Regulatory network motifs and hotspots of cancer genes in a mammalian cellular signalling network.

Mutations or overexpression of signalling genes can result in cancer development and metastasis. In this study, we manually assembled a human cellular signalling network and developed a robust bioinformatics strategy for extracting cancer-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using expressed sequence tags (ESTs). We then investigated the relationships of cancer-associated genes [cancer-associated SNP genes, known as cancer genes (CG) and cell mobility genes (CMGs)] in a signalling network context. Through a graph-theory-based analysis, we found that CGs are significantly enriched in network hub proteins and cancer-associated genes are significantly enriched or depleted in some particular network motif types. Furthermore, we identified a substantial number of hotspots, the three- and four-node network motifs in which all nodes are either CGs or CMGs. More importantly, we uncovered that CGs are enriched in the convergent target nodes of most network motifs, although CMGs are enriched in the source nodes of most motifs. These results have implications for the foundations of the regulatory mechanisms of cancer development and metastasis.

Modeling of the bacterial luciferase-flavin mononucleotide complex combining flexible docking with structure-activity data.

Although the crystal structure of Vibrio harveyi luciferase has been elucidated, the binding sites for the flavin mononucleotide and fatty aldehyde substrates are still unknown. The determined location of the phosphate-binding site close to Arg 107 on the alpha subunit of luciferase is supported here by point mutagenesis. This information, together with previous structure-activity data for the length of the linker connecting the phosphate group to the isoalloxazine ring represent important characteristics of the luciferase-bound conformation of the flavin mononucleotide. A model of the luciferase-flavin complex is developed here using flexible docking supplemented by these structural constraints. The location of the phosphate moiety was used as the anchor in a flexible docking procedure performed by conformation search by using the Monte Carlo minimization approach. The resulting databases of energy-ranked feasible conformations of the luciferase complexes with flavin mononucleotide, omega-phosphopentylflavin, omega-phosphobutylflavin, and omega-phosphopropylflavin were filtered according to the structure-activity profile of these analogs. A unique model was sought not only on energetic criteria but also on the geometric requirement that the isoalloxazine ring of the active flavin analogs must assume a common orientation in the luciferase-binding site, an orientation that is also inaccessible to the inactive flavin analog. The resulting model of the bacterial luciferase-flavin mononucleotide complex is consistent with the experimental data available in the literature. Specifically, the isoalloxazine ring of the flavin mononucleotide interacts with the Ala 74-Ala 75 cis-peptide bond as well as with the Cys 106 side chain in the alpha subunit of luciferase. The model of the binary complex reveals a distinct cavity suitable for aldehyde binding adjacent to the isoalloxazine ring and flanked by other key residues (His 44 and Trp 250) implicated in the active site.

Cathepsins X and B can be differentiated through their respective mono- and dipeptidyl carboxypeptidase activities.

Several new cysteine proteases of the papain family have been discovered in the past few years. To help in the assignment of physiological roles and in the design of specific inhibitors, a clear picture of the specificities of these enzymes is needed. One of these novel enzymes, cathepsin X, displays a unique specificity, cleaving single amino acid residues at the C-terminus of substrates very efficiently. In this study, the carboxypeptidase activities and substrate specificity of cathepsins X and B have been investigated in detail and compared. Using quenched fluorogenic substrates and HPLC measurements, it was shown that cathepsin X preferentially cleaves substrates through a monopeptidyl carboxypeptidase pathway, while cathepsin B displays a preference for the dipeptidyl pathway. The preference for one or the other pathway is about the same for both enzymes, i.e., approximately 2 orders of magnitude, a result supported by molecular modeling of enzyme-substrate complexes. Cleavage of a C-terminal dipeptide of a substrate by cathepsin X can become more important under conditions that preclude efficient monopeptidyl carboxypeptidase activity, e.g., nonoptimal interactions in subsites S(2)-S(1). These results confirm that cathepsin X is designed to function as a monopeptidyl carboxypeptidase. Contrary to a recent report [Klemencic, I., et al. (2000) Eur. J. Biochem. 267, 5404-5412], it is shown that cathepsins X and B do not share similar activity profiles, and that reagents are available to clearly distinguish the two enzymes. In particular, CA074 was found to inactivate cathepsin B at least 34000-fold more efficiently than cathepsin X. The insights obtained from this and previous studies have been used to produce an inhibitor designed to exploit the unique structural features responsible for the carboxypeptidase activity of cathepsin X. Although of moderate potency, this E-64 derivative is the first reported example of a cathepsin X-specific inhibitor.

The crystal structure of the formiminotransferase domain of formiminotransferase-cyclodeaminase: implications for substrate channeling in a bifunctional enzyme.

