growth in vivo. As expected, it inhibited SRC and PI3K activity, and had the additional property of ERBB2 inhibition, that lead to inactivation of the two ERK phosphatases PP2A and SHP2. In 57% of the melanoma cell lines tested, the consequent increase in ERK activity lead to proteolytic degradation of its substrate, the lineage specific transcription factor MITF, likely contributing to growth arrest. Treatment with a combination of SAB298 and AZD6244 (selumetinib), induced a synergistic growth inhibition, suggesting that the new compound could be used in the clinic as a substitute for, or in combination with MAPK inhibitors.