Structure-based design, synthesis and biological evaluation of a novel series of isoquinolone and pyrazolo[4,3-c]pyridine inhibitors of fascin 1 as potential anti-metastatic agents.

Fascin is an actin binding and bundling protein that is not expressed in normal epithelial tissues but overexpressed in a variety of invasive epithelial tumors. It has a critical role in cancer cell metastasis by promoting cell migration and invasion. Here we report the crystal structures of fascin in complex with a series of novel and potent inhibitors. Structure-based elaboration of these compounds enabled the development of a series with nanomolar affinities for fascin, good physicochemical properties and the ability to inhibit fascin-mediated bundling of filamentous actin. These compounds provide promising starting points for fascin-targeted anti-metastatic therapies.

Streamlining workflow and automation to accelerate laboratory scale protein production.

Protein production facilities are often required to produce diverse arrays of proteins for demanding methodologies including crystallography, NMR, ITC and other reagent intensive techniques. It is common for these teams to find themselves a bottleneck in the pipeline of ambitious projects. This pressure to deliver has resulted in the evolution of many novel methods to increase capacity and throughput at all stages in the pipeline for generation of recombinant proteins. This review aims to describe current and emerging options to accelerate the success of protein production in Escherichia coli. We emphasize technologies that have been evaluated and implemented in our laboratory, including innovative molecular biology and expression vectors, small-scale expression screening strategies and the automation of parallel and multidimensional chromatography.

A fully automated procedure for the parallel, multidimensional purification and nucleotide loading of the human GTPases KRas, Rac1 and RalB.

Small GTPases regulate many key cellular processes and their role in human disease validates many proteins in this class as desirable targets for therapeutic intervention. Reliable recombinant production of GTPases, often in the active GTP loaded state, is a prerequisite for the prosecution of drug discovery efforts. The preparation of these active forms can be complex and often constricts the supply to the reagent intensive techniques used in structure base drug discovery. We have established a fully automated, multidimensional protein purification strategy for the parallel production of the catalytic G-domains of KRas, Rac1 and RalB GTPases in the active form. This method incorporates a four step chromatography purification with TEV protease-mediated affinity tag cleavage and a conditioning step that achieves the activation of the GTPase by exchanging GDP for the non-hydrolyzable GTP analogue GMPPnP. We also demonstrate that an automated method is efficient at loading of KRas with mantGDP for application in a SOS1 catalysed fluorescent nucleotide exchange assay. In comparison to more conventional manual workflows the automated method offers marked advantages in method run time and operator workload. This reduces the bottleneck in protein production while generating products that are highly purified and effectively loaded with nucleotide analogues.

Focal adhesion kinase controls actin assembly via a FERM-mediated interaction with the Arp2/3 complex.

Networks of actin filaments, controlled by the Arp2/3 complex, drive membrane protrusion during cell migration. How integrins signal to the Arp2/3 complex is not well understood. Here, we show that focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and the Arp2/3 complex associate and colocalize at transient structures formed early after adhesion. Nascent lamellipodia, which originate at these structures, do not form in FAK-deficient cells, or in cells in which FAK mutants cannot be autophosphorylated after integrin engagement. The FERM domain of FAK binds directly to Arp3 and can enhance Arp2/3-dependent actin polymerization. Critically, Arp2/3 is not bound when FAK is phosphorylated on Tyr 397. Interfering peptides and FERM-domain point mutants show that FAK binding to Arp2/3 controls protrusive lamellipodia formation and cell spreading. This establishes a new function for the FAK FERM domain in forming a phosphorylation-regulated complex with Arp2/3, linking integrin signalling directly with the actin polymerization machinery.

Novel beta-propeller of the BTB-Kelch protein Krp1 provides a binding site for Lasp-1 that is necessary for pseudopodial extension.

Kelch-related protein 1 (Krp1) is up-regulated in oncogene-transformed fibroblasts. The Kelch repeats interact directly with the actin-binding protein Lasp-1 in membrane ruffles at the tips of pseudopodia, where both proteins are necessary for pseudopodial elongation. Herein, we investigate the molecular basis for this interaction. Probing an array of overlapping decapeptides of Rattus norvegicus (Rat) Krp1 with recombinant Lasp-1 revealed two binding sites; one ((317)YDPMENECYLT(327)) precedes the first of five Kelch repeats, and the other ((563)TEVNDIWKYEDD(574)) is in the last of the five Kelch repeats. Mutational analysis established that both binding sites are necessary for Krp1-Lasp-1 interaction in vitro and function in vivo. The crystal structure of the C-terminal domain of rat Krp1 (amino acids 289-606) reveals that both binding sites are brought into close proximity by the formation of a novel six-bladed beta-propeller, where the first blade is not formed by a Kelch repeat.

Re-introducing non-optimal synonymous codons into codon-optimized constructs enhances soluble recovery of recombinant proteins from Escherichia coli.

