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Meng Q, Zhu R, Mao Y, Zhu S, Wu Y, Huang L, Ciechanover A, An J, Xu Y, Huang Z. Biological and mutational analyses of CXCR4-antagonist interactions and design of new antagonistic analogs. Biosci Rep 2023; 43:BSR20230981. [PMID: 38131305 PMCID: PMC10987480 DOI: 10.1042/bsr20230981] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2023] [Revised: 11/05/2023] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
The chemokine receptor CXCR4 has become an attractive therapeutic target for HIV-1 infection, hematopoietic stem cell mobilization, and cancer metastasis. A wide variety of synthetic antagonists of CXCR4 have been developed and studied for a growing list of clinical applications. To compare the biological effects of different antagonists on CXCR4 functions and their common and/or distinctive molecular interactions with the receptor, we conducted head-to-head comparative cell-based biological and mutational analyses of the interactions with CXCR4 of eleven reported antagonists, including HC4319, DV3, DV1, DV1 dimer, V1, vMIP-II, CVX15, LY2510924, IT1t, AMD3100, and AMD11070 that were representative of different structural classes of D-peptides, L-peptide, natural chemokine, cyclic peptides, and small molecules. The results were rationalized by molecular modeling of CXCR4-antagonist interactions from which the common as well as different receptor binding sites of these antagonists were derived, revealing a number of important residues such as W94, D97, H113, D171, D262, and E288, mostly of negative charge. To further examine this finding, we designed and synthesized new antagonistic analogs by adding positively charged residues Arg to a D-peptide template to enhance the postulated charge-charge interactions. The newly designed analogs displayed significantly increased binding to CXCR4, which supports the notion that negatively charged residues of CXCR4 can engage in interactions with moieties of positive charge of the antagonistic ligands. The results from these mutational, modeling and new analog design studies shed new insight into the molecular mechanisms of different types of antagonists in recognizing CXCR4 and guide the development of new therapeutic agents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qian Meng
- School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Ruohan Zhu
- School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Yujia Mao
- School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Siyu Zhu
- School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Yi Wu
- School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Lina S.M. Huang
- Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Heath, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, U.S.A
| | - Aaron Ciechanover
- The Rapport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3109601, Israel
- Ciechanover Institute of Precision and Regenerative Medicine, School of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518172, China
| | - Jing An
- Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Heath, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, U.S.A
| | - Yan Xu
- Ciechanover Institute of Precision and Regenerative Medicine, School of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518172, China
| | - Ziwei Huang
- School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
- Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Heath, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, U.S.A
- Ciechanover Institute of Precision and Regenerative Medicine, School of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518172, China
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Production of human embryonic kidney 293T cells stably expressing C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) as a screening tool for anticancer lead compound targeting CXCR4. Life Sci 2022; 303:120661. [PMID: 35643380 DOI: 10.1016/j.lfs.2022.120661] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2021] [Revised: 05/19/2022] [Accepted: 05/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
AIM The C-X-C chemokine-receptor type 4 (CXCR4) is an emerging target for cancer drug discovery due to its high expression in cancer cells. The present study aimed to produce CXCR4 overexpressing HEK293T cells for a non-radioactive binding assay as a platform to identify drug candidates targeting CXCR4. MAIN METHODS HEK293T cells stably expressing human CXCR4 were constructed by transfection of CXCR4 plasmids from the human CXCR4 gene. The CXCR4 overexpressing HEK293T cells were obtained by fluorescence-activated sorting and verified by conducting the competition binding assay of a known CXCR4 inhibitor, AMD3100 (plerixafor), to determine the IC50 value against monoclonal anti-human CD184 (hCD184) antibody tagged with fluorescence probe, phycoerythrin (PE). The non-radioactive binding assay using CXCR4 overexpressing HEK293T cells and PE-anti hCD184 was applied as a platform for identifying the target of natural compounds that exhibited cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines. KEY FINDINGS The CXCR4 overexpressing HEK293T cells were produced with high expression (99.8%). The IC50 value of plerixafor determined by fluorescence tagged antibody-based competition assay using our developed cells agree with previously reported values using a radioligand binding assay. We observed no significant displacement of bound PE-anti-hCD184 by the test natural compounds which could be due to non-specific binding to other functional targets or organelles, low potency of the natural compounds, or binding to CXCR4 at deeper pockets. SIGNIFICANCE The verified non-radioactive binding assay can serve as an alternative screening tool for anticancer lead compounds targeting CXCR4 and an essential tool for proof of mechanism study in the drug discovery.
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Zhang Y, Li S, Zhang H, Xu H. Design and Application of Receptor-Targeted Fluorescent Probes Based on Small Molecular Fluorescent Dyes. Bioconjug Chem 2021; 32:4-24. [PMID: 33412857 DOI: 10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.0c00606] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
In recent years, a variety of receptor-targeted fluorescent probes have been developed and widely used to realize the visualization of certain receptors, which facilitates the early diagnosis and treatment of diseases. In this Review, we focus on the recent achievements in design, chemical structure, imaging characterization, and potential applications of receptor-targeted fluorescent probes from the past 10 years. The development and application of receptor-targeted fluorescent probes will expand our knowledge of the distribution and function of disease-related receptors, shed light on the drug discovery for clinical diseases where receptors are implicated, and feed into the diagnosis and treatment of a plethora of diseases, including tumors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yujie Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Preparation Technologies, Ministry of Education, Co-innovation Center of Henan Province for New Drug R&D and Preclinical Safety, and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China
| | - Shufeng Li
- Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Preparation Technologies, Ministry of Education, Co-innovation Center of Henan Province for New Drug R&D and Preclinical Safety, and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China
| | - Hang Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Preparation Technologies, Ministry of Education, Co-innovation Center of Henan Province for New Drug R&D and Preclinical Safety, and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China
| | - Haiwei Xu
- Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Preparation Technologies, Ministry of Education, Co-innovation Center of Henan Province for New Drug R&D and Preclinical Safety, and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China
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