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Publication Abstract from PubMed

beta-Strand mediated protein-protein interactions (PPIs) represent underexploited targets for chemical probe development despite representing a significant proportion of known and therapeutically relevant PPI targets. beta-Strand mimicry is challenging given that both amino acid side-chains and backbone hydrogen-bonds are typically required for molecular recognition, yet these are oriented along perpendicular vectors. This paper describes an alternative approach, using GKAP/SHANK1 PDZ as a model and dynamic ligation screening to identify small-molecule replacements for tranches of peptide sequence. A peptide truncation of GKAP functionalized at the N- and C-termini with acylhydrazone groups was used as an anchor. Reversible acylhydrazone bond exchange with a library of aldehyde fragments in the presence of the protein as template and in situ screening using a fluorescence anisotropy (FA) assay identified peptide hybrid hits with comparable affinity to the GKAP peptide binding sequence. Identified hits were validated using FA, ITC, NMR and X-ray crystallography to confirm selective inhibition of the target PDZ-mediated PPI and mode of binding. These analyses together with molecular dynamics simulations demonstrated the ligands make transient interactions with an unoccupied basic patch through electrostatic interactions, establishing proof-of-concept that this unbiased approach to ligand discovery represents a powerful addition to the armory of tools that can be used to identify PPI modulators.

Identification of beta-strand mediated protein-protein interaction inhibitors using ligand-directed fragment ligation.,Hegedus Z, Hobor F, Shoemark DK, Celis S, Lian LY, Trinh CH, Sessions RB, Edwards TA, Wilson AJ Chem Sci. 2021 Jan 6;12(6):2286-2293. doi: 10.1039/d0sc05694d. PMID:34163995^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.