BACKGROUND: The bifunctional enzyme formiminotransferase-cyclodeaminase (FTCD) contains two active sites at different positions on the protein structure. The enzyme binds a gamma-linked polyglutamylated form of the tetrahydrofolate substrate and channels the product of the transferase reaction from the transferase active site to the cyclodeaminase active site. Structural studies of this bifunctional enzyme and its monofunctional domains will provide insight into the mechanism of substrate channeling and the two catalytic reactions. RESULTS: The crystal structure of the formiminotransferase (FT) domain of FTCD has been determined in the presence of a product analog, folinic acid. The overall structure shows that the FT domain comprises two subdomains that adopt a novel alpha/beta fold. Inspection of the folinic acid binding site reveals an electrostatic tunnel traversing the width of the molecule. The distribution of charged residues in the tunnel provides insight into the possible mode of substrate binding and channeling. The electron density reveals that the non-natural stereoisomer, (6R)-folinic acid, binds to the protein; this observation suggests a mechanism for product release. In addition, a single molecule of glycerol is bound to the enzyme and indicates a putative binding site for formiminoglutamate. CONCLUSIONS: The structure of the FT domain in the presence of folinic acid reveals a possible novel mechanism for substrate channeling. The position of the folinic acid and a bound glycerol molecule near to the sidechain of His82 suggests that this residue may act as the catalytic base required for the formiminotransferase mechanism.

Human cathepsin X: A cysteine protease with unique carboxypeptidase activity.

Cathepsin X is a novel cysteine protease which was identified recently from the EST (expressed sequence tags) database. In a homology model of the mature cathepsin X, a unique three residue insertion between the Gln22 of the oxyanion hole and the active site Cys31 was found to be located in the primed region of the binding cleft as part of a surface loop corresponding to residues His23 to Tyr27, which we have termed the "mini-loop". From the model, it became apparent that this distinctive structural feature might confer exopeptidase activity to the enzyme. To verify this hypothesis, human procathepsin X was expressed in Pichia pastoris and converted to mature cathepsin X using small amounts of human cathepsin L. Cathepsin X was found to display excellent carboxypeptidase activity against the substrate Abz-FRF(4NO(2)), with a k(cat)/K(M) value of 1.23 x 10(5) M(-)(1) s(-)(1) at the optimal pH of 5.0. However, the activity of cathepsin X against the substrates Cbz-FR-MCA and Abz-AFRSAAQ-EDDnp was found to be extremely low, with k(cat)/K(M) values lower than 70 M(-)(1) s(-)(1). Therefore, cathepsin X displays a stricter exopeptidase activity than cathepsin B. No inhibition of cathepsin X by cystatin C could be detected up to a concentration of 4 microM of inhibitor. From a model of the protease complexed with Cbz-FRF, the bound carboxypeptidase substrate is predicted to establish a number of favorable contacts within the cathepsin X binding site, in particular with residues His23 and Tyr27 from the mini-loop. The presence of the mini-loop restricts the accessibility of cystatin C as well as of the endopeptidase and MCA substrates in the primed subsites of the protease. The marked structural and functional differences of cathepsin X relative to other members of the papain family of cysteine proteases will be of great value in designing specific inhibitors useful as research tools to investigate the physiological and potential pathological roles of this novel enzyme.

Nonpolar interactions of thrombin and its inhibitors at the fibrinogen recognition exosite: thermodynamic analysis.

Nonpolar interactions play a major role in the association of the fibrinogen recognition exosite of thrombin with the C-terminal fragment (55-65), Asp-Phe-Glu-IIe-Pro-Glu-Glu-Tyr-Leu-Gln, of hirudin, which is a naturally occurring thrombin inhibitor. The thermodynamic details (free energy, enthalpy, entropy, and heat capacity) of the molecular recognition are studied by using five analogs of a synthetic bivalent thrombin inhibitor (P552), tert-butylbenzensulfonyl-Arg-(D-pipecolic acid)-(12-amino-dodecanoic acid)-(gamma-aminobutyric acid)-hirudin55-65. The residue of PheH56, IleH59, ProH60, TyrH63, or LeuH64 in hirudin 55-65 segment is substituted by Gly in each analog in order to elucidate the contributions of these nonpolar side chains. The results show that the interactions of these nonpolar side chains with thrombin are enthalpy-driven, except for the contribution of the PheH56 side chain which is entropy-driven. Interestingly, molecular modeling predicts a large conformational change due to the Gly substitution of PheH56. In analyzing the correlation among the thermodynamic and structural properties of the nonpolar interaction, a good correlation is observed between the binding free energy and the hydrophobicity of the molecular surface; i.e., tighter binding is observed as more nonpolar atoms are buried and more polar atoms are exposed upon molecular association.

