Discovery of novel fatty acid synthase (FAS) inhibitors based on the structure of ketoaceyl synthase (KS) domain

Development of fatty acid synthase (FAS) inhibitors has increasingly attracted much attention in recent years due to their potential therapeutic use in obesity and cancers. In this investigation, pharmacophore modeling based on the first crystal structure of human KS domain of FAS was carried out. The established pharmacophore model was taken as a 3D query for retrieving potent FAS inhibitors from the chemical database Specs. Docking study was further carried out to refine the obtained hit compounds. Finally, a total of 28 compounds were selected based on the ranking order and visual examination, which were first evaluated by a cell line-based assay. Seven compounds that have good inhibition activity against two FAS overexpressing cancer cell lines were further evaluated by an enzyme-based assay. One compound with a new chemical scaffold was found to have low micromolar inhibition potency against FAS, which has been subjected to further chemical structural modification.