STAT3 differential scanning fluorimetry and differential scanning light scattering assays: Addressing a missing link in the characterization of STAT3 inhibitor interactions.

STAT3 protein is an established target for the development of new cancer therapeutic agents. Despite lacking a traditional binding site for small molecule inhibitors, many STAT3 inhibitors have been identified and explored for their anti-cancer activity. Because STAT3 signaling is mediated by protein-protein interactions, indirect methods are often employed to determine if proposed STAT3 inhibitors bind to STAT3 protein. While established STAT3 inhibition assays (such as the fluorescence polarization assay, electrophoretic mobility shift assay and ELISAs) have been used to identify novel inhibitors of STAT3 signaling, methods that directly assess STAT3 protein-inhibitor interactions could facilitate the development of novel inhibitors. In this context, we herein report new STAT3 binding assays based on differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) and differential scanning light scattering (DSLS) to characterize interactions between STAT3 protein and inhibitors. Several peptide and small molecule STAT3 inhibitors have been evaluated, and new insight into how these compounds may interact with STAT3 is provided.

Expression and Purification of Soluble STAT5b/STAT3 Proteins for SH2 Domain Binding Assay.

When a large hydrophobic full-length protein is expressed in bacteria, it is often challenging to obtain recombinant proteins in the soluble fraction. One way to overcome this challenge is expression of deletion mutants that have improved solubility while maintaining biological activity. In this chapter, we describe a protocol for expression of truncated forms of STAT5b and STAT3 proteins that are soluble and retain SH2-mediated activity for phospho-Tyr peptide recognition.

Nuclear protein extraction from frozen porcine myocardium.

Protocols for the extraction of nuclear proteins have been developed for cultured cells and fresh tissue, but sometimes only frozen tissue is available. We have optimized the homogenization procedure and subsequent fractionation protocol for the preparation of nuclear protein extracts from frozen porcine left ventricular (LV) tissue. This method gave a highly reproducible protein yield (6.5±0.7% of total protein; mean±SE, n=9) and a 6-fold enrichment of the nuclear marker protein B23. The nuclear protein extracts were essentially devoid of cytosolic, myofilament, and histone proteins. Compared to nuclear extracts from fresh LV tissue, some loss of nuclear proteins to the cytosolic fraction was observed. Using this method, we studied the distribution of tyrosine phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (PY-STAT3) in LV tissue of animals treated with the ß-agonist dobutamine. Upon treatment, PY-STAT3 increased 30.2±8.5-fold in total homogenates, but only 6.9±2.1-fold (n=4, P=0.03) in nuclear protein extracts. Of all PY-STAT3 formed, only a minor fraction appeared in the nuclear fraction. This simple and reproducible protocol yielded nuclear protein extracts that were highly enriched in nuclear proteins with almost complete removal of cytosolic and myofilament proteins. This nuclear protein extraction protocol is therefore well-suited for nuclear proteome analysis of frozen heart tissue collected in biobanks.