Synthesis and Biological Determination of a New Anthracen-9,10-dione Derivative as a Human CK2 Inhibitor

Casein kinase 2 (CK2) is ubiquitous kinase protein emerging as a target for several human diseases including cancer. Several active CK2 inhibitors have been developed in the last few years; most of them have ATP-competitive type of inhibition, and only one inhibitor is in clinical trial as anticancer drug. Here we report on the synthesis of two derivatives of 2,6-diaryl-anthracene-9,10-dione, one of them, 2,6-di(furan-3-yl)anthracene-9,10-dione compound 3, turned out to be active towards CK2, and ATP competitive with an IC₅₀ value of 2.35 µM and a K_i value of 1.26 µM. Molecular modeling studies were performed using (MOE) to explain the binding affinity of compound 3 in comparison to emodin. These studies indicated that unlike emodin, compound 3 was not able to perform a hydrogen bond with Lys68, although the compound fits well in the active site of human CK2α, which explains the difference in the measured affinity between those two compounds.