We recently identified a class of pimelic diphenylamide histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors that show promise as therapeutics in the neurodegenerative diseases Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA) and Huntington's disease. Here, we describe chemical approaches to identify the HDAC enzyme target of these inhibitors. Incubation of a trifunctional activity-based probe with a panel of class I and class II recombinant HDAC enzymes, followed by click chemistry addition of a fluorescent dye and gel electrophoresis, identifies HDAC3 as a unique high-affinity target of the probe.

Read More: Chemical probes identify a role for histone deacetylase 3 in Friedreich's ataxia gene silencing