Leucyl-tRNA synthetase (LRS) plays an important role in amino acid-dependent mTORC1 signaling, which is known to be associated with cellular metabolism and proliferation. Therefore, LRS-targeting small molecules that can suppress mTORC1 activation may provide an alternative strategy to current anticancer therapy. In this work, we developed a library of leucyladenylate sulfate analogues by extensively modifying three different pharmacophoric regions comprising adenine, ribose and leucine. Several effective compounds were identified by cell-based mTORC1 activation assays and further tested for anticancer activity. The selected compounds mostly exhibited selective cytotoxicity toward five different cancer cell lines, supporting the hypothesis that the LRS-mediated mTORC1 pathway is a promising alternative target to current therapeutic approaches.
Keywords: Anticancer agents; LRS; Leucyl-tRNA synthetase; Leucyladenylate; mTORC1 inhibitor.
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