Harmonic oscillations in homeostatic controllers: Dynamics of the p53 regulatory system

Synthetic gene circuit evolution: Insights and opportunities at the mid-scale

Directed evolution focuses on optimizing single genetic components for predefined engineering goals by artificial mutagenesis and selection. In contrast, experimental evolution studies the adaptation of entire genomes in serially propagated cell populations, to provide an experimental basis for evolutionary theory. There is a relatively unexplored gap at the middle ground between these two techniques, to evolve in vivo entire synthetic gene circuits with nontrivial dynamic function instead of single parts or whole genomes. We discuss the requirements for such mid-scale evolution, with hypothetical examples for evolving synthetic gene circuits by appropriate selection and targeted shuffling of a seed set of genetic components in vivo. Implementing similar methods should aid the rapid generation, functionalization, and optimization of synthetic gene circuits in various organisms and environments, accelerating both the development of biomedical and technological applications and the understanding of principles guiding regulatory network evolution.

Combined multiple transcriptional repression mechanisms generate ultrasensitivity and oscillations

Transcriptional repression can occur via various mechanisms, such as blocking, sequestration and displacement. For instance, the repressors can hold the activators to prevent binding with DNA or can bind to the DNA-bound activators to block their transcriptional activity. Although the transcription can be completely suppressed with a single mechanism, multiple repression mechanisms are used together to inhibit transcriptional activators in many systems, such as circadian clocks and NF-κB oscillators. This raises the question of what advantages arise if seemingly redundant repression mechanisms are combined. Here, by deriving equations describing the multiple repression mechanisms, we find that their combination can synergistically generate a sharply ultrasensitive transcription response and thus strong oscillations. This rationalizes why the multiple repression mechanisms are used together in various biological oscillators. The critical role of such combined transcriptional repression for strong oscillations is further supported by our analysis of formerly identified mutations disrupting the transcriptional repression of the mammalian circadian clock. The hitherto unrecognized source of the ultrasensitivity, the combined transcriptional repressions, can lead to robust synthetic oscillators with a previously unachievable simple design.

DOPA Homeostasis by Dopamine: A Control-Theoretic View

Dopamine (DA) is an important signal mediator in the brain as well as in the periphery. The term "dopamine homeostasis" occasionally found in the literature refers to the fact that abnormal DA levels can be associated with a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. An analysis of the negative feedback inhibition of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) by DA indicates, with support from the experimental data, that the TH-DA negative feedback loop has developed to exhibit 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) homeostasis by using DA as a derepression regulator. DA levels generally decline when DOPA is removed, for example, by increased oxidative stress. Robust DOPA regulation by DA further implies that maximum vesicular DA levels are established, which appear necessary for a reliable translation of neural activity into a corresponding chemical transmitter signal. An uncontrolled continuous rise (windup) in DA occurs when Levodopa treatment exceeds a critical dose. Increased oxidative stress leads to the successive breakdown of DOPA homeostasis and to a corresponding reduction in DA levels. To keep DOPA regulation robust, the vesicular DA loading requires close to zero-order kinetics combined with a sufficiently high compensatory flux provided by TH. The protection of DOPA and DA due to a channeling complex is discussed.

An amplified derepression controller with multisite inhibition and positive feedback

How organisms are able to maintain robust homeostasis has in recent years received increased attention by the use of combined control engineering and kinetic concepts, which led to the discovery of robust controller motifs. While these motifs employ kinetic conditions showing integral feedback and homeostasis for step-wise perturbations, the motifs’ performance differ significantly when exposing them to time dependent perturbations. One type of controller motifs which are able to handle exponentially and even hyperbolically growing perturbations are based on derepression. In these controllers the compensatory reaction, which neutralizes the perturbation, is derepressed, i.e. its reaction rate is increased by the decrease of an inhibitor acting on the compensatory flux. While controllers in this category can deal well with different time-dependent perturbations they have the disadvantage that they break down once the concentration of the regulatory inhibitor becomes too low and the compensatory flux has gained its maximum value. We wondered whether it would be possible to bypass this restriction, while still keeping the advantages of derepression kinetics. In this paper we show how the inclusion of multisite inhibition and the presence of positive feedback loops lead to an amplified controller which is still based on derepression kinetics but without showing the breakdown due to low inhibitor concentrations. By searching for the amplified feedback motif in natural systems, we found it as a part of the plant circadian clock where it is highly interlocked with other feedback loops.

