Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Identification of a Covalent Molecular Inhibitor of Anti-apoptotic BFL-1 by Disulfide Tethering

Edward P.Harvey, Zachary J. Hauseman, Daniel T. Cohen, T. Justin Rettenmaier, Susan Lee, Annissa J.Huhn, Thomas E. Wales, Hyuk-Soo Seo, James Luccarelli1, Catherine E.Newman, Rachel M.Guerra, Gregory H.Bird, Sirano Dhe-Paganon, John R.Engen, James A.Wells, Loren D. Walensky

Cell Chemical Biology, 2020

The BCL-2 family is composed of anti- and pro-apoptotic members that respectively protect or disrupt mitochondrial integrity. Anti-apoptotic overexpression can promote oncogenesis by trapping the BCL-2 homology 3 (BH3) “killer domains” of pro-apoptotic proteins in a surface groove, blocking apoptosis. Groove inhibitors, such as the relatively large BCL-2 drug venetoclax (868 Da), have emerged as cancer therapies. BFL-1 remains an undrugged oncogenic protein and can cause venetoclax resistance. Having identified a unique C55 residue in the BFL-1 groove, we performed a disulfide tethering screen to determine if C55 reactivity could enable smaller molecules to block BFL-1's BH3-binding functionality. We found that a disulfide-bearing N-acetyltryptophan analog (304 Da adduct) effectively targeted BFL-1 C55 and reversed BFL-1-mediated suppression of mitochondrial apoptosis. Structural analyses implicated the conserved leucine-binding pocket of BFL-1 as the interaction site, resulting in conformational remodeling. Thus, therapeutic targeting of BFL-1 may be achievable through the design of small, cysteine-reactive drugs.

Allosteric Covalent Inhibitors of the STAT3 Transcription Factor from Virtual Screening

Tibor Viktor Szalai, Vincenzo di Lorenzo, Nikolett Péczka, Levente M. Mihalovits, László Petri, Qirat F. Ashraf, Elvin D. de Araujo, Viktor ...