At least 120 non-olfactory G protein-coupled receptors in the human genome are ”orphans” for which endogenous ligands are unknown, and many have no selective ligands, hindering elucidation of their biological functions and clinical relevance. Among these is GPR68, a proton receptor that lacks small molecule modulators for probing its biology. Yeast-based screens against GPR68 identified the benzodiazepine drug lorazepam as a non-selective GPR68 positive allosteric modulator. Over 3000 GPR68 homology models were refined to recognize lorazepam in a putative allosteric site. Docking 3.1 million molecules predicted new GPR68 modulators many of which were confirmed in functional assays. One potent GPR68 modulator—ogerin– suppressed recall in fear conditioning in wild-type, but not in GPR68 knockout mice. The same approach led to the discovery of allosteric agonists and negative allosteric modulators for GPR65. Combining physical and structure-based screening may be broadly useful for ligand discovery for understudied and orphan GPCRs.
The primate-exclusive MRGPRX2 G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) has been suggested to modulate pain and itch. Despite putative peptide and small molecule MRGPRX2 agonists, selective nanomolar potency probes have not yet been reported. To identify a MRGPRX2 probe, we first screened 5,695 small molecules and found many opioid compounds activated MRGPRX2, including (−)- and (+)-morphine, hydrocodone, sinomenine, dextromethorphan and the prodynorphin-derived peptides, dynorphin A, dynorphin B, and α- and β-neoendorphin. We used these to select for mutagenesis-validated homology models and docked almost 4 million small molecules. From this docking, we predicted ZINC-3573, which represents a potent MRGPRX2-selective agonist, showing little activity against 315 other GPCRs and 97 representative kinases, and an essentially inactive enantiomer. ZINC-3573 activates endogenous MRGPRX2 in a human mast cell line inducing degranulation and calcium release. MRGPRX2 is a unique atypical opioid-like receptor important for modulating mast cell degranulation, which can now be specifically modulated with ZINC-3573.
Development of biased ligands targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is a promising approach for current drug discovery. Although structure-based drug design of biased agonists remains challenging even with an abundance of GPCR crystal structures, we present an approach for translating GPCR structural data into β-arrestin-biased ligands for aminergic GPCRs. We identified specific amino acid-ligand contacts at transmembrane helix 5 (TM5) and extracellular loop 2 (EL2) responsible for Gi/o and β-arrestin signaling, respectively, and targeted those residues to develop biased ligands. For these ligands, we found that bias is conserved at other aminergic GPCRs that retain similar residues at TM5 and EL2. Our approach provides a template for generating arrestin-biased ligands by modifying predicted ligand interactions that block TM5 interactions and promote EL2 interactions. This strategy could facilitate the structure-guided design of arrestin-biased ligands at other GPCRs, including polypharmacological biased ligands.
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are key signaling molecules and are intensely studied. Whereas GPCRs recognizing small-molecules have been successfully targeted for drug discovery, proteinrecognizing GPCRs, such as the chemokine receptors, claim few drugs or even useful small molecule reagents. This reflects both the difficulties that attend protein-protein interface inhibitor discovery, and the lack of structures for these targets. Imminent structure determination of chemokine receptor CXCR4 motivated docking screens for new ligands against a homology model and subsequently the crystal structure. More than 3 million molecules were docked against the model and then against the crystal structure; 24 and 23 high-scoring compounds from the respective screens were tested experimentally. Docking against the model yielded only one antagonist, which resembled known ligands and lacked specificity, whereas the crystal structure docking yielded four that were dissimilar to previously known scaffolds and apparently specific. Intriguingly, several were potent and relatively small, with IC 50 values as low as 306 nM, ligand efficiencies as high as 0.36, and with efficacy in cellular chemotaxis. The potency and efficiency of these molecules has few precedents among protein-protein interface inhibitors, and supports structure-based efforts to discover leads for chemokine GPCRs.drug design | virtual screening | promiscuous aggregation G -protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) play a central role in many normal physiological pathways and altered diseased states, and are the targets of approximately 30% of marketed drugs (1). Ligand discovery against small-molecule GPCRs such as the bioamine receptors has been particularly productive, as have structure-based screens against their crystal structures (2-5). Targeting larger-molecule-recognizing GPCRs has been more difficult. Although multiple reagents are available for lipid and peptidergic GPCRs, their molecular weights are substantially higher than those typical for bioamine receptors, and they are less ligand efficient. This reflects the challenges faced in ligand discovery against peptide-protein and lipid-protein interfaces. These difficulties are still more acute against chemokine GPCRs, which recognize folded proteins of ∼100 amino acids in length and are thus protein-protein interface (PPI) targets (6). Although there are several example drugs in this class, such as maraviroc, plerixafor, and vorapaxar, finding organic molecules with good affinity and the physical properties of oral drugs is notoriously difficult for PPI targets, as reflected in the high molecular weight and hydrophobicity of the few PPI drugs (7).A public competition to predict ligand complexes with the structure of C-X-C chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) inspired us to bring structure-based discovery to bear against a key member of the chemokine family (8). CXCR4 natively recognizes the CXCL12 chemokine, an 8-kDa protein. Like many other PPI targets, CXCR4 plays a key signaling role: it is constitutively expres...
