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McCarthy WJ, van der Zouwen AJ, Bush JT, Rittinger K. Covalent fragment-based drug discovery for target tractability. Curr Opin Struct Biol 2024; 86:102809. [PMID: 38554479 DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2024.102809] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2024] [Revised: 03/08/2024] [Accepted: 03/10/2024] [Indexed: 04/01/2024]
Abstract
An important consideration in drug discovery is the prioritization of tractable protein targets that are not only amenable to binding small molecules, but also alter disease biology in response to small molecule binding. Covalent fragment-based drug discovery has emerged as a powerful approach to aid in the identification of such protein targets. The application of irreversible binding mechanisms enables the identification of fragment hits for challenging-to-target proteins, allows proteome-wide screening in a cellular context, and makes it possible to determine functional effects with modestly potent ligands without the requirement for extensive compound optimization. Here, we provide an overview of recent approaches to covalent fragment-based screening and discuss how these have been applied to establish the tractability of unexplored binding sites on protein targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- William J McCarthy
- Molecular Structure of Cell Signalling Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London, NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Antonie J van der Zouwen
- Molecular Structure of Cell Signalling Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London, NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Jacob T Bush
- Crick-GSK Biomedical LinkLabs, GSK, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2NY, UK. https://twitter.com/Jake_T_Bush
| | - Katrin Rittinger
- Molecular Structure of Cell Signalling Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London, NW1 1AT, UK.
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Won SJ, Zhang Y, Reinhardt CJ, MacRae NS, DeMeester KE, Njomen E, Hargis LM, Remsberg JR, Melillo B, Cravatt BF, Erb MA. Redirecting the pioneering function of FOXA1 with covalent small molecules. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.03.21.586158. [PMID: 38562719 PMCID: PMC10983899 DOI: 10.1101/2024.03.21.586158] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/04/2024]
Abstract
Pioneer transcription factors (TFs) exhibit a specialized ability to bind to and open closed chromatin, facilitating engagement by other regulatory factors involved in gene activation or repression. Chemical probes are lacking for pioneer TFs, which has hindered their mechanistic investigation in cells. Here, we report the chemical proteomic discovery of electrophilic small molecules that stereoselectively and site-specifically bind the pioneer TF, FOXA1, at a cysteine (C258) within the forkhead DNA-binding domain. We show that these covalent ligands react with FOXA1 in a DNA-dependent manner and rapidly remodel its pioneer activity in prostate cancer cells reflected in redistribution of FOXA1 binding across the genome and directionally correlated changes in chromatin accessibility. Motif analysis supports a mechanism where the covalent ligands relax the canonical DNA binding preference of FOXA1 by strengthening interactions with suboptimal ancillary sequences in predicted proximity to C258. Our findings reveal a striking plasticity underpinning the pioneering function of FOXA1 that can be controlled by small molecules.
