As aberrant activity of protein kinases is observed in many disease states, these enzymes are common targets for therapeutics and detection of activity levels. The development of non-natural protein kinase substrates offers an approach to protein substrate competitive inhibitors, a class of kinase inhibitors with promise for improved specificity. Also, kinase activity detection approaches would benefit from substrates with improved activity and specificity. Here, we apply a substrate-mediated selection to a peptidomimetic DNA-encoded chemical library for enrichment of molecules that can be phosphorylated by the protein tyrosine kinase, c-Src. Several substrates were identified and characterized for activity. A lead compound (SrcDEL10) showed both the ability to serve as a substrate and to promote ATP hydrolysis by the kinase. In inhibition assays, compounds displayed IC500s ranging from of 8–100 μM. NMR analysis of SrcDEL10 bound to the c-Src:ATP complex was conducted to characterize the binding mode. An ester derivative of the lead compound demonstrated cellular activity with inhibition of Src-dependent signaling in cell culture. Together, the results show the potential for substrate-mediated selections of DNA-encoded libraries to discover molecules with functions other than simple protein binding and offer a new discovery method for development of synthetic tyrosine kinase substrates.

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