Structure-based Discovery of a Non-competitive FTO Inhibitor Bound to a Cryptic Site at the Domain Interface

The fat mass and obesity-associated fatso (FTO) protein is a member of the AlkB family of dioxygenases whose overexpression links to several metabolic diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's, and various types of cancer. FTO is an important target for pharmaceutical research, and several selective and non-selective competitive inhibitors have been developed against the enzyme. However, given the competitive nature of the available inhibitors, obtaining complete subfamily selectivity still presents an unresolved challenge. Here, we describe the discovery of a molecular scaffold for selective inhibition of FTO, which resulted from high throughput virtual screening targeted at FTO cryptic pockets. Analysis of the FTO-inhibitor interaction by solution NMR, molecular dynamics simulations, and enzyme kinetic assays shows that, differently from the FTO inhibitors developed so far, our molecule binds to a cryptic site between the FTO structural domains, and modulates the enzyme function non-competitively by perturbing the binding pose of the α-ketoglutarate and nucleic acid substrates. Since FTO is the only member of the AlkB family that presents multiple structural domains, we expect further development of this allosteric molecule to result in a new family of highly selective FTO inhibitors that can be used alone or in combination with pre-existing compounds to improve their potency and selectivity.