Aurora-A has been known as one of the most important targets for cancer therapy, and some Aurora-A inhibitors have entered clinical trails. In this study, combination of the ligand-based and structure-based methods is used to clarify the essential quantitative structure-activity relationship of known Aurora-A inhibitors, and multicomplex-based pharmacophore-guided method has been suggested to generate a comprehensive pharmacophore of Aurora-A kinase based on a collection of crystal structures of Aurora-A-inhibitor complex. This model has been successfully used to identify the bioactive conformation and align 37 structurally diverse N-substituted 2'-(aminoaryl)benzothiazoles derivatives. The quantitative structure-activity relationship analyses have been performed on these Aurora-A inhibitors based on multicomplex-based pharmacophore-guided alignment. These results may provide important information for further design and virtual screening of novel Aurora-A inhibitors.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S.