Summary The glyoxylate shunt plays an important role in fatty-acid metabolism, and has been shown to be critical to survival of several pathogens involved in chronic infections. For Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), a strain with a defective glyoxylate shunt was previously shown to be unable to establish infection in a mouse model. We report the development of novel phenyl-diketo acid (PDKA) inhibitors of malate synthase (GlcB), one of two glyoxylate shunt enzymes, using structure-based methods. PDKA inhibitors were active against Mtb grown on acetate, and over-expression of GlcB ameliorated this inhibition. Crystal structures of complexes of GlcB with PDKA inhibitors were used to guide optimization of potency. A selected PDKA compound demonstrated efficacy in a mouse model of tuberculosis. The discovery of these PDKA derivatives provides chemical validation of GlcB as an attractive target for tuberculosis therapeutics.
Mammalian polyamine oxidases (PAO) catalyze the oxidation of N1-acetylspermine and N1-acetylspermidine to produce N-acetyl-3-aminopropanaldehyde and spermidine or putrescine. Structurally, PAO is a member of the monoamine oxidase family of flavoproteins. The effects of pH on kinetic parameters of mouse PAO have been determined to provide insight into the protonation state of the polyamine required for catalysis and the roles of ionizable residues in the active site in amine oxidation. For N1-acetylspermine, N1-acetylspermidine, and spermine, the k cat /K amine -pH profiles are bell-shaped. In each case the profile agrees with that expected if the productive form of the substrate has a single positively charged nitrogen. The pK i -pH profiles for a series of polyamine analogs are most consistent with the nitrogen at the site of oxidation being neutral and one other nitrogen being positively charged in the reactive form of the substrate. With N1-acetylspermine as substrate, the value of k red , the limiting rate constant for flavin reduction, is pH dependent, decreasing below a pK a value of 7.3, again consistent with the requirement for an uncharged nitrogen for substrate oxidation. Lys315 in PAO corresponds to a conserved active site residue found throughout the monoamine oxidase family. Mutation of Lys315 to methionine has no effect on the k cat /K amine profile for spermine, the k red value with N1-acetylspermine is only 1.8-fold lower in the mutant protein, and the pK a in the k red -pH profile with N1-acetylspermine shifts to 7.8. These results rule out Lys315 as a source of a pK a in the k cat /K amine or k cat /k red profiles. They also establish that this residue does not play a critical role in amine oxidation by PAO.The polyamines spermine and spermidine are essential for cell proliferation, with higher levels being found in rapidly growing cells (1,2). This observation suggests that compounds which decrease the levels of polyamines in cells have potential as antineoplastic agents. Indeed, the polyamine biosynthetic pathway has been heavily studied with the goal of developing enzyme inhibitors (2-4). The pathway begins with the formation of putrescine from ornithine catalyzed by ornithine decarboxylase. Putrescine is then converted to spermine by two sequential reactions catalyzed by spermidine synthase, forming first spermidine and then spermine, using decarboxylated S-adenosylmethione as the propylamine donor in both steps. In the opposite † This work was supported in part by grants from the NIH (R01 GM58698 to P.F.F. and T32 GM065088 to M.H.P.) and The Welch Foundation (A-1245 to P.F.F.) *Address correspondence to: Paul F. Fitzpatrick, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, 2128 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-2128, Ph: 979-845-5487; Fax: 979-845-4946, Email: fitzpat@tamu.edu, After Feb. 1, 2009,
A method for improving the identification of peptides in a shotgun proteome analysis using accurate mass measurement has been developed. The improvement is based upon the derivatization of cysteine residues with a novel reagent, 2,4-dibromo-(2'-iodo)acetanilide. The derivitization changes the mass defect of cysteine-containing proteolytic peptides in a manner that increases their identification specificity. Peptide masses were measured using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron mass spectrometry. Reactions with protein standards show that the derivatization of cysteine is rapid and quantitative, and the data suggest that the derivatized peptides are more easily ionized or detected than unlabeled cysteine-containing peptides. The reagent was tested on a 15N-metabolically labeled proteome from M. maripaludis. Proteins were identified by their accurate mass values and from their nitrogen stoichiometry. A total of 47% of the labeled peptides are identified versus 27% for the unlabeled peptides. This procedure permits the identification of proteins from the M. maripaludis proteome that are not usually observed by the standard protocol and shows that better protein coverage is obtained with this methodology.
Homo sapiens kynureninase is a pyridoxal-5'-phosphate dependent enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolytic cleavage of 3-hydroxykynurenine to yield 3-hydroxyanthranilate and L-alanine as part of the tryptophan catabolic pathway leading to the de novo biosynthesis of NAD(+). This pathway results in quinolinate, an excitotoxin that is an NMDA receptor agonist. High levels of quinolinate have been correlated with the etiology of neurodegenerative disorders such as AIDS-related dementia and Alzheimer's disease. We have synthesized a novel kynureninase inhibitor, 3-hydroxyhippurate, cocrystallized it with human kynureninase, and solved the atomic structure. On the basis of an analysis of the complex, we designed a series of His-102, Ser-332, and Asn-333 mutants. The H102W/N333T and H102W/S332G/N333T mutants showed complete reversal of substrate specificity between 3-hydroxykynurenine and L-kynurenine, thus defining the primary residues contributing to substrate specificity in kynureninases.
Fluorescence anisotropy has been used to monitor the effect of ligands on a mobile loop over the active site of tyrosine hydroxylase. Phe184 in the center of the loop was mutated to tryptophan, and the three native tryptophan residues were mutated to phenylalanine to form an enzyme with a single tryptophan residue in the mobile loop. The addition of 6-methyl-5-deazatetrahydropterin to the enzyme resulted in a significant increase in the fluorescence anisotropy. The addition of phenylalanine did not result in a significant change in the anisotropy in the presence or absence of the deazapterin. The K(d) value for the deazapterin was unaffected by the presence of phenylalanine. Qualitatively similar results were obtained with apoenzyme, except that the addition of phenylalanine led to a slight decrease in anisotropy. Frequency-domain lifetime measurements showed that the distribution of lifetimes was unaffected by both the amino acid and deazapterin. Frequency-domain anisotropy analyses were consistent with a decrease in the motion of the sole tryptophan in the presence of the deazapterin. This could be modeled as a decrease in the cone angle for the indole ring of about 12 degrees . The data are consistent with a model in which binding of a tetrahydropterin results in a change in the conformation of the surface loop required for proper formation of the amino acid binding site.
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