Frequency switching between oscillatory homeostats and the regulation of p53

Homeostasis is an essential concept to understand the stability of organisms and their adaptive behaviors when coping with external and internal assaults. Many hormones that take part in homeostatic control come in antagonistic pairs, such as glucagon and insulin reflecting the inflow and outflow compensatory mechanisms to control a certain internal variable, such as blood sugar levels. By including negative feedback loops homeostatic controllers can exhibit oscillations with characteristic frequencies. In this paper we demonstrate the associated frequency changes in homeostatic systems when individual controllers -in a set of interlocked feedback loops- gain control in response to environmental changes. Taking p53 as an example, we show how Per2, ATM and Mdm2 feedback loops -interlocked with p53- gain individual control in dependence to the level of DNA damage, and how each of these controllers provide certain functionalities in their regulation of p53. In unstressed cells, the circadian regulator Per2 ensures a basic p53 level to allow its rapid up-regulation in case of DNA damage. When DNA damage occurs the ATM controller increases the level of p53 and defends it towards uncontrolled degradation, which despite DNA damage, would drive p53 to lower values and p53 dysfunction. Mdm2 on its side keeps p53 at a high but sub-apoptotic level to avoid premature apoptosis. However, with on-going DNA damage the Mdm2 set-point is increased by HSP90 and other p53 stabilizers leading finally to apoptosis. An emergent aspect of p53 upregulation during cell stress is the coordinated inhibition of ubiquitin-independent and ubiquitin-dependent degradation reactions. Whether oscillations serve a function or are merely a by-product of the controllers are discussed in view of the finding that homeostatic control of p53, as indicated above, does in principle not require oscillatory homeostats.

Non-sinusoidal Waveform in Temperature-Compensated Circadian Oscillations

Time series of biological rhythms are of various shapes. Here, we investigated the waveforms of circadian rhythms in gene-protein dynamics using a newly developed, to our knowledge, index to quantify the degree of distortion from a sinusoidal waveform. In general, most biochemical reactions accelerate with increasing temperature, but the period of circadian rhythms remains relatively stable with temperature change, a phenomenon known as "temperature compensation." Despite extensive research, the mechanism underlying this remains unclear. To understand the mechanism, we used transcriptional-translational oscillator models for circadian rhythms in the fruit fly Drosophila and mammals. Given the assumption that reaction rates increase with temperature, mathematical analyses revealed that temperature compensation required waveforms that are more nonsinusoidal at higher temperatures. We then analyzed a post-translational oscillator (PTO) model of cyanobacteria circadian rhythms. Because the structure of the PTO is different from that of the transcriptional-translational oscillator, the condition for temperature compensation would be expected to differ. Unexpectedly, the computational analysis again showed that temperature compensation in the PTO model required a more nonsinusoidal waveform at higher temperatures. This finding held for both models even with a milder assumption that some reaction rates do not change with temperature, which is consistent with experimental evidence. Together, our theoretical analyses predict that the waveform of circadian gene-activity and/or protein phosphorylation rhythms would be more nonsinusoidal at higher temperatures, even when there are differences in the network structures.

The Organization of Controller Motifs Leading to Robust Plant Iron Homeostasis

Iron is an essential element needed by all organisms for growth and development. Because iron becomes toxic at higher concentrations iron is under homeostatic control. Plants face also the problem that iron in the soil is tightly bound to oxygen and difficult to access. Plants have therefore developed special mechanisms for iron uptake and regulation. During the last years key components of plant iron regulation have been identified. How these components integrate and maintain robust iron homeostasis is presently not well understood. Here we use a computational approach to identify mechanisms for robust iron homeostasis in non-graminaceous plants. In comparison with experimental results certain control arrangements can be eliminated, among them that iron homeostasis is solely based on an iron-dependent degradation of the transporter IRT1. Recent IRT1 overexpression experiments suggested that IRT1-degradation is iron-independent. This suggestion appears to be misleading. We show that iron signaling pathways under IRT1 overexpression conditions become saturated, leading to a breakdown in iron regulation and to the observed iron-independent degradation of IRT1. A model, which complies with experimental data places the regulation of cytosolic iron at the transcript level of the transcription factor FIT. Including the experimental observation that FIT induces inhibition of IRT1 turnover we found a significant improvement in the system’s response time, suggesting a functional role for the FIT-mediated inhibition of IRT1 degradation. By combining iron uptake with storage and remobilization mechanisms a model is obtained which in a concerted manner integrates iron uptake, storage and remobilization. In agreement with experiments the model does not store iron during its high-affinity uptake. As an iron biofortification approach we discuss the possibility how iron can be accumulated even during high-affinity uptake.

