cantharidin   Click here for help

GtoPdb Ligand ID: 13081

Synonyms: Ycanth® (0.7% solution, single-use topical applicator)
Approved drug
cantharidin is an approved drug (FDA (2023))
Compound class: Natural product or derivative
Comment: Cantharidin is a terpenoid substance that is secreted by insects such as male blister beetles. It is also synthetically manufactured. Cantharidin causes skin blisters in humans, and can be highly toxic if ingested in sufficient quantity.
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Ligand Activity Visualisation Charts

These are box plot that provide a unique visualisation, summarising all the activity data for a ligand taken from ChEMBL and GtoPdb across multiple targets and species. Click on a plot to see the median, interquartile range, low and high data points. A value of zero indicates that no data are available. A separate chart is created for each target, and where possible the algorithm tries to merge ChEMBL and GtoPdb targets by matching them on name and UniProt accession, for each available species. However, please note that inconsistency in naming of targets may lead to data for the same target being reported across multiple charts.

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View interactive charts of activity data across species
2D Structure
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2D Structure

An image of the ligand's 2D structure. For small molecules with SMILES these are drawn using the NCI/CADD Chemical Identifier Resolver. Click on the image to access the chemical structure search tool with the ligand pre-loaded in the structure editor. For other types of ligands, e.g. longer nucleotides and peptides, a manually drawn representation of the molecule may be provided.

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Click here for structure editor
Physico-chemical Properties
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Physico-chemical Properties

Calculated molecular properties are available for small molecules and natural products (not peptides). Properties were generated using the CDK toolkit. All properties were selected to enable the prediction of the Lipinski Rule-of-Five profile or ‘druglikeness’ for each ligand. For more info on each category see the help pages.

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Hydrogen bond acceptors 4
Hydrogen bond donors 0
Rotatable bonds 0
Topological polar surface area 52.6
Molecular weight 196.2
XLogP -0.12
No. Lipinski's rules broken 0
SMILES / InChI / InChIKey
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SMILES / InChI / InChIKey

SMILES (Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry Specification) A specification for unambiguously describing the structure of chemical molecules using short ASCII strings. Canonical SMILES specify a unique representation of the 2D structure without chiral or isotopic specifications. Isomeric SMILES include chiral specification and isotopes.

Standard InChI (IUPAC International Chemical Identifier) and InChIKey InChI is a non-proprietary, standard, textual identifier for chemical substances designed to facilitate linking of information and database searching. An InChIKey is a simplified version of a full InChI, designed for easier web searching.

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Canonical SMILES C[C@@]12[C@@H]3CC[C@H]([C@@]2(C)C(=O)OC1=O)O3
Isomeric SMILES C[C@@]12[C@H]3CC[C@@H]([C@@]1(C(=O)OC2=O)C)O3
InChI InChI=1S/C10H12O4/c1-9-5-3-4-6(13-5)10(9,2)8(12)14-7(9)11/h5-6H,3-4H2,1-2H3/t5-,6+,9+,10-
InChI Key DHZBEENLJMYSHQ-XCVPVQRUSA-N
Bioactivity Comments
Cantharidin has been reported to inhibit certain serine proteases, and this is the mechanism whereby the compound promotes the disintegration of cellular connections in the skin and leads to blister formation. Inhibition of protein phosphatase 2 (PPA2) has been associated with cantharidin's anti-cancer activity [2-3]. Inhibition of human PP1 has been reported [4].
Selectivity at enzymes
Key to terms and symbols Click column headers to sort
Target Sp. Type Action Value Parameter Concentration range (M) Reference
protein phosphatase 1 catalytic subunit alpha Hs Inhibitor Inhibition 6.8 pIC50 - 4
⤷ pIC50 6.8 (IC50 1.6x10-7 M) [4]
protein phosphatase 2 catalytic subunit alpha Hs Inhibitor Inhibition 6.7 pIC50 - 1
⤷ pIC50 6.7 (IC50 2x10-7 M) [1]