Despite Hsp90's well documented promise as a target for developing cancer chemotherapeutics, its inhibitors have struggled to progress through clinical trials. This is, in part, attributed to the cytoprotective compensatory heat shock response (HSR) stimulated through intracellular Hsp90 inhibition. Beyond its intracellular role, secreted extracellular Hsp90 (eHsp90) interacts with numerous pro-oncogenic extracellular clients. This includes fibronectin, which in the tumour microenvironment enhances cell invasiveness and metastasis. Through the rational modification of known Hsp90 inhibitors (SNX2112 and SNX25a) we developed four Hsp90 inhibitory compounds, whose alterations restricted their interaction with intracellular Hsp90 and did not stimulate the HSR. Two of the modified cohort (compounds 10 and 11) were able to disrupt the assembly of the extracellular fibronectin network at non-cytotoxic concentrations, and thus represent promising new tool compounds for studying the druggability of eHsp90 as a target for inhibition of tumour invasiveness and metastasis.
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