Recent years have seen heat shock protein 90 kDa (Hsp90) attract significant interest as a viable drug target, particularly for cancer. To date, designed inhibitors that target the ATPase domain demonstrate potent anti-proliferative effects, but have failed clinical trials due to high levels of associated toxicity. To circumvent this, the focus has shifted away from the ATPase domain. One option involves modulation of the protein through allosteric activation/inhibition. Here, we propose a novel approach: we use previously obtained information via residue perturbation scanning coupled with dynamic residue network analysis to identify allosteric drug targeting sites for inhibitor docking. We probe the open conformation of human Hsp90α for druggable sites that overlap with these allosteric control elements, and identify three putative natural compound allosteric modulators: Cephalostatin 17, 20(29)-Lupene-3β-isoferulate and 3′-Bromorubrolide F. We assess the allosteric potential of these ligands by examining their effect on the conformational dynamics of the protein. We find evidence for the selective allosteric activation and inhibition of Hsp90’s conformational transition toward the closed state in response to ligand binding and shed valuable insight to further the understanding of allosteric drug design and Hsp90’s complex allosteric mechanism of action.
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