There is unmet need for chemical tools to explore the role of the Mediator complex in human pathologies ranging from cancer to cardiovascular disease. Here we determine that CCT251545, a small molecule WNT-pathway inhibitor discovered through cell-based screening, is a potent and selective chemical probe for the human Mediator complex-associated protein kinases CDK8 and CDK19 with >100-fold selectivity over 291 other kinases. X-ray crystallography demonstrates a Type 1 binding mode involving insertion of the CDK8 C-terminus into the ligand binding site. InReprints and permissions information is available online at http://www.nature.com/reprints/index.html.Users may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use

Mediator-associated kinases CDK8/19 are context-dependent drivers or suppressors of tumorigenesis. Their inhibition is predicted to have pleiotropic effects, but it is unclear whether this will impact on the clinical utility of CDK8/19 inhibitors. We discovered two series of potent chemical probes with high selectivity for CDK8/19. Despite pharmacodynamic evidence for robust on-target activity, the compounds exhibited modest, though significant, efficacy against human tumor lines and patient-derived xenografts. Altered gene expression was consistent with CDK8/19 inhibition, including profiles associated with super-enhancers, immune and inflammatory responses and stem cell function. In a mouse model expressing oncogenic beta-catenin, treatment shifted cells within hyperplastic intestinal crypts from a stem cell to a transit amplifying phenotype. In two species, neither probe was tolerated at therapeutically-relevant exposures. The complex nature of the toxicity observed with two structurally-differentiated chemical series is consistent with on-target effects posing significant challenges to the clinical development of CDK8/19 inhibitors.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.20722.001

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