Feedback from the Science Café roundtables at the ninth European Bioanalysis Forum Young Scientist Symposium: optimizing the work-life balance in a bioanalytical laboratory.

As part of the European Bioanalysis Forum's continued commitment to develop young scientists beyond their scientific skills, we also focus on soft skills and a community responsibility during the Young Scientist Symposia, with the Science Café. In previous years, we have focused on topics such as sustainability (green lab) or the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on career development. At the ninth Young Scientist Symposium, the Science Café roundtables focused on the work-life balance and how caring for it can be beneficial for both the individual and the company. Feedback from a premeeting survey and from the discussions during the roundtables can be an important addition to personal and professional development. If organizations are not already focusing on the importance of a healthy work-life balance, they can be inspired to include some aspects of the outcome of the Science Café discussions when developing their staff toward future (scientific) leadership.

Structural and ITC Characterization of Peptide-Protein Binding: Thermodynamic Consequences of Cyclization Constraints, a Case Study on Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Ligands.

Macrocyclization constraints are widely used in the design of protein ligands to stabilize their bioactive conformation and increase their affinities. However, the resulting changes in binding entropy can be puzzling and uncorrelated to affinity gains. Here, the thermodynamic (Isothermal Titration Calorimetry) and structural (X-ray, NMR and CD) analysis of a complete series of lactam-bridged peptide ligands of the vascular endothelial growth factor, and their unconstrained analogs are reported. It is shown that differences in thermodynamics arise mainly from the folding energy of the peptide upon binding. The systematic reduction in conformational entropy penalty due to helix pre-organization can be counterbalanced by an unfavorable vibrational entropy change if the constraints are too rigid. The gain in configurational entropy partially escapes the enthalpy/entropy compensation and leads to an improvement in affinity. The precision of the analytical ITC method makes this study a possible benchmark for constrained peptides optimization.

Genetic Encoding and Enzymatic Deprotection of a Latent Thiol Side Chain to Enable New Protein Bioconjugation Applications.

The thiol group of the cysteine side chain is arguably the most versatile chemical handle in proteins. To expand the scope of established and commercially available thiol bioconjugation reagents, we genetically encoded a second such functional moiety in form of a latent thiol group that can be unmasked under mild physiological conditions. Phenylacetamidomethyl (Phacm) protected homocysteine (HcP) was incorporated and its latent thiol group unmasked on purified proteins using penicillin G acylase (PGA). The enzymatic deprotection depends on steric accessibility, but can occur efficiently within minutes on exposed positions in flexible sequences. The freshly liberated thiol group does not require treatment with reducing agents. We demonstrate the potential of this approach for protein modification with conceptually new schemes for regioselective dual labeling, thiol bioconjugation in presence of a preserved disulfide bond and formation of a novel intramolecular thioether crosslink.

Expanding the genetic code with a lysine derivative bearing an enzymatically removable phenylacetyl group.

We report the genetically encoded incorporation of phenylacetyl protected lysine (PacK) into proteins in Escherichia coli. This unnatural side-chain modification can be enzymatically removed using either penicillin G acylase (PGA) or, surprisingly, the sirtuin SrtN from Bacillus subtilis. Our approach expands the toolbox to reversibly control protein structure and function under very mild and non-denaturing conditions, as demonstrated by triggering the activity of the nonribosomal peptide synthetase GrsA.

Disrupting VEGF-VEGFR1 Interaction: De Novo Designed Linear Helical Peptides to Mimic the VEGF13-25 Fragment.

The interaction between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors (VEGFR) has important implications in angiogenesis and cancer, which moved us to search for peptide derivatives able to block this protein-protein interaction. In a previous work we had described a collection of linear 13-mer peptides specially designed to adopt helical conformations (Ac-SSEEX5ARNX8AAX12N-NH2), as well as the evaluation of seven library components for the inhibition of the interaction of VEGF with its Receptor 1 (VEGFR1). This study led to the discovery of some new, quite potent inhibitors of this protein-protein system. The results we found prompted us to extend the study to other peptides of the library. We describe here the evaluation of a new selection of peptides from the initial library that allow us to identify new VEGF-VEGFR1 inhibitors. Among them, the peptide sequence containing F, W, and I residues at the 5, 9, and 12 positions, show a very significant nanomolar IC50 value, competing with VEGF for its receptor 1, VEGFR1 (Flt-1), which could represent a new tool within the therapeutic arsenal for cancer detection and therapy.

Identification of Peptidic Antagonists of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor 1 by Scanning the Binding Epitopes of Its Ligands.

Cancer angiogenesis is mainly initiated by vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs). On the basis of the reported crystal structures of three natural ligands (VEGF-A, -B, and PlGF) with the major receptors VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2, we scanned receptor-binding epitopes of these ligands by designing linear and cyclic peptides with the aim to disrupt the VEGF-A/VEGFR-1 interaction, which is implicated in cancer development. The ability of peptides to inhibit this interaction was evaluated by an ELISA-based assay. Several peptides, especially those mimicking loop 1 (L1) of these ligands that binds primarily to domain D3 of VEGFRs, have demonstrated higher inhibition for VEGF-A/VEGFR-1 binding. They have also shown inhibitory effects on VEGF-induced tube formation in HUVECs (human umbilical vein endothelial cells). These results validate the domain D3 of VEGFRs as an efficient target for the design of VEGFR antagonists.

VEGFR1 domain 2 covalent labeling with horseradish peroxidase: Development of a displacement assay on VEGF.

The VEGFR1 has been shown to play a role in the regulation of angiogenesis, and has therefore been associated to several pathologies. In order to extend our toolbox of screening methods for the identification of compounds disrupting the VEGF receptor 1/VEGF interaction, we developed a fast and accurate displacement assay, in which VEGF receptor 1 domain 2 is directly labeled with an enzyme, bypassing the classical streptavidin-biotin interaction system. A description of this straightforward strategy is provided here, including its advantages and disadvantages. Optimization of the reagents preparation, purification and conservation, and displacement assay with known molecular entities are presented.