Calculation of relative binding free energies and configurational entropies: a structural and thermodynamic analysis of the nature of non-polar binding of thrombin inhibitors based on hirudin55-65.

Free energy calculations were carried out on a series of exosite-binding inhibitors of thrombin. These inhibitors are based on the C-terminal fragment of hirudin and have the sequence Phe-Glu-Glu-IleH59-Pro-Glu-Glu-Tyr- Leu, where the superscript over Ile indicates its relative position in the natural sequence of hirudin. In this study, the effect of replacing IleH59 with ten other non-polar amino acids was examined. Three preferred interaction sites for methyl/methylene groups for the various XaaH59 side-chains in the complex were identified from conformational search calculations. The corresponding thermodynamic changes were determined using a combination of systematic search and energy minimization in a manner that locates the local minima in the system and in the process simultaneously builds up the partition function. The free energy, internal energy and entropic contributions are readily calculated from the partition function. Very good agreement in the resulting relative binding free energies was obtained between theory and experiment. The calculations allowed us to dissect out the enthalpic, entropic and solvation contributions to delta delta G. The contribution from desolvation was found to be relatively weak. The binding of these non-polar side-chains to thrombin is found to be driven mainly by favorable protein-ligand interactions rather than by the desire for non-polar groups to be desolvated. We also find that the configurational entropy contributes about 0.48 kcal/mol (0.81 kappa T) in average for each torsional angle "frozen" in binding.

Conformationally restricted thrombin inhibitors resistant to proteolytic digestion.

A new type of thrombin exo-site inhibitor has been designed with enhanced inhibitory potency and increased metabolic stability. With the aid of the model of the structure of the thrombin-hirudin fragment complex [Yue, S.-Y., DiMaio, J., Szewczuk, Z., Purisima, E. O., Ni, F., & Konishi, Y. (1992) Protein Eng. 5, 77-85], cyclic analogs of the hirudin fragment (hirudin55-65) were designed and synthesized. In these analogs, the side chains of appropriately substituted residues, 58 and 61, were joined in order to restrict the conformation of the inhibitor. An analog with an 18-membered lactam ring showed higher antithrombin activity (IC50 = 0.57 microM) than the corresponding analogs with 17- or 16-membered rings and was 2-fold more potent than its linear counterpart. Even 4-fold greater enhancement was obtained when a shorter fragment, hirudin 55-62, was cyclized. This cyclization not only improved the potency but, more importantly, dramatically increased the resistance to proteolytic digestion. Remarkable enhancement of stability to proteolysis was observed for peptide bonds located in the exocyclic linear peptide segments. These results are discussed using molecular modeling.

Conformational stability of a thrombin-binding peptide derived from the hirudin C-terminus.

The COOH-terminal region of hirudin represents an independent functional domain that binds to an anion-binding exosite of thrombin and inhibits the interaction of thrombin with fibrinogen and regulatory proteins in blood coagulation. The thrombin-bound structure of the peptide fragment, hirudin 55-65, has been determined by use of transferred NOE spectroscopy [Ni, F., Konishi, Y., & Scheraga, H. A. (1990) Biochemistry 29, 4479-4489]. The stability of the thrombin-bound conformation has been characterized further by a combined NMR and theoretical analysis of the conformational ensemble accessible by the hirudin peptide. Medium- and long-range NOE's were found for the free hirudin peptide in aqueous solution and in a mixture of dimethyl sulfoxide and water at both ambient (25 degrees C) and low (0 degrees C) temperatures, suggesting that ordered conformations are highly populated in solution. The global folding of these conformations is similar to that in the thrombin-bound state, as indicated by NOE's involving the side-chain protons of residues Phe(56), Ile(59), Pro(60), Tyr(63), and Leu(64). Residues Glu(61), Glu(62), Tyr(63), and Leu(64) all contain approximately 50% of helical conformations calculated from the ratio of the sequential dNN and d alpha N NOE's. Among the helical ensemble, active 3(10)-helical conformations were found by an analysis of the medium-range [(i,i+2) and (i,i+3)] NOE's involving the last six residues of the peptide. An analysis of the side-chain rotamers revealed that, upon binding to thrombin, there may be a rotation around the alpha CH-beta CH bond of Ile(59) such that Ile(59) adopts a gauche- (chi 1 = +60) conformation in contrast to the highly populated trans (chi 1 = -60) found for Ile(59) in the free peptide. However, the thrombin-bound conformation of the hirudin peptide is still an intrinsically stable conformer, and the preferred conformational ensemble of the peptide contains a large population of the active conformation. The apparent preference for a gauche- (chi 1 = +60) side-chain conformation of Ile(59) in the bound state may be explained by the existence of a positively charged arginine residue among the hydrophobic residues in the thrombin exosite.

