Identification of a β1/β2-specific sulfonamide proteasome ligand by crystallographic screening.

The proteasome represents a validated drug target for the treatment of cancer, however, new types of inhibitors are required to tackle the development of resistant tumors. Current fluorescence-based screening methods suffer from low sensitivity and are limited to the detection of ligands with conventional binding profiles. In response to these drawbacks, a crystallographic screening procedure for the discovery of agents with a novel mode of action was utilized. The optimized workflow was applied to the screening of a focused set of compounds, resulting in the discovery of a β1/β2-specific sulfonamide derivative that noncovalently binds between subunits β1 and β2. The binding pocket displays significant differences in size and polarity between the immuno- and constitutive proteasome. The identified ligand thus provides valuable insights for the future structure-based design of subtype-specific proteasome inhibitors.