Structural insights into the polypharmacological activity of quercetin on serine/threonine kinases

Polypharmacology, the discovery or design of drug molecules that can simultaneously interact with multiple targets, is gaining interest in contemporary drug discovery. Serine/threonine kinases are attractive targets for therapeutic intervention in oncology due to their role in cellular phosphorylation and altered expression in cancer. Quercetin, a naturally occurring flavonoid, inhibits multiple cancer cell lines and is used as an anticancer drug in Phase I clinical trial. Quercetin glycosides have also received some attention due to their high bioavailability and activity against various diseases including cancer. However, these have been studied to a lesser extent. In this study, the structural basis of the multitarget inhibitory activity of quercetin and isoquercitrin, a glycoside derivative, on serine/threonine kinases using molecular modeling was explored. Structural analysis showed that both quercetin and isoquercitrin exhibited good binding energies and interacted with aspartate in the highly conserved Asp-Phe-Gly motif. The results indicate that isoquercitrin could be a more potent inhibitor of several members of the serine/threonine kinase family. In summary, the current structural evaluation highlights the multitarget inhibitory property of quercetin and its potential to be a chemical platform for oncological polypharmacology.