Sunday, October 23, 2022

Serendipitous Identification of a Covalent Activator of Liver Pyruvate Kinase

Battisti, U..M., Gao, C., Nilsson, O., Akladios, F., Lulla, A., Bogucka, A., Nain-Perez, A., Håversen, L., Kim, W., Boren, J., Hyvönen, M., Uhlen, M., Mardinoglu, A. and Grøtli, M. 

ChemBioChem, 2022 

https://doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202200339

Enzymes are effective biological catalysts that accelerate almost all metabolic reactions in living organisms. Synthetic modulators of enzymes are useful tools for the study of enzymatic reactions and can provide starting points for the design of new drugs. Here, we report on the discovery of a class of biologically active compounds that covalently modifies lysine residues in human liver pyruvate kinase (PKL), leading to allosteric activation of the enzyme (EC50 = 0.29 µM). Surprisingly, the allosteric activation control point resides on the lysine residue K282 present in the catalytic site of PKL. These findings were confirmed by structural data, MS/MS experiments, and molecular modelling studies. Altogether, our study provides a molecular basis for the activation mechanism and establishes a framework for further development of human liver pyruvate kinase covalent activators.



From Mechanism-Based Retaining Glycosidase Inhibitors to Activity-Based Glycosidase Profiling

  Marta Artola, Johannes M. F. G. Aerts, Gijsbert A. van der Marel, Carme Rovira, Jeroen D. C. Codée, Gideon J. Davies, and Herman S. Overkl...