Summary Assembly of cilia and flagella requires intraflagellar transport (IFT), a highly regulated kinesin-based transport system that moves cargo from the basal body to the tip of flagella [1]. The recruitment of IFT components to basal bodies is a function of flagellar length, with increased recruitment in rapidly growing short flagella [2]. The molecular pathways regulating IFT are largely a mystery. Since actin network disruption leads to changes in ciliary length and number, actin has been proposed to have a role in ciliary assembly. However, the mechanisms involved are unknown. In Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, conventional actin is found in both the cell body and the inner dynein arm complexes within flagella [3, 4]. Previous work showed that treating Chlamydomonas cells with the actin-depolymerizing compound cytochalasin D resulted in reversible flagellar shortening [5], but how actin is related to flagellar length or assembly remains unknown. Here, we utilize small-molecule inhibitors and genetic mutants to analyze the role of actin dynamics in flagellar assembly in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We demonstrate that actin plays a role in IFT recruitment to basal bodies during flagellar elongation, and that when actin is perturbed, the normal dependence of IFT recruitment on flagellar length is lost. We also find that actin is required for sufficient entry of IFT material into flagella during assembly. These same effects are recapitulated with a myosin inhibitor suggesting actin may act via myosin in a pathway by which flagellar assembly is regulated by flagellar length.
The interaction of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) with heterotrimeric G proteins represents one of the most fundamental biological processes. However, the molecular architecture of the GPCR/G protein complex remains poorly defined. In the present study, we applied a comprehensive GPCR/Gα chemical cross-linking strategy to map a receptor/Gα interface, both prior to and after agonist-induced receptor activation. By employing the M3 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (M3R)/Gαq system as a model system, we examined the ability of ~250 combinations of Cys-substituted M3R and Gαq proteins to undergo cross-link formation. We identified many specific M3R/Gαq contact sites, both in the inactive and the active receptor conformation, allowing us to draw conclusions regarding the basic architecture of the M3R/Gαq interface and the nature of the conformational changes following receptor activation. Since heterotrimeric G proteins as well as most GPCRs share a high degree of structural homology, our findings should be of broad general relevance.
We investigated a series of sulfonamide boronic acids that resulted from the merging of two unrelated AmpC β-lactamase inhibitor series. The new boronic acids differed in the replacement of the canonical carboxamide, found in all penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics, with a sulfonamide. Surprisingly, these sulfonamides had a highly distinct structure-activity relationship from the previously explored carboxamides, high ligand efficiencies (up to 0.91), Ki values down to 25 nM and up to 23 times better for smaller analogs. Conversely, Ki values were 10 to 20 times worse for larger molecules than in the carboxamide congener series. X-ray crystal structures (1.6–1.8 Å) of AmpC with three of the new sulfonamides suggest that this altered structure-activity relationship results from the different geometry and polarity of the sulfonamide versus the carboxamide. The most potent inhibitor reversed β-lactamase-mediated resistance to third generation cephalosporins, lowering their minimum inhibitory concentrations up to 32-fold in cell culture.
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