MiR-192-Mediated Positive Feedback Loop Controls the Robustness of Stress-Induced p53 Oscillations in Breast Cancer Cells

The p53 tumor suppressor protein plays a critical role in cellular stress and cancer prevention. A number of post-transcriptional regulators, termed microRNAs, are closely connected with the p53-mediated cellular networks. While the molecular interactions among p53 and microRNAs have emerged, a systems-level understanding of the regulatory mechanism and the role of microRNAs-forming feedback loops with the p53 core remains elusive. Here we have identified from literature that there exist three classes of microRNA-mediated feedback loops revolving around p53, all with the nature of positive feedback coincidentally. To explore the relationship between the cellular performance of p53 with the microRNA feedback pathways, we developed a mathematical model of the core p53-MDM2 module coupled with three microRNA-mediated positive feedback loops involving miR-192, miR-34a, and miR-29a. Simulations and bifurcation analysis in relationship to extrinsic noise reproduce the oscillatory behavior of p53 under DNA damage in single cells, and notably show that specific microRNA abrogation can disrupt the wild-type cellular phenotype when the ubiquitous cell-to-cell variability is taken into account. To assess these in silico results we conducted microRNA-perturbation experiments in MCF7 breast cancer cells. Time-lapse microscopy of cell-population behavior in response to DNA double-strand breaks, together with image classification of single-cell phenotypes across a population, confirmed that the cellular p53 oscillations are compromised after miR-192 perturbations, matching well with the model predictions. Our study via modeling in combination with quantitative experiments provides new evidence on the role of microRNA-mediated positive feedback loops in conferring robustness to the system performance of stress-induced response of p53.

DNA damage triggered activities of the tumor suppressor protein p53 could be significantly dynamical. The functional role of p53 oscillations in cellular decision making during cancer development has been appreciated. A set of recent studies have revealed extensive crosstalk between the p53 network and microRNAs, but the specifics of the participation of microRNAs in the regulation of the p53 signaling pathway remains largely elusive. Here we investigated microRNAs that form feedback regulation with p53. We enumerated the molecular interactions among these microRNAs and the p53 core and developed a mathematical model to reproduce the DNA damage induced p53 oscillations in single cells. We performed computer simulations and system analysis in combination with experimental assessment to probe the behavior of p53 under microRNA-inhibited conditions. We show that the robust cellular performance of the stress response of p53 in a breast cancer cell line is controlled by miR-192, which forms positive feedback loops with p53.

Influence of parameter values on the oscillation sensitivities of two p53-Mdm2 models

Biomolecular networks that present oscillatory behavior are ubiquitous in nature. While some design principles for robust oscillations have been identified, it is not well understood how these oscillations are affected when the kinetic parameters are constantly changing or are not precisely known, as often occurs in cellular environments. Many models of diverse complexity level, for systems such as circadian rhythms, cell cycle or the p53 network, have been proposed. Here we assess the influence of hundreds of different parameter sets on the sensitivities of two configurations of a well-known oscillatory system, the p53 core network. We show that, for both models and all parameter sets, the parameter related to the p53 positive feedback, i.e. self-promotion, is the only one that presents sizeable sensitivities on extrema, periods and delay. Moreover, varying the parameter set values to change the dynamical characteristics of the response is more restricted in the simple model, whereas the complex model shows greater tunability. These results highlight the importance of the presence of specific network patterns, in addition to the role of parameter values, when we want to characterize oscillatory biochemical systems.

