Quinazoline-based analog of adenine as an antidote against MLL-rearranged leukemia cells: synthesis, inhibition assays and docking studies.

Background: Post-translational modifications of histones constitute a dynamic process impacting gene expression. A well-studied modification is lysine methylation. Among the lysine histone methyltransferases, DOT1L is implicated in various diseases, making it a very interesting target for drug discovery. DOT1L has two substrates, the SAM cofactor that gives the methyl group and the lysine H3K79 substrate. Results: Using molecular docking, the authors explored new bisubstrate analogs to enlarge the chemical landscape of DOT1L inhibitors. The authors showed that quinazoline can successfully replace the adenine in the design of bisubstrate inhibitors of DOT1L, showing similar activity compared with the adenine derivative but with diminished cytotoxicity. Conclusion: The docking model is validated together with the use of quinazoline in the design of bisubstrate inhibitors.