Tyrosine phosphorylation is a common protein posttranslational modification, which plays a critical role in signal transduction and the regulation of many cellular processes. Using a pro-peptide strategy to increase cellular uptake of O-phosphotyrosine (pTyr) and its nonhydrolyzable analog 4-phosphomethyl-L-phenylalanine (Pmp), we identified an orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pair that allows the site-specific incorporation of both pTyr and Pmp into recombinant proteins in response to the amber stop codon in Escherichia coli in good yields. The X-ray crystal structure of the synthetase reveals a reconfigured substrate binding site formed by non-conservative mutations and substantial local structural perturbations. We demonstrate the utility of this method by introducing Pmp into a putative phosphorylation site whose corresponding kinase is unknown and determined the affinities of the individual variants for the substrate 3BP2. In summary, this work provides a useful recombinant tool to dissect the biological functions of tyrosine phosphorylation at specific sites in the proteome.

Selected from random pools of DNA or RNA molecules through systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), aptamers can bind to target molecules with high affinity and specificity, which makes them ideal recognition elements in the development of biosensors. To date, aptamer-based biosensors have used a wide variety of detection techniques, which are briefly summarized in this article. The focus of this review is on the development of aptamer-based fluorescent biosensors, with emphasis on their design as well as properties such as sensitivity and specificity. These biosensors can be broadly divided into two categories: those using fluorescently-labeled aptamers and others that employ label-free aptamers. Within each category, they can be further divided into “signal-on” and “signal-off” sensors. A number of these aptamer-based fluorescent biosensors have shown promising results in biological samples such as urine and serum, suggesting their potential applications in biomedical research and disease diagnostics.

Antimicrobial drug resistance is one of the greatest threats facing mankind. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) can potentially circumvent drug resistance, probably through a bacterial membrane-disruption mechanism. However, they suffer from low in vivo stability, potential immunogenicity, and difficulty in optimization. The development of antimicrobial peptidomimetics is therefore an emerging research area as they avoid the potential disadvantages of AMPs. Cyclic peptidomimetics are of significant interest since constraints induced by cyclization are expected to further improve their antimicrobial activity. Nonetheless, the report of cyclic oligomeric peptidomimetics for antimicrobial development is rare. Herein, for the first time, we report the design and synthesis of cyclic g-AApeptides via an on-resin cyclization. These cyclic g-AApeptides are potent and broad-spectrum active against fungus and multidrug resistant Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial pathogens. Our results demonstrate the potential of cyclic g-AApeptides as a new class of antibiotics to circumvent drug resistance by mimicking the bactericidal mechanism of AMPs. Meanwhile, the facile synthesis of cyclic g-AApeptides may further expand the applications of g-AApeptides in biomedical sciences.

Ever since the invention of SELEX (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment), there has been rapid development for aptamers over the last two decades, making them a promising approach in therapeutic applications as either drug candidates or diagnostic tools. For therapeutic purposes, a durable performance of aptamers in biofluids is required, which is, however, hampered by the lack of stability of most aptamers. Not only are the nucleic acid aptamers susceptible to nucleases, the peptide aptamers are also subjective to degradation by proteases. With the advancement of chemical biology, numerous attempts have been made to overcome this obstacle, many resulting in significant improvements in stability. In this review, chemical modifications to increase the stability of three main types of aptamers, DNA, RNA and peptide are comprehensively summarized. For nucleic acid aptamers, development of modified SELEX coupled with mutated polymerase is discussed, which is adaptive to a number of modifications in aptamers and in a large extent facilitates the research of aptamer-modifications. For peptide aptamers, approaches in molecular biology with introduction of stabilizing protein as well as the switch of scaffold protein are included, which may represent a future direction of chemical conjugations to aptamers.

Thiopeptides are a subclass of ribosomally synthesized and posttranslationally modified peptides (RiPPs) with complex molecular architectures and an array of biological activities, including potent antimicrobial activity. Here we report the generation of thiopeptides containing noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) by introducing orthogonal amber suppressor aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs into a thiocillin producer strain of Bacillus cereus. We demonstrate that thiopeptide variants containing ncAAs with bioorthogonal chemical reactivity can be further postbiosynthetically modified with biophysical probes, including fluorophores and photo-cross-linkers. This work allows the site-specific incorporation of ncAAs into thiopeptides to increase their structural diversity and probe their biological activity; similar approaches can likely be applied to other classes of RiPPs.noncanonical amino acid | biosynthesis | natural products | thiopeptides | antibiotic

We have developed a novel antibody drug-conjugate (ADC) which can selectively deliver the Lck inhibitor dasatinib to human T lymphocytes. This ADC is based on a humanized antibody which selectively binds with high affinity to CXCR4, an antigen that is selectively expressed on hematopoietic cells. The resulting dasatinib-antibody conjugate suppresses T-cell-receptor (TCR)-mediated T cell activation and cytokine expression with low nM EC50 and has minimal effects on cell viability. This ADC may lead to a new class of selective immunosuppressive drugs with improved safety, and extends the antibody-drug conjugate strategy to the targeted delivery of kinase inhibitors for indications beyond oncology.

Inhibitors of heat-induced heat shock protein 70 (HSP70)a expression have the potential to enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of heat induced radiosensitization of tumors. Among known small molecule inhibitors, quercetin has the advantage of being easily modified for structure-activity studies. Herein, we report the ability of five mono-methyl and five carbomethoxymethyl derivatives of quercetin to inhibit heat-induced HSP70 expression and enhance HSP27 phosphorylation in human cells. While quercetin and several derivatives inhibit HSP70 induction and enhance HSP27 phosphorylation at Ser78, other analogs selectively inhibit HSP70 induction without enhancing HSP27 phosphorylation that would otherwise aid in cell survival. We also show that good inhibitors of HSP70 induction are also good inhibitors of both CK2 and CamKII, kinases that are known to activate HSP70 expression by phosphorylation of heat shock transcription factor 1. Derivatives that show poor inhibition of either or both kinases are not good inhibitors of HSP70 induction, suggesting that quercetin's effectiveness is due to its ability to inhibit both kinases.

Recent progresses in cancer therapy suggest the importance of targeting more than one protein targets or signaling pathways. In events of stresses including the therapeutic treatments, damaged proteins are either repaired by heat shock proteins or ubiquitin-tagged for proteasome-dependent protein degradation. Heat shock proteins mediated protein protection and cell signaling, as well as the ubiquitin-proteasomal degradation are thus central to cellular homeostasis, and are reported to play substantial roles in tumor cells' rapid-metabolism and stimuli-resistance. The up-regulated heat shock protein 90 (HSP90), heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) and 26S proteasome in cancer cells have been thereby recognized as important drug targets and are under intensive studies in recent years. While most research focuses on each target in a separate manner, simultaneous inhibition of more than one target results in an enhanced efficacy, especially in single-drug-resistant cancer cell line. In this review, current development of chemical inhibitors for these three core targets is summarized respectively and the progress on related simultaneous inhibitions has been discussed. In a perspective view, combined inhibitions of HSP 90/70 and the 26S proteasome could be a promising approach in cancer therapy and may suggest a future direction for drug-screening.