Gene synthesis services have largely superseded traditional PCR methods for the generation of cDNAs destined for bacterial expression vectors. This, in turn, has increased the application of codon-optimized cDNAs where codons rarely used by Escherchia coli are replaced with common synonymous codons to accelerate translation of the target. A markedly accelerated rate of expression often results in a significant uplift in the levels of target protein but a substantial proportion of the enhanced yield can partition to the insoluble fraction rendering a significant portion of the gains unavailable for native purification. We have assessed several expression attenuation strategies for their utility in the manipulation of the soluble fraction towards higher levels of soluble target recovery from codon optimized systems. Using a set of human small GTPases as a case study, we compare the degeneration of the T7 promoter sequence, the use of alternative translational start codons and the manipulation of synonymous codon usage. Degeneration of both the T7 promoter and the translational start codon merely depressed overall expression and did not increase the percentage of product recovered in native purification of the soluble fraction. However, the selective introduction of rare non-optimal codons back into the codon-optimized sequence resulted in significantly elevated recovery of soluble targets. We propose that slowing the rate of extension during translation using a small number of rare codons allows more time for the co-translational folding of the nascent polypeptide. This increases the proportion of the target recovered in the soluble fraction by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC). Thus, a "de-optimization" of codon-optimized cDNAs, to attenuate or pause the translation process, may prove a useful strategy for improved recombinant protein production.

A Novel Small-Molecule Inhibitor of MRCK Prevents Radiation-Driven Invasion in Glioblastoma.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is an aggressive and incurable primary brain tumor that causes severe neurologic, cognitive, and psychologic symptoms. Symptoms are caused and exacerbated by the infiltrative properties of GBM cells, which enable them to pervade the healthy brain and disrupt normal function. Recent research has indicated that although radiotherapy (RT) remains the most effective component of multimodality therapy for patients with GBM, it can provoke a more infiltrative phenotype in GBM cells that survive treatment. Here, we demonstrate an essential role of the actin-myosin regulatory kinase myotonic dystrophy kinase-related CDC42-binding kinase (MRCK) in mediating the proinvasive effects of radiation. MRCK-mediated invasion occurred via downstream signaling to effector molecules MYPT1 and MLC2. MRCK was activated by clinically relevant doses per fraction of radiation, and this activation was concomitant with an increase in GBM cell motility and invasion. Furthermore, ablation of MRCK activity either by RNAi or by inhibition with the novel small-molecule inhibitor BDP-9066 prevented radiation-driven increases in motility both in vitro and in a clinically relevant orthotopic xenograft model of GBM. Crucially, treatment with BDP-9066 in combination with RT significantly increased survival in this model and markedly reduced infiltration of the contralateral cerebral hemisphere.Significance: An effective new strategy for the treatment of glioblastoma uses a novel, anti-invasive chemotherapeutic to prevent infiltration of the normal brain by glioblastoma cells.Cancer Res; 78(22); 6509-22. ©2018 AACR.

The pfr1 gene from the human pathogenic fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis encodes a half-ABC transporter that is transcribed in response to treatment with fluconazole.

We have isolated a gene that encodes a half-ABC-transporter, designated Pfr1, from the dimorphic human pathogenic fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis, which has high identity with members of the ABC-superfamily involved in multidrug resistance. The pfr1 gene is predicted to encode a 827 amino acid protein that, in common with mammalian Mdr1, has a TM-NBD topology. The transcription of the pfr1 gene is induced by the triazole drug fluconazole but not by amphotericin B, suggesting a role in transport-mediated azole resistance. However, Pfr1 has greatest identity to the mitochondrial ABC transporters Mdl1 and Mdl2 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and mammalian ABC-me, with identities of 47.2%, 40.6% and 39.5%, respectively, over the length of these proteins. Furthermore, the N-terminus of Pfr1 is rich in positively charged residues, a feature of mitochondrial targeting sequences. Considering these features, it seems likely that Pfr1 is a mitochondrial protein. Previous studies have revealed that the acquisition of azole resistance in S. cerevisiae is linked to mitochondrial loss and, conversely, that mitochondrial dysfunction can lead to the upregulation of PDR transporters mediated by the transcription factor Pdr3. Our studies suggest that a mitochondrial ABC transporter is induced as part of the cellular response to drug treatment. The promoter region of pfr1 contains a PDRE-like consensus sequence to which Pdr3 binds, which may be the element responsible for the upregulation of Pfr1 in response to fluconazole. The nucleotide binding domain of Pfr1 was expressed and purified from Escherichia coli and shown to retain ATPase activity, consistent with Pfr1 functioning as a homodimeric transport ATPase.

The structure of the cell cycle protein Cdc14 reveals a proline-directed protein phosphatase.

The Cdc14 family of dual-specificity protein phosphatases (DSPs) is conserved within eukaryotes and functions to down-regulate mitotic Cdk activities, promoting cytokinesis and mitotic exit. We have integrated structural and kinetic analyses to define the molecular mechanism of the dephosphorylation reaction catalysed by Cdc14. The structure of Cdc14 illustrates a novel arrangement of two domains, each with a DSP-like fold, arranged in tandem. The C-terminal domain contains the conserved PTP motif of the catalytic site, whereas the N-terminal domain, which shares no sequence similarity with other DSPs, contributes to substrate specificity, and lacks catalytic activity. The catalytic site is located at the base of a pronounced surface channel formed by the interface of the two domains, and regions of both domains interact with the phosphopeptide substrate. Specificity for a pSer-Pro motif is mediated by a hydrophobic pocket that is capable of accommodating the apolar Pro(P+1) residue of the peptide. Our structural and kinetic data support a role for Cdc14 in the preferential dephosphorylation of proteins modified by proline-directed kinases.