Inhibitors of NMT: A New Class of Chemotherapeutic Drugs

Myristoyl-CoA:protein N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) is an enzyme that catalyzes the attachment of myristate to the N-terminus of a number of cellular proteins of signal transduction pathways which may be involved in oncogenesis, in secondary cellular signaling and in infectivity of retroviruses. NMT expression and activity have been found to be elevated in cancers of the stomach, colon and gallbladder as well as in some leukemia cell lines. NMT is proposed as a novel molecular target for anticancer drug design. There is a rapidly expanding body of synthetic chemical and endogenous NMT inhibitors and this review discusses the design and characterization of some inhibitors from our laboratory.