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Yang K, Whitehouse RL, Dawson SL, Zhang L, Martin JG, Johnson DS, Paulo JA, Gygi SP, Yu Q. Accelerating multiplexed profiling of protein-ligand interactions: High-throughput plate-based reactive cysteine profiling with minimal input. Cell Chem Biol 2024; 31:565-576.e4. [PMID: 38118439 PMCID: PMC10960705 DOI: 10.1016/j.chembiol.2023.11.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2023] [Revised: 11/07/2023] [Accepted: 11/28/2023] [Indexed: 12/22/2023]
Abstract
Chemoproteomics has made significant progress in investigating small-molecule-protein interactions. However, the proteome-wide profiling of cysteine ligandability remains challenging to adapt for high-throughput applications, primarily due to a lack of platforms capable of achieving the desired depth using low input in 96- or 384-well plates. Here, we introduce a revamped, plate-based platform which enables routine interrogation of either ∼18,000 or ∼24,000 reactive cysteines based on starting amounts of 10 or 20 μg, respectively. This represents a 5-10X reduction in input and 2-3X improved coverage. We applied the platform to screen 192 electrophiles in the native HEK293T proteome, mapping the ligandability of 38,450 reactive cysteines from 8,274 human proteins. We further applied the platform to characterize new cellular targets of established drugs, uncovering that ARS-1620, a KRASG12C inhibitor, binds to and inhibits an off-target adenosine kinase ADK. The platform represents a major step forward to high-throughput proteome-wide evaluation of reactive cysteines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ka Yang
- Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | | | - Shane L Dawson
- Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Lu Zhang
- Biogen, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | | | | | - Joao A Paulo
- Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Steven P Gygi
- Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
| | - Qing Yu
- Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
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Lazear MR, Remsberg JR, Jaeger MG, Rothamel K, Her HL, DeMeester KE, Njomen E, Hogg SJ, Rahman J, Whitby LR, Won SJ, Schafroth MA, Ogasawara D, Yokoyama M, Lindsey GL, Li H, Germain J, Barbas S, Vaughan J, Hanigan TW, Vartabedian VF, Reinhardt CJ, Dix MM, Koo SJ, Heo I, Teijaro JR, Simon GM, Ghosh B, Abdel-Wahab O, Ahn K, Saghatelian A, Melillo B, Schreiber SL, Yeo GW, Cravatt BF. Proteomic discovery of chemical probes that perturb protein complexes in human cells. Mol Cell 2023; 83:1725-1742.e12. [PMID: 37084731 PMCID: PMC10198961 DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2023.03.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 28.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2021] [Revised: 01/09/2023] [Accepted: 03/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/23/2023]
Abstract
Most human proteins lack chemical probes, and several large-scale and generalizable small-molecule binding assays have been introduced to address this problem. How compounds discovered in such "binding-first" assays affect protein function, nonetheless, often remains unclear. Here, we describe a "function-first" proteomic strategy that uses size exclusion chromatography (SEC) to assess the global impact of electrophilic compounds on protein complexes in human cells. Integrating the SEC data with cysteine-directed activity-based protein profiling identifies changes in protein-protein interactions that are caused by site-specific liganding events, including the stereoselective engagement of cysteines in PSME1 and SF3B1 that disrupt the PA28 proteasome regulatory complex and stabilize a dynamic state of the spliceosome, respectively. Our findings thus show how multidimensional proteomic analysis of focused libraries of electrophilic compounds can expedite the discovery of chemical probes with site-specific functional effects on protein complexes in human cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael R Lazear
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | | | - Martin G Jaeger
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Katherine Rothamel
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Hsuan-Lin Her
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | | | - Evert Njomen
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Simon J Hogg
- Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10021, USA
| | - Jahan Rahman
- Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10021, USA
| | - Landon R Whitby
- Vividion Therapeutics, 5820 Nancy Ridge Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA
| | - Sang Joon Won
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | | | | | - Minoru Yokoyama
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | | | - Haoxin Li
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Jason Germain
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Sabrina Barbas
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Joan Vaughan
- Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Thomas W Hanigan
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Vincent F Vartabedian
- Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | | | - Melissa M Dix
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Seong Joo Koo
- Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Discovery Technologies and Molecular Pharmacology, Janssen Research and Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, 2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - Inha Heo
- Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Discovery Technologies and Molecular Pharmacology, Janssen Research and Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, 2340 Beerse, Belgium
| | - John R Teijaro
- Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Gabriel M Simon
- Vividion Therapeutics, 5820 Nancy Ridge Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA
| | - Brahma Ghosh
- Discovery Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Spring House, PA 19477, USA
| | - Omar Abdel-Wahab
- Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10021, USA
| | - Kay Ahn
- Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Discovery Technologies and Molecular Pharmacology, Janssen Research and Development, Spring House, PA 19477, USA
| | - Alan Saghatelian
- Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Bruno Melillo
- Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Stuart L Schreiber
- Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Gene W Yeo
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
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