Identification and Utilization of a Chemical Probe to Interrogate the Roles of PIKfyve in the Lifecycle of β-Coronaviruses

From a designed library of indolyl pyrimidinamines, we identified a highly potent and cell-active chemical probe (17) that inhibits phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate 5-kinase (PIKfyve). Comprehensive evaluation of inhibitor selectivity confirmed that this PIKfyve probe demonstrates excellent kinome-wide selectivity. A structurally related indolyl pyrimidinamine (30) was characterized as a negative control that lacks PIKfyve inhibitory activity and exhibits exquisite selectivity when profiled broadly. Chemical probe 17 disrupts multiple phases of the lifecycle of β-coronaviruses: viral replication and viral entry. The diverse antiviral roles of PIKfyve have not been previously probed comprehensively in a single study or using the same compound set. Our scaffold is a distinct chemotype that lacks the canonical morpholine hinge-binder of classical lipid kinase inhibitors and has a non-overlapping kinase off-target profile with known PIKfyve inhibitors. Our chemical probe set can be used by the community to further characterize the role of PIKfyve in virology.