Derivatives of the Fungal Natural Product Illudalic Acid Inhibit the Activity of Protein Histidine Phosphatase PHPT1.

PHPT1 is a protein histidine phosphatase that has been implicated in several disease pathways, but the chemical tools necessary to study the biological roles of this enzyme and investigate its utility as a therapeutic target have yet to be developed. To this end, the discovery of PHPT1 inhibitors is an area of significant interest. Here, we report an investigation of illudalic acid and illudalic acid analog-based inhibition of PHPT1 activity. Four of the seven analogs investigated had IC50 values below 5 μM, with the most potent compound (IA1-8H2) exhibiting an IC50 value of 3.4±0.7 μM. Interestingly, these compounds appear to be non-covalent, non-competitive inhibitors of PHPT1 activity, in contrast to other recently reported PHPT1 inhibitors. Mutating the three cysteine residues to alanine has no effect on inhibition, indicating that cysteine is not critical for interactions between inhibitor and enzyme.