Biophysical Studies of the Induced Dimerization of Human VEGF Receptor 1 Binding Domain by Divalent Metals Competing with VEGF-A.

Angiogenesis is tightly regulated through the binding of vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs) to their receptors (VEGFRs). In this context, we showed that human VEGFR1 domain 2 crystallizes in the presence of Zn2+, Co2+ or Cu2+ as a dimer that forms via metal-ion interactions and interlocked hydrophobic surfaces. SAXS, NMR and size exclusion chromatography analyses confirm the formation of this dimer in solution in the presence of Co2+, Cd2+ or Cu2+. Since the metal-induced dimerization masks the VEGFs binding surface, we investigated the ability of metal ions to displace the VEGF-A binding to hVEGFR1: using a competition assay, we evidenced that the metals displaced the VEGF-A binding to hVEGFR1 extracellular domain binding at micromolar level.

Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Peptide Ligands Explored by Competition Assay and Isothermal Titration Calorimetry.

The v114* cyclic peptide has been identified as a tight vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) ligand. Here we report on the use of isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), 96-well plate competition assay, and circular dichroism (CD) to explore the binding determinants of a new set of related peptides. Anti-VEGF antibodies are currently used in the clinic for regulating angiogenesis in cancer and age-related macular degeneration treatment. In this context, our aim is to develop smaller molecular entities with high affinity for the growth factor by a structure activity relationship approach. The cyclic disulfide peptide v114* was modified in several ways, including truncation, substitution, and variation of the size and nature of the cycle. The results indicated that truncation or substitution of the four N-terminal amino acids did not cause severe loss in affinity, allowing potential peptide labeling. Increase of the cycle size or substitution of the disulfide bridge with a thioether linkage drastically decreased the affinity, due to an enthalpy penalty. The leucine C-terminal residue positively contributed to affinity. Cysteine N-terminal acetylation induced favorable ΔΔG° and ΔΔH° of binding, which correlated with free peptide CD spectra changes. We also propose a biochemical model to extrapolate Ki from IC50 values measured in the displacement assay. These calculated Ki correlate well with the Kd values determined by extensive direct and reverse ITC measurements.

Design and synthesis of C-terminal modified cyclic peptides as VEGFR1 antagonists.

Previously designed cyclic peptide antagonist c[YYDEGLEE]-NH2 disrupts the interaction between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors (VEGFRs). It represents a promising tool in the fight against cancer and age-related macular degeneration. We described in this paper the optimization of the lead peptide by C-terminal modification. A new strategy for the synthesis of cyclic peptides is developed, improving the cyclisation efficiency. At 100 µM, several new peptides with an aromatic group flexibly linked at C-terminal end showed significantly increased receptor binding affinities in competition ELISA test. The most active peptide carrying a coumarin group may be a useful tool in anti-angiogenic biological studies.

De novo designed library of linear helical peptides: an exploratory tool in the discovery of protein-protein interaction modulators.

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) have emerged as important targets for pharmaceutical intervention because of their essential role in numerous physiological and pathological processes, but screening efforts using small-molecules have led to very low hit rates. Linear peptides could represent a quick and effective approach to discover initial PPI hits, particularly if they have inherent ability to adopt specific peptide secondary structures. Here, we address this hypothesis through a linear helical peptide library, composed of four sublibraries, which was designed by theoretical predictions of helicity (Agadir software). The 13-mer peptides of this collection fixes either a combination of three aromatic or two aromatic and one aliphatic residues on one face of the helix (Ac-SSEEX(5)ARNX(9)AAX(12)N-NH2), since these are structural features quite common at PPIs interfaces. The 81 designed peptides were conveniently synthesized by parallel solid-phase methodologies, and the tendency of some representative library components to adopt the intended secondary structure was corroborated through CD and NMR experiments. As proof of concept in the search for PPI modulators, the usefulness of this library was verified on the widely studied p53-MDM2 interaction and on the communication between VEGF and its receptor Flt-1, two PPIs for which a hydrophobic α-helix is essential for the interaction. We have demonstrated here that, in both cases, selected peptides from the library, containing the right hydrophobic sequence of the hot-spot in one of the protein partners, are able to interact with the complementary protein. Moreover, we have discover some new, quite potent inhibitors of the VEGF-Flt-1 interaction, just by replacing one of the aromatic residues of the initial F(5)Y(9)Y(12) peptide by W, in agreement with previous results on related antiangiogenic peptides. Finally, the HTS evaluation of the full collection on thermoTRPs has led to a few antagonists of TRPV1 and TRPA1 channels, which open new avenues on the way to innovative modulators of these channels.

Helical peptides from VEGF and Vammin hotspots for modulating the VEGF-VEGFR interaction.

The design, synthesis, conformational studies and binding affinity for VEGF receptors of a collection of linear and cyclic peptide analogues of the N-terminal α-helix fragments 13-25 of VEGF and 1-13 of Vammin are described. Linear 13(14)-mer peptides were designed with the help of an AGADIR algorithm and prepared following peptide solid-phase synthetic protocols. Cyclic peptide derivatives were prepared on-resin from linear precursors with conveniently located Glu and Lys residues, by the formation of amide linkages. Conformational analysis, CD and NMR, showed that most synthesized peptides have a clear tendency to be structured as α-helices in solution. Some of the peptides were able to bind a VEGFR-1 receptor with moderate affinity. In addition to the described key residues (Phe17, Tyr21 and Tyr25), Val14 and Val20 seem to be relevant for affinity.