- A Unified Approach to Targeting the Lysosome's Degradative and Growth Signaling Roles.
A Unified Approach to Targeting the Lysosome's Degradative and Growth Signaling Roles.
Cancer discovery (2017-09-14)
Vito W Rebecca, Michael C Nicastri, Noel McLaughlin, Colin Fennelly, Quentin McAfee, Amruta Ronghe, Michel Nofal, Chun-Yan Lim, Eric Witze, Cynthia I Chude, Gao Zhang, Gretchen M Alicea, Shengfu Piao, Sengottuvelan Murugan, Rani Ojha, Samuel M Levi, Zhi Wei, Julie S Barber-Rotenberg, Maureen E Murphy, Gordon B Mills, Yiling Lu, Joshua Rabinowitz, Ronen Marmorstein, Qin Liu, Shujing Liu, Xiaowei Xu, Meenhard Herlyn, Roberto Zoncu, Donita C Brady, David W Speicher, Jeffrey D Winkler, Ravi K Amaravadi
PMID28899863
ABSTRACT
Lysosomes serve dual roles in cancer metabolism, executing catabolic programs (i.e., autophagy and macropinocytosis) while promoting mTORC1-dependent anabolism. Antimalarial compounds such as chloroquine or quinacrine have been used as lysosomal inhibitors, but fail to inhibit mTOR signaling. Further, the molecular target of these agents has not been identified. We report a screen of novel dimeric antimalarials that identifies dimeric quinacrines (DQ) as potent anticancer compounds, which concurrently inhibit mTOR and autophagy. Central nitrogen methylation of the DQ linker enhances lysosomal localization and potency. An