De Novo Discovery of Thiopeptide Pseudo-natural Products Acting as Potent and Selective TNIK Kinase Inhibitors

Bioengineering of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) is an emerging approach to explore the diversity of pseudo-natural product structures for drug discovery purposes. However, despite the initial advances in this area, bioactivity reprogramming of multienzyme RiPP biosynthetic pathways remains a major challenge. Here, we report a platform for de novo discovery of functional thiopeptides based on reengineered biosynthesis of lactazole A, a RiPP natural product assembled by five biosynthetic enzymes. The platform combines in vitro biosynthesis of lactazole-like thiopeptides and mRNA display to prepare and screen large (≥10¹²) combinatorial libraries of pseudo-natural products. We demonstrate the utility of the developed protocols in an affinity selection against Traf2- and NCK-interacting kinase (TNIK), a protein involved in several cancers, which yielded a plethora of candidate thiopeptides. Of the 11 synthesized compounds, 9 had high affinities for the target kinase (best <i>K</i>_D = 1.2 nM) and 10 inhibited its enzymatic activity (best <i>K</i>_i = 3 nM). X-ray structural analysis of the TNIK/thiopeptide interaction revealed the unique mode of substrate-competitive inhibition exhibited by two of the discovered compounds. The thiopeptides internalized to the cytosol of HEK293H cells as efficiently as the known cell-penetrating peptide Tat (4-6 μM). Accordingly, the most potent compound, TP15, inhibited TNIK in HCT116 cells. Altogether, our platform enables the exploration of pseudo-natural thiopeptides with favorable pharmacological properties in drug discovery applications.