High-throughput screening for inhibitors of the Cks1-Skp2 interaction

The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27(Kip1) is a critical cell cycle regulator frequently altered in human cancer. The cellular level of p27 is controlled by ubiquitin-dependent degradation mediated by the E3 ligase SCF(Skp1). Decreased p27 level in cancer cells has been associated with enhanced ubiquitin-dependent degradation and linked to poor prognosis. Therefore, restoration of p27 by inhibiting SCF(Skp2) activity has been proposed as a novel therapeutic strategy. Recently, the small regulatory protein Cks1 has been found to bind Skp2 and dramatically increases the affinity of Skp2 to p27, thus facilitating its ubiquitylation and degradation. Here, we describe a high-throughput screening assay for inhibitors of the Cks1-Skp2 interaction. The assay measures the binding of recombinant human GST-Cks1 and His6-Skp2-Skp1 using a homogeneous time-resolved fluorescence format and permits a throughput in excess of 100,000 data points per day when implemented on the Zeiss uHTS system.