BioCentury
ARTICLE | Distillery Therapeutics

CDK11B as a new cancer target

September 12, 2019 10:48 PM UTC

INDICATION: Colorectal cancer; pancreatic cancer; breast cancer

Inhibiting CDK11B, a kinase involved in cellular processes including transcription and chromosome segregation, could treat cancers including colorectal, pancreatic, lung cancer and melanoma. In colorectal cancer cells, the PDZ binding kinase (TOPK; PBK) inhibitor OTS964 bound CDK11B with a Kd of 40 nM, and cells resistant to the compound carried CDK11B mutations. In a competition assay where cancer cells with CRISPR-mediated CDK11B knockout were co-cultured with their wild-type parental strains, the CDK11B-deficient cells dropped out of the culture for all nine cancer types tested, including glioblastoma, melanoma and pancreatic cancer. Next steps include further studies evaluating CDK11B's potential as a cancer target (see "Cold Spring Harbor Team Finds Off-target Activity Can Drive Antitumor Effects")...

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