New Promise and Opportunities for Allosteric Kinase Inhibitors

Abstract

Drugs that function through allosteric inhibition of kinase signaling represent a promising approach for the targeted discovery of therapeutics. The majority of developed allosteric kinase inhibitors are characterized as type III and IV inhibitors that show good kinome selectivity but generally lack the subtype selectivity of same kinase family. Recently allosteric inhibitors have been developed that bind outside the catalytic kinase domain with high selectivity for specific kinase subtypes. Allosteric inhibitors that bind to the pseudokinase domain of pseudokinase or the extracellular domain of receptor tyrosine kinases are reviewed. We also review recent developments in the field of allosteric kinase inhibitors including examples of proteolysis targeting chimeras, and highlight the unique binding modes for each type of inhibitors and address future opportunities in this area.

Keywords: allosteric kinase inhibitors; drug design; extracellular domain; kinase domain; pseudokinase domain.