According to current understanding, cytoplasmic events including activation of protease cascades and mitochondrial permeability transition (PT) participate in the control of nuclear apoptosis. However, the relationship between protease activation and PT has remained elusive. When apoptosis is induced by cross-linking of the Fas/APO-1/CD95 receptor, activation of interleukin-1β converting enzyme (ICE; caspase 1) or ICE-like enzymes precedes the disruption of the mitochondrial inner transmembrane potential (ΔΨm). In contrast, cytosolic CPP32/ Yama/Apopain/caspase 3 activation, plasma membrane phosphatidyl serine exposure, and nuclear apoptosis only occur in cells in which the ΔΨm is fully disrupted. Transfection with the cowpox protease inhibitor crmA or culture in the presence of the synthetic ICE-specific inhibitor Ac-YVAD.cmk both prevent the ΔΨm collapse and subsequent apoptosis. Cytosols from anti-Fas–treated human lymphoma cells accumulate an activity that induces PT in isolated mitochondria in vitro and that is neutralized by crmA or Ac-YVAD.cmk. Recombinant purified ICE suffices to cause isolated mitochondria to undergo PT-like large amplitude swelling and to disrupt their ΔΨm. In addition, ICE-treated mitochondria release an apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) that induces apoptotic changes (chromatin condensation and oligonucleosomal DNA fragmentation) in isolated nuclei in vitro. AIF is a protease (or protease activator) that can be inhibited by the broad spectrum apoptosis inhibitor Z-VAD.fmk and that causes the proteolytical activation of CPP32. Although Bcl-2 is a highly efficient inhibitor of mitochondrial alterations (large amplitude swelling + ΔΨm collapse + release of AIF) induced by prooxidants or cytosols from ceramide-treated cells, it has no effect on the ICE-induced mitochondrial PT and AIF release. These data connect a protease activation pathway with the mitochondrial phase of apoptosis regulation. In addition, they provide a plausible explanation of why Bcl-2 fails to interfere with Fas-triggered apoptosis in most cell types, yet prevents ceramide- and prooxidant-induced apoptosis.

Vps34 is a phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) class III isoform that has attracted major attention over the recent years because of its role in autophagy. Herein we describe the biological characterization of SAR405, which is a low-molecular-mass kinase inhibitor of Vps34 (KD 1.5 nM). This compound has an exquisite protein and lipid kinase selectivity profile that is explained by its unique binding mode and molecular interactions within the ATP binding cleft of human Vps34. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first potent and specific Vps34 inhibitor described so far. Our results demonstrate that inhibition of Vps34 kinase activity by SAR405 affects both late endosome-lysosome compartments and prevents autophagy. Moreover, we show that the concomitant inhibition of Vps34 and mTOR, with SAR405 and the US Food and Drug Administration-approved mTOR inhibitor everolimus, results in synergistic antiproliferative activity in renal tumor cell lines, indicating a potential clinical application in cancer.

The bifunctional bacterial enzyme N-acetyl-glucosamine-1-phosphate uridyltransferase (GlmU) catalyzes the two-step formation of UDP-GlcNAc, a fundamental precursor in bacterial cell wall biosynthesis. With the emergence of new resistance mechanisms against ␤-lactam and glycopeptide antibiotics, the biosynthetic pathway of UDP-GlcNAc represents an attractive target for drug design of new antibacterial agents. The crystal structures of Streptococcus pneumoniae GlmU in unbound form, in complex with acetyl-coenzyme A (AcCoA) and in complex with both AcCoA and the end product UDP-GlcNAc, have been determined and refined to 2.3, 2.5, and 1.75 Å, respectively. The S. pneumoniae GlmU molecule is organized in two separate domains connected via a long ␣-helical linker and associates as a trimer, with the 50-Å-long left-handed ␤-helix (L␤H) Cterminal domains packed against each other in a parallel fashion and the C-terminal region extended far away from the L␤H core and exchanged with the ␤-helix from a neighboring subunit in the trimer. AcCoA binding induces the formation of a long and narrow tunnel, enclosed between two adjacent L␤H domains and the interchanged C-terminal region of the third subunit, giving rise to an original active site architecture at the junction of three subunits.

The phosphoglucosamine mutase (GlmM) from Escherichia coli, specifically required for the interconversion of glucosamine-6-phosphate and glucosamine-1-phosphate (an essential step in the pathway for cell-wall peptidoglycan and lipopolysaccharide biosyntheses) was purified to homogeneity and its kinetic properties were investigated. The enzyme was active in a phosphorylated form and catalysed its reaction according to a classical ping-pong bi-bi mechanism. The dephosphorylated and phosphorylated forms of GlmM could be separated by HPLC and coupled MS showed that only one phosphate was covalently linked to the active site of the enzyme. The site of phosphorylation was clearly identified as Ser102 in the 445-amino acid polypeptide. GlmM was also capable of catalysing the interconversion of glucose-1-phosphate and glucose-6-phosphate isomers, although at a much lower (1400-fold) rate. Interestingly, the mutational change of the Ser100 to a threonine residue resulted in a 20-fold increase of the nonspecific phosphoglucomutase activity of GlmM, suggesting that the presence of either a serine or a threonine at this position in the consensus sequence of hexosephosphate mutases could be one of the factors that determines the specificity of these enzymes for either sugar-phosphate or amino sugar-phosphate substrates.

