Discovery of novel potential KIT inhibitors for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumor

Numerous inhibitors of tyrosine-protein kinase KIT, a receptor tyrosine kinase, have been explored as a viable therapy for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). However, drug resistance due to acquired mutations in KIT makes these drugs almost useless. The present study was designed to screen the novel inhibitors against the activity of the KIT mutants through pharmacophore modeling and molecular docking. The best two pharmacophore models were established using the KIT mutants’ crystal complexes and were used to screen the new compounds with possible KIT inhibitory activity against both activation loop and ATP-binding mutants. As a result, two compounds were identified as potential candidates from the virtual screening, which satisfied the potential binding capabilities, molecular modeling characteristics, and predicted absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, toxicity (ADMET) properties. Further molecular docking simulations showed that two compounds made strong hydrogen bond interaction with different KIT mutant proteins. Our results indicated that pharmacophore models based on the receptor–ligand complex had excellent ability to screen KIT inhibitors, and two compounds may have the potential to develop further as the future KIT inhibitors for GIST treatment.