AZ82 is a small molecule inhibitor of KIFC1/HSET, a kinesin-14 family protein that is important for assembling bipolar spindles in cancer cells containing supernumerary centrosomes.[1] AZ82 binds to the KIFC1/microtubule complex and inhibits its microtubule-stimulated activity (IC50 = 300 nM) in an ATP-competitive (Ki = 43 nM) and microtubule-noncompetitive manner but does not inhibit basal KIFC1 activity at a concentration of 100 uM. [2] It is selective for KIFC1 over a panel of nine kinesin motor proteins at a concentration of 5 uM. AZ82 induces multipolar spindle formation in cancer cell lines with high (BT549), but not low (HeLa and MCF-7), numbers of extra chromosomes.
Reference:
[1]. Godinho, S.A., and Pellman, D. Causes and consequences of centrosome abnormalities in cancer. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 369(1650), pii: 20130467 (2014).
[2]. Wu, J., Mikule, K., Wang, W., et al. Discovery and mechanistic study of a small molecule inhibitor for motor protein KIFC1. ACS Chem. Biol. 8(10), 2201-2208 (2013).