Cysteine proteases of the interleukin-1␤-converting enzyme family have been implicated in the effector process of apoptosis in several systems. Among these, CPP32 has been shown to be processed to active enzyme at the onset of apoptosis. Here, we show that CPP32 precursor is cleaved into its active form during phytohaemaglutinin A activation of T lymphocytes. Maximal processing is observed between day 3 and day 4 following addition of mitogen and is a transient process. Precursor cleavage is associated with the appearance of a CPP32-like enzymatic activity in cell lysates. At this time in the culture, almost no apoptotic cell and no dead cell can be detected, and T lymphocytes are actively proliferating. CPP32 processing also occurs when lymphocytes are stimulated through an allogeneic primary mixed lymphocyte reaction. Our results suggest that proteolytic activation of CPP32 could be a physiological step during T lymphocyte activation. In addition, these data indicate that CPP32 activation can occur independently of programmed cell death in T lymphocytes.Recent studies have identified a new family of proteases, designated "caspase family" to reflect the fact that they are cysteine proteases and cleave at the C terminus of aspartic acid residues (1). The prototype of this family (caspase-1) is the interleukin-1␤-converting enzyme (ICE) 1 that was originally defined as a cytosolic protease that cleaves interleukin-1␤ (IL-1␤) precursor into its active form (2, 3). The family now includes nine additional mammalian proteins (1), and caspase-10 (Mch4).Members of the ICE protease family can be clustered into two subfamilies on the basis of the level of identity with ICE and CPP32. These enzymes represent prototype members of each subfamilies and have been extensively characterized. They are synthesized as proenzymes that are activated by cleavage at critical Asp residues that themselves conform to the substrate consensus for caspases, suggesting an autoactivation or interenzymatic cascade mechanism for processing the precursors to the active forms. The mature form of the enzymes is composed of two heterodimers (4, 5) with a large subunit (p20 for ICE and p17 for CPP32), that contains the catalytic cysteine residue, and a small subunit (p10 for ICE and p12 for CPP32) which is necessary for enzymatic activity (for review, see Ref. 6).Although in most cases the substrate specificities of the caspases are not known, natural substrates have been identified for ICE and for CPP32. The active forms of both enzymes have been purified on the basis of their ability to process proIL-1␤ (2, 3) and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (7, 8), respectively. Subsequently, the 70-kDa subunit of the U1 small ribonucleoprotein (U1-70K) and the catalytic subunit of DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK CS ) have been shown to be equally good substrates for CPP32 (9, 10).Numerous studies have implicated members of the caspase family as key participants in apoptotic cell death (for review, see Ref. 6). Although this initially implicated ICE itself...

Vps34 (the human class III phosphoinositide 3-kinase) is a lipid kinase involved in vesicle trafficking and autophagy and therefore constitutes an interesting target for cancer treatment. Because of the lack of specific Vps34 kinase inhibitors, we aimed to identify such compounds to further validate the role of this lipid kinase in cancer maintenance and progression. Herein, we report the discovery of a series of tetrahydropyrimidopyrimidinone derivatives. Starting with hit compound 1a, medicinal chemistry optimization led to compound 31. This molecule displays potent activity, an exquisite selectivity for Vps34 with excellent properties. The X-ray crystal structure of compound 31 in human Vps34 illustrates how the unique molecular features of the morpholine synthon bestows selectivity against class I PI3Ks. This molecule exhibits suitable in vivo mouse PK parameters and induces a sustained inhibition of Vps34 upon acute administration. Compound 31 constitutes an optimized Vps34 inhibitor that could be used to investigate human cancer biology.

A novel class of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) inhibitors was developed after a low throughput screen (LTS) of a focused library containing approximately 21K compounds selected by virtual screening. The initial [1-{3-H-imidazo[4-5-c]pyridin-2-yl}-3,4-dihydro-2H-pyrido[2,1-a]isoindole-6-one] (1) compound showed moderate activity (IC(50) = 7.6 μM on Hsp82, the yeast homologue of Hsp90). A high-resolution X-ray structure shows that compound 1 binds into an "induced" hydrophobic pocket, 10-15 Å away from the ATP/resorcinol binding site. Iterative cycles of structure-based drug design (SBDD) and chemical synthesis led to the design and preparation of analogues with improved affinity. These optimized molecules make productive interactions within the ATP binding site as reported by other Hsp90 inhibitors. This resulted in compound 8, which is a highly potent inhibitor in biochemical and cellular assays (K(d) = 0.35 nM on Hsp90; IC(50) = 30 nM on SKBr3 mammary carcinoma cells) and in an in vivo leukemia model.

MurA (UDP-N