Aim: P38α plays a crucial role in the development of castration-resistant prostate cancer. Discovering novel inhibitors of P38α offers potential for the development of new anticancer drugs. Methods & results: Compounds from the Chemdiv and Enamine virtual libraries were filtered to construct the P38α inhibitor-like library. A total of 58 new P38α inhibitors were discovered via virtual screening; these included three compounds (compound 1, 5, 9) with kinase IC50 of below 10 μM. In vitro, these three compounds have the potential to suppress the viabilities of prostate cancer cell lines, however, only compound 9 can inhibit the proliferation and migration of prostate cancer cells. Conclusion: The potent compounds discovered in this study demonstrate anticancer functions by targeting the P38α mitogen-activated protein kinases signaling pathway and are worthy of further investigation.
Keywords: P38α MAPK; novel inhibitor; prostate cancer; virtual screening.