Optimized 4,5-Diarylimidazoles as Potent/Selective Inhibitors of Protein Kinase CK1δ and Their Structural Relation to p38α MAPK.

The involvement of protein kinase CK1δ in the pathogenesis of severe disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, familial advanced sleep phase syndrome, and cancer has dramatically increased interest in the development of effective small molecule inhibitors for both therapeutic application and basic research. Unfortunately, the design of CK1 isoform-specific compounds has proved to be highly complicated due to the existence of six evolutionarily conserved human CK1 members that possess similar, different, or even opposite physiological and pathophysiological implications. Consequently, only few potent and selective CK1δ inhibitors have been reported so far and structurally divergent approaches are urgently needed in order to establish SAR that might enable complete discrimination of CK1 isoforms and related p38α MAPK.