Targeting Kinase Interaction Networks: A New Paradigm in PPI Based Design of Kinase Inhibitors

Background: Kinases are key modulators in regulating diverse range of cellular activities and are an essential part of the protein-protein interactome. Understanding the interaction of kinases with different substrates and other proteins is vital to decode the cell signaling machinery as well as causative mechanism for disease onset and progression. Objective: The objective of this review is to present all studies on the structure and function of few important kinases and highlight the protein-protein interaction (PPI) mechanism of kinases and the kinase specific interactome databases and how such studies could be utilized to develop anticancer drugs. Methods: The article is a review of the detailed description of the various domains in kinases that are involved in protein-protein interactions and specific inhibitors developed targeting these PPI domains. Results: The review has surfaced in depth the interacting domains in key kinases and their features and the roles of PPI in the human kinome and the various signaling cascades that are involved in certain types of cancer. Conclusion: The insight availed into the mechanism of existing peptide inhibitors and peptidomimetics against kinases will pave way for the design and generation of domain specific peptide inhibitors with better productivity and efficiency and the various software and servers available can be of great use for the identification and analysis of protein-protein interactions.