Characterization of the interactions of a bifunctional inhibitor with alpha-thrombin by molecular modelling and peptide synthesis.

A potent thrombin inhibitor, [D-Phe45, Arg47] hirudin 45-65, that contains an active site-directed sequence D-Phe-Pro-Arg-Pro, an exosite specific fragment hirudin 55-65 (H55-65) and a linker portion hirudin 49-54, was designed based on the hirudin sequence [DiMaio et al. (1990) J. Biol. Chem., 265, 21698-21798]. A three-dimensional model of the complex between the B-chain of human thrombin and the inhibitor [D-Phe45, Arg47] hirudin 45-65 was constructed using molecular modelling starting from the X-ray C alpha coordinates of the thrombin-hirudin complex and the NMR-derived structure of the thrombin-bound hirudin 55-65. The contribution of the H49-54 fragment to the thrombin-inhibitor interaction was deduced by examining a series of analogs containing single glycine substitution and analogs with reduced number of residues within the linker. The results were consistent with the molecular modelling observations i.e. the H49-54 fragment serves the role of a spacer in the binding interaction and could be replaced by four glycine residues. The studies on the interaction of the exosite-directed portion of the inhibitor with thrombin using a series of synthetic H55-65 analogs demonstrated that residues AspH55 to ProH60 play a major role in binding to human thrombin where the side chains of PheH56, IleH59 and GluH57 showed critical contributions. Molecular modelling suggested that these side chains may contribute to inter- and intramolecular hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions, respectively.

Proton NMR assignments and regular backbone structure of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A in aqueous solution.

Proton NMR assignments have been made for 121 of the 124 residues of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A (RNase A). During the first stage of assignment, COSY and relayed COSY data were used to identify 40 amino acid spin systems belonging to alanine, valine, threonine, isoleucine, and serine residues. Approximately 60 other NH-alpha CH-beta CH systems were also identified but not assigned to specific amino acid type. NOESY data then were used to connect sequentially neighboring spin systems; approximately 475 of the possible 700 resonances in RNase A were assigned in this way. Our assignments agree with those for 20 residues assigned previously [Hahn, U., & Rüterjans, H. (1985) Eur. J. Biochem. 152, 481-491]. Additional NOESY correlations were used to identify regular backbone structure elements in RNase A, which are very similar to those observed in X-ray crystallographic studies [Wlodawer, A., Borkakoti, N., Moss, D. S., & Howlin, B. (1986) Acta Crystallogr. B42, 379-387].

An approach to the multiple-minima problem in protein folding by relaxing dimensionality. Tests on enkephalin.

An algorithm for locating the region in conformational space containing the global energy minimum of a polypeptide is described. Distances are used as the primary variables in the minimization of an objective function that incorporates both energetic and distance-geometric terms. The latter are obtained from geometry and energy functions, rather than nuclear magnetic resonance experiments, although the algorithm can incorporate distances from nuclear magnetic resonance data if desired. The polypeptide is generated originally in a space of high dimensionality. This has two important consequences. First, all interatomic distances are initially at their energetically most favorable values; i.e. the polypeptide is initially at a global minimum-energy conformation, albeit a high-dimensional one. Second, the relaxation of dimensionality constraints in the early stages of the minimization removes many potential energy barriers that exist in three dimensions, thereby allowing a means of escaping from three-dimensional local minima. These features are used in an algorithm that produces short trajectories of three-dimensional minimum-energy conformations. A conformation in the trajectory is generated by allowing the previous conformation in the trajectory to evolve in a high-dimensional space before returning to three dimensions. The resulting three-dimensional structure is taken to be the next conformation in the trajectory, and the process is iterated. This sequence of conformations results in a limited but efficient sampling of conformational space. Results for test calculations on Met-enkephalin, a pentapeptide with the amino acid sequence H-Tyr-Gly-Gly-Phe-Met-OH, are presented. A tight cluster of conformations (in three-dimensional space) is found with ECEPP energies (Empirical Conformational Energy Program for Peptides) lower than any previously reported. This cluster of conformations defines a region in conformational space in which the global-minimum-energy conformation of enkephalin appears to lie.

An approach to the multiple-minima problem by relaxing dimensionality.

A method is presented for starting from a very-low-energy high-dimensional conformation and obtaining a low-energy three-dimensional structure by gradual contraction of the dimensionality. The contraction in dimensionality is achieved by use of Cayley-Menger determinants, of which a simplified form is derived here. Preliminary results are presented for a virtual-bond pentapeptide and for full-atom representations of several terminally blocked amino acids.