Compound C620-0696, a new potent inhibitor targeting BPTF, the chromatin-remodeling factor in non-small-cell lung cancer

Abstract

Bromodomain PHD-finger transcription factor (BPTF) is the largest subunit of the nucleosome remodeling factor and plays an important role in chromatin remodeling for gene activation through its association with histone acetylation or methylation. BPTF is also involved in oncogene transcription in diverse progressions of cancers. Despite clinical trials for inhibitors of bromodomain and extra-terminal family proteins in human cancers, no potent and selective inhibitor targeting the BPTF bromodomain has been discovered. In this study, we identified a potential inhibitor, namely, C620-0696, by computational docking modeling to target bromodomain. Results of biolayer interferometry revealed that compound C620-0696 exhibited high binding affinity to the BPTF bromodomain. Moreover, C620-0696 was cytotoxic in BPTF with a high expression of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. It suppressed the expression of the BPTF target gene c-MYC, which is known as an oncogenic transcriptional regulator in various cancers. C620-0696 also partially inhibited the migration and colony formation of NSCLC cells owing to apoptosis induction and cell cycle blockage. Thus, our study presents an effective strategy to target a bromodomain factor-mediated tumorigenesis in cancers with small molecules, supporting further exploration of the use of these inhibitors in oncology.

Keywords

BPTF / small molecule / epigenetics / non-small-cell lung cancer

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Macao Science and Technology Development Fund (Nos. 102/2016/A3, 130/2017/A3, 0003/2018/A1, and 046/2016/A2).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jiahui Xu, Qianqian Wang, Elaine Lai Han Leung, Ying Li, Xingxing Fan, Qibiao Wu, Xiaojun Yao, and Liang Liu declare that they have no conflicts of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11684-019-0694-8 and is accessible for authorized users.

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