Structure-based design of potent and selective inhibitors targeting RIPK3 for eliminating on-target toxicity in vitro

作者：Haixia Su, Guofeng Chen, Hang Xie, Wanchen Li, Muya Xiong, Jian He, Hangchen Hu, Wenfeng Zhao, Qiang Shao, Minjun Li, Qiang Zhao, Yechun Xu · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-025-59432-8 · 被引用次数：13 · 研究领域：Cell death mechanisms and regulation、Cancer-related Molecular Pathways、Ubiquitin and proteasome pathways

The essential role of RIPK3 in necroptosis makes its inhibition a promising therapeutic strategy. However, the development of RIPK3 inhibitors has been hampered by on-target apoptosis and limited kinase selectivity. Inspired by the R69H mutation, which prevents on-target apoptosis by disrupting RIPK3 dimerization, we design LK-series inhibitors that effectively inhibit RIPK3 in biochemical assays and block TNF-α-induced necroptosis in both mouse L929 and human HT29 cells without inducing apoptosis. The representative compound, LK01003, shows high selectivity across a panel of 379 kinases. Our structural studies reveal that LK compounds act as Type I1/2 inhibitors, engaging a unique hydrophobic site and stabilizing an inactive conformation of RIPK3. Moreover, several type II inhibitors are also revealed to maintain RIPK3 in the inactive conformation and do not induce on-target apoptosis. These findings suggest a promising strategy for rational design of safe and selective inhibitors by locking the inactive conformation of RIPK3. Here the authors described the structure-based design of novel, selective RIPK3 inhibitors that do not induce on-target apoptosis by occupying a unique hydrophobic site and locking RIPK3 into an inactive conformation.