Article
作者: Chamakuri, Srinivas ; Kent, Katarzyna ; Hakenjos, John M. ; Sharma, Kiran L. ; Sankaran, Banumathi ; Wilkinson, Jennifer ; Li, Jian-Yuan ; Jimmidi, Ravikumar ; Robers, Matthew B. ; Li, Feng ; Palaniappan, Murugesan ; Tan, Zhi ; Matzuk, Martin M. ; Ma, Lang ; Wang, Yong ; Yu, Zhifeng ; Ye, Qiuji ; Ku, Angela F. ; Vasquez, Yasmin M. ; Wang, Jian ; Bohren, Kurt M. ; Sutton, Courtney M. ; Chen, Ruihong ; Palmer, Stephen S. ; Qin, Xuan ; Kim, Choel ; Teng, Mingxing ; Ta, Hai Minh ; Young, Damian W. ; Madasu, Chandrashekhar
Men or mice with homozygous serine/threonine kinase 33 (
STK33
) mutations are sterile owing to defective sperm morphology and motility. To chemically evaluate STK33 for male contraception with STK33-specific inhibitors, we screened our multibillion-compound collection of DNA-encoded chemical libraries, uncovered potent STK33-specific inhibitors, determined the STK33 kinase domain structure bound with a truncated hit CDD-2211, and generated an optimized hit CDD-2807 that demonstrates nanomolar cellular potency (half-maximal inhibitory concentration = 9.2 nanomolar) and favorable metabolic stability. In mice, CDD-2807 exhibited no toxicity, efficiently crossed the blood-testis barrier, did not accumulate in brain, and induced a reversible contraceptive effect that phenocopied genetic
STK33
perturbations without altering testis size. Thus, STK33 is a chemically validated, nonhormonal contraceptive target, and CDD-2807 is an effective tool compound.