Robust concentration and frequency control in oscillatory homeostats

Homeostatic and adaptive control mechanisms are essential for keeping organisms structurally and functionally stable. Integral feedback is a control theoretic concept which has long been known to keep a controlled variable A robustly (i.e. perturbation-independent) at a given set-point A(set) by feeding the integrated error back into the process that generates A. The classical concept of homeostasis as robust regulation within narrow limits is often considered as unsatisfactory and even incompatible with many biological systems which show sustained oscillations, such as circadian rhythms and oscillatory calcium signaling. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between the biological processes which participate in oscillatory mechanisms and classical homeostatic (non-oscillatory) mechanisms. We have investigated whether biological oscillators can show robust homeostatic and adaptive behaviors, and this paper is an attempt to extend the homeostatic concept to include oscillatory conditions. Based on our previously published kinetic conditions on how to generate biochemical models with robust homeostasis we found two properties, which appear to be of general interest concerning oscillatory and homeostatic controlled biological systems. The first one is the ability of these oscillators ("oscillatory homeostats") to keep the average level of a controlled variable at a defined set-point by involving compensatory changes in frequency and/or amplitude. The second property is the ability to keep the period/frequency of the oscillator tuned within a certain well-defined range. In this paper we highlight mechanisms that lead to these two properties. The biological applications of these findings are discussed using three examples, the homeostatic aspects during oscillatory calcium and p53 signaling, and the involvement of circadian rhythms in homeostatic regulation.

Evolutionary tradeoffs between economy and effectiveness in biological homeostasis systems

Biological regulatory systems face a fundamental tradeoff: they must be effective but at the same time also economical. For example, regulatory systems that are designed to repair damage must be effective in reducing damage, but economical in not making too many repair proteins because making excessive proteins carries a fitness cost to the cell, called protein burden. In order to see how biological systems compromise between the two tasks of effectiveness and economy, we applied an approach from economics and engineering called Pareto optimality. This approach allows calculating the best-compromise systems that optimally combine the two tasks. We used a simple and general model for regulation, known as integral feedback, and showed that best-compromise systems have particular combinations of biochemical parameters that control the response rate and basal level. We find that the optimal systems fall on a curve in parameter space. Due to this feature, even if one is able to measure only a small fraction of the system's parameters, one can infer the rest. We applied this approach to estimate parameters in three biological systems: response to heat shock and response to DNA damage in bacteria, and calcium homeostasis in mammals.

Many systems in the cell work to keep homeostasis, or balance. For example, damage repair systems make special repair proteins to resolve damage. These systems typically have many biochemical parameters such as biochemical rate constants, and it is not clear how much of the huge parameter space is filled by actual biological systems. We examined how natural selection acts on these systems when there are two important tasks: effectiveness – rapidly repairing damage, and economy – avoiding excessive production of repair proteins. We find that this multi-task optimization situation leads to natural selection of circuits that lie on a curve in parameter space. Thus, most of parameter space is empty. Estimating only a few parameters of the circuit is enough to predict the rest. This approach allowed us to estimate parameters for bacterial heat shock and DNA repair systems, and for a mammalian hormone system responsible for calcium homeostasis.

ON MODELING OF LIVING ORGANISMS USING HIERARCHICAL COARSE-GRAINING ABSTRACTIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

High throughput technologies such as gene expression microarray, ChIP-chips, siRNA and protein arrays and high throughput mass spectrometry are enabling an ever increasing amount of data becoming available about DNA, RNA, proteins, metabolites as well as biological pathways and networks. The knowledge embedded in this data deluge needs to be recast in forms that lend themselves to analysis with the expectation of developing analytical instruments to gain insight and answer questions about life and living organisms. The powers of abstraction and model building are fundamental to the quest of making sense of the biological complexity embedded in these biological and clinical datasets. The modeling of living organisms is explored with a proposed framework for model representation of biological complexity. The principal foundational assumption of the proposed modeling philosophy recognizes the symbiotic relationship between information and energy flows, required for the transformation of matter, as a fundamental organizing force underlying the observable nature of living organisms. The use of the concept of regularities to refer to complexity of structure, function and dynamics alike provides a unified approach to the reasoning about the integration of knowledge representations of varying natures and scales of granularities. The application of the proposed modeling approach is illustrated in broad qualitative terms for the human organism.

Modeling regulation of zinc uptake via ZIP transporters in yeast and plant roots

In yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and plant roots (Arabidopsis thaliana) zinc enters the cells via influx transporters of the ZIP family. Since zinc is both essential for cell function and toxic at high concentrations, tight regulation is essential for cell viability. We provide new insight into the underlying mechanisms, starting from a general model based on ordinary differential equations and adapting it to the specific cases of yeast and plant root cells. In yeast, zinc is transported by the transporters ZRT1 and ZRT2, which are both regulated by the zinc-responsive transcription factor ZAP1. Using biological data, parameters were estimated and analyzed, confirming the different affinities of ZRT1 and ZRT2 reported in the literature. Furthermore, our model suggests that the positive feedback in ZAP1 production has a stabilizing function at high influx rates. In plant roots, various ZIP transporters play a role in zinc uptake. Their regulation is largely unknown, but bZIP transcription factors are thought to be involved. We set up three putative models based on: an activator only, an activator with dimerization and an activator-inhibitor pair. These were fitted to measurements and analyzed. Simulations show that the activator-inhibitor model outperforms the other two in providing robust and stable homeostasis at reasonable parameter ranges.

Fibroid explants reveal a higher sensitivity against MDM2-inhibitor nutlin-3 than matching myometrium

Background

Spontaneous cessation of growth is a frequent finding in uterine fibroids. Increasing evidence suggests an important role of cellular senescence in this growth control. Deciphering the underlying mechanisms of growth control that can be expected not only to shed light on the biology of the tumors but also to identify novel therapeutic targets.

Methods

We have analyzed uterine leiomyomas and matching normal tissue for the expression of p14^Arf and used explants to see if reducing the MDM2 activity using the small-molecule inhibitor nutlin-3 can induce p53 and activate genes involved in senescence and/or apoptosis. For these studies quantitative real-time RT-PCR, Western blots, and immunohistochemistry were used. Statistical analyses were performed using the student's t test.

Results

An in depth analysis of 52 fibroids along with matching myometrium from 31 patients revealed in almost all cases a higher expression of p14^Arf in the tumors than in the matching normal tissue. In tissue explants, treatment with the MDM2 inhibitor nutlin-3 induced apoptosis as well as senescence as revealed by a dose-dependent increase of the expression of BAX as well as of p21, respectively. Simultaneously, the expression of the proliferation marker Ki-67 drastically decreased. Western-blot analysis identified an increase of the p53 level as the most likely reason for the increased activity of its downstream markers BAX and p21. Because as a rule fibroids express much higher levels of p14^Arf, a major negative regulator of MDM2, than matching myometrium it was then analyzed if fibroids are more sensitive against nutlin-3 treatment than matching myometrium. We were able to show that in most fibroids analyzed a higher sensibility than that of matching myometrium was noted with a corresponding increase of the p53 immunopositivity of the fibroid samples compared to those from myometrium.

Conclusions

The results show that uterine fibroids represent a cell population of advanced cellular age compared to matching myometrium. Moreover, the data point to members of the p53-network as to potential novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of uterine fibroids.

Modeling the basal dynamics of p53 system

BACKGROUND

The tumor suppressor p53 has become one of most investigated genes. Once activated by stress, p53 leads to cellular responses such as cell cycle arrest and apoptosis.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Most previous models have ignored the basal dynamics of p53 under nonstressed conditions. To explore the basal dynamics of p53, we constructed a stochastic delay model by incorporating two negative feedback loops. We found that protein distribution of p53 under nonstressed condition is highly skewed with a fraction of cells showing high p53 levels comparable to those observed under stressed conditions. Under nonstressed conditions, asynchronous and spontaneous p53 pulses are triggered by basal DNA double strand breaks produced during normal cell cycle progression. The first peaking times show a predominant G1 distribution while the second ones are more widely distributed. The spontaneous pulses are triggered by an excitable mechanism. Once initiated, the amplitude and duration of pulses remain unchanged. Furthermore, the spontaneous pulses are filtered by ataxia telangiectasia mutated protein mediated posttranslational modifications and do not result in substantial p21 transcription. If challenged by externally severe DNA damage, cells generate synchronous p53 pulses and induce significantly high levels of p21. The high expression of p21 can also be partially induced by lowering the deacetylation rate.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrated that the dynamics of p53 under nonstressed conditions is initiated by an excitable mechanism and cells become fully responsive only when cells are confronted with severe damage. These findings advance our understanding of the mechanism of p53 pulses and unlock many opportunities to p53-based therapy.

Studying adaptation and homeostatic behaviors of kinetic networks by using MATLAB

Organisms have the ability to counteract environmental perturbations and keep certain components within a cell homeostatically regulated. Closely related to homeostasis is the behavior of perfect adaptation where an organism responds to a step-wise perturbation by regulating some of its components, after a transient period, to their original pre-perturbation values. A particular interesting type of model relates to the so-called robust behavior where the homeostatic or perfect adaptation property is independent of the magnitude of the applied step-wise perturbation. It has been shown that this type of behavior is related to the control-theoretic concept of integral feedback (or integral control). Using downloadable MATLAB examples, we demonstrate how robust perfect adaptation sites can be identified in reaction kinetic networks by linearizing the system, applying the Laplace transform and inspecting the transfer function. We also show how the homeostatic set point in perfect adaptation is related to the presence of zero-order fluxes.

Inhibition of ERK oscillations by ionizing radiation and reactive oxygen species

The shuttling of activated protein kinases between the cytoplasm and nucleus is an essential feature of normal growth factor signaling cascades. Here we demonstrate that transforming growth factor alpha (TGFα) induces oscillations in extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) cytoplasmic-nuclear translocations in human keratinocytes. TGFα-dependent ERK oscillations mediated through the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are inhibited by low dose X-irradiation (10 cGy) and low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (0.32-3.26 µM H(2)O(2)) used as a model reactive oxygen species (ROS). A fluorescent indicator dye (H2-DCFDA) was used to measure cellular ROS levels following X-irradiation, 12-O-tetradecanoyl phorbol-13-acetate (TPA) and H(2)O(2). X-irradiation did not generate significant ROS production while 0.32 µM H(2)O(2) and TPA induced significant increases in ROS levels with H(2)O(2)  > TPA. TPA alone induced transactivation of the EGFR but did not induce ERK oscillations. TPA as a cotreatment did not inhibit TGFα-stimulated ERK oscillations but qualitatively altered TGFα-dependent ERK oscillation characteristics (amplitude, time-period). Collectively, these observations demonstrate that TGFα-induced ERK oscillations are inhibited by ionizing radiation/ROS and perturbed by epigenetic carcinogen in human keratinocytes.

HMGA2 and the p19Arf-TP53-CDKN1A axis: a delicate balance in the growth of uterine leiomyomas

Pathogenetically, uterine leiomyomas (ULs) can be interpreted as the result of a monoclonal abnormal proliferation of myometrial cells. Oncogene-induced senescence (OIS) is a frequent phenomenon in premalignant lesions that leads to a growth arrest mainly by the activation of two potent growth-inhibitory pathways as represented by p16(Ink4a) and p19(Arf). The relevance of OIS for the development of UL has not been addressed, but HMGA2, encoded by a major target gene of recurrent chromosomal abnormalities in UL, has been implicated in the repression of the Ink4a/Arf (CDKN2A) locus. This prompted us to examine if HMGA2 contributes to the growth of leiomyomas by repressing this locus. Contrary to the expectations, we were able to show that generally ULs express significantly higher levels of p19(Arf) mRNA than myometrium and that UL with 12q14 approximately 15 rearrangements showed higher expression levels than UL with other cytogenetic aberrations. Furthermore, the finding of a significant correlation between the expressions of p19(Arf) and CDKN1A shows that p19(Arf) triggers senescence rather than apoptosis in UL. Furthermore, the expression levels of HMGA2, p19(Arf), and CDKN1A were found to be correlated with the size of the tumors, indicating that an enhanced growth potential is counterbalanced by the p19(Arf) pathway. Mechanistically, the UL may thus execute a program already present in their cell of origin, where it is activated to protect the genome, for example, in the case of enhanced proliferation. In summary, the results identify the p19(Arf)-TP53-CDKN1A pathway as a major player in the growth control and genomic stability of uterine fibroids.

Inhibition of SIRT1 by a small molecule induces apoptosis in breast cancer cells

Overexpression of SIRT1, a NAD+-dependent class III histone deacetylases (HDACs), is implicated in many cancers and therefore could become a promising antitumor target. Here we demonstrate a small molecule SIRT1 inhibitor, ILS-JGB-1741(JGB1741) with potent inhibitory effects on the proliferation of human metastatic breast cancer cells, MDA-MB 231. The molecule has been designed using medicinal chemistry approach based on known SIRT1 inhibitor, sirtinol. The molecule showed a significant inhibition of SIRT1 activity compared to sirtinol. Studies on the antitumor effects of JGB on three different cancer cell lines, K562, HepG2 and MDA-MB 231 showed an IC₅₀ of 1, 10 and 0.5 μM, respectively. Further studies on MDA-MB 231 cells showed a dose-dependent increase in K9 and K382 acetylation of H3 and p53, respectively. Results also demonstrated that JGB1741-induced apoptosis is associated with increase in cytochrome c release, modulation in Bax/Bcl2 ratio and cleavage of PARP. Flowcytometric analysis showed increased percentage of apoptotic cells, decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential and increase in multicaspase activation. In conclusion, the present study indicates the potent apoptotic effects of JGB1741 in MDA-MB 231 cells.