Ubiquitination controls the stability of most cellular proteins, and its deregulation contributes to human diseases including cancer. Deubiquitinases remove ubiquitin from proteins, and their inhibition can induce the degradation of selected proteins, potentially including otherwise 'undruggable' targets. For example, the inhibition of ubiquitin-specific protease 7 (USP7) results in the degradation of the oncogenic E3 ligase MDM2, and leads to re-activation of the tumour suppressor p53 in various cancers. Here we report that two compounds, FT671 and FT827, inhibit USP7 with high affinity and specificity in vitro and within human cells. Co-crystal structures reveal that both compounds target a dynamic pocket near the catalytic centre of the auto-inhibited apo form of USP7, which differs from other USP deubiquitinases. Consistent with USP7 target engagement in cells, FT671 destabilizes USP7 substrates including MDM2, increases levels of p53, and results in the transcription of p53 target genes, induction of the tumour suppressor p21, and inhibition of tumour growth in mice.

To identify approaches to target DNA repair vulnerabilities in cancer, we discovered nanomolar potent, selective, low molecular weight (MW), allosteric inhibitors of the polymerase function of DNA polymerase Polθ, including ART558. ART558 inhibits the major Polθ-mediated DNA repair process, Theta-Mediated End Joining, without targeting Non-Homologous End Joining. In addition, ART558 elicits DNA damage and synthetic lethality in BRCA1- or BRCA2-mutant tumour cells and enhances the effects of a PARP inhibitor. Genetic perturbation screening revealed that defects in the 53BP1/Shieldin complex, which cause PARP inhibitor resistance, result in in vitro and in vivo sensitivity to small molecule Polθ polymerase inhibitors. Mechanistically, ART558 increases biomarkers of single-stranded DNA and synthetic lethality in 53BP1-defective cells whilst the inhibition of DNA nucleases that promote end-resection reversed these effects, implicating these in the synthetic lethal mechanism-of-action. Taken together, these observations describe a drug class that elicits BRCA-gene synthetic lethality and PARP inhibitor synergy, as well as targeting a biomarker-defined mechanism of PARPi-resistance.

Running title: Structures of mammalian glutamine synthetases Data deposition: The atomic coordinates and structure factors have been deposited at the Protein Data Bank, www.pdb.org (PDB ID codes 2UU7, 2OJW and 2QC8). * Manuscript 2 SummaryGlutamine synthetase catalyzes the ligation of glutamate and ammonia to form glutamine, with concomitant hydrolysis of ATP. In mammals, the activity eliminates cytotoxic ammonia, at the same time converting neurotoxic glutamate to harmless glutamine; there are a number of links between changes in glutamine synthetase activity and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's. In plants, because of its importance in the assimilation and re-assimilation of ammonia, the enzyme is a target of some herbicides. Glutamine synthetase is also a central component of bacterial nitrogen metabolism, and a potential drug target.Previous studies had investigated the structures of bacterial and plant glutamine synthetases. In the present publication, we report the first structures of mammalian glutamine synthetases. The apo form of the canine enzyme was solved by molecular replacement, and refined to a resolution of 3 Å. Two structures of human glutamine synthetase represent complexes with: a) phosphate, ADP, and manganese, and b) a phosphorylated form of the inhibitor methionine sulfoximine, ADP and manganese; these structures were refined to resolutions of 2.05 Å and 2.6 Å, respectively.Loop movements near the active site generate