Prospective evaluation of structure-based simulations reveal their ability to predict the impact of kinase mutations on inhibitor binding Journal Article


Authors: Singh, S.; Gapsys, V.; Aldeghi, M.; Schaller, D.; Rangwala, A. M.; White, J. B.; Bluck, J. P.; Scheen, J.; Glass, W. G.; Guo, J.; Hayat, S.; de Groot, B. L.; Volkamer, A.; Christ, C. D.; Seeliger, M. A.; Chodera, J. D.
Article Title: Prospective evaluation of structure-based simulations reveal their ability to predict the impact of kinase mutations on inhibitor binding
Abstract: Small molecule kinase inhibitors are critical in the modern treatment of cancers, evidenced by the existence of over 80 FDA-approved small-molecule kinase inhibitors. Unfortunately, intrinsic or acquired resistance, often causing therapy discontinuation, is frequently caused by mutations in the kinase therapeutic target. The advent of clinical tumor sequencing has opened additional opportunities for precision oncology to improve patient outcomes by pairing optimal therapies with tumor mutation profiles. However, modern precision oncology efforts are hindered by lack of sufficient biochemical or clinical evidence to classify each mutation as resistant or sensitive to existing inhibitors. Structure-based methods show promising accuracy in retrospective benchmarks at predicting whether a kinase mutation will perturb inhibitor binding, but comparisons are made by pooling disparate experimental measurements across different conditions. We present the first prospective benchmark of structure-based approaches on a blinded dataset of in-cell kinase inhibitor affinities to Abl kinase mutants using a NanoBRET reporter assay. We compare NanoBRET results to structure-based methods and their ability to estimate the impact of mutations on inhibitor binding (measured as Delta Delta G). Comparing physics-based simulations, Rosetta, and previous machine learning models, we find that structure-based methods accurately classify kinase mutations as inhibitor-resistant or inhibitor-sensitizing, and each approach has a similar degree of accuracy. We show that physics-based simulations are best suited to estimate Delta Delta G of mutations that are distal to the kinase active site. To probe modes of failure, we retrospectively investigate two clinically significant mutations poorly predicted by our methods, T315A and L298F, and find that starting configurations and protonation states significantly alter the accuracy of our predictions. Our experimental and computational measurements provide a benchmark for estimating the impact of mutations on inhibitor binding affinity for future methods and structure-based models. These structure-based methods have potential utility in identifying optimal therapies for tumor-specific mutations, predicting resistance mutations in the absence of clinical data, and identifying potential sensitizing mutations to established inhibitors.
Keywords: tyrosine kinase; drug-resistance; lung-cancer; c-abl; domain mutations; molecular-dynamics simulations; side-chain; force-fields; atomic charges; free-energy differences
Journal Title: Journal of Physical Chemistry B
Volume: 129
Issue: 11
ISSN: 1520-6106
Publisher: American Chemical Society  
Date Published: 2025-03-20
Start Page: 2882
End Page: 2902
Language: English
ACCESSION: WOS:001440344300001
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.4c07794
PROVIDER: wos
PUBMED: 40053698
PMCID: PMC12038917
Notes: The MSK Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA008748) is acknowledge in the PDF -- Corresponding authors is MSK author: Sukrit Singh and John D. Chodera -- Source: Wos
Altmetric
Citation Impact
BMJ Impact Analytics
MSK Authors
  1. John Damon Chodera
    118 Chodera
  2. William Glass
    5 Glass
  3. Jiaye Guo
    3 Guo
  4. Sukrit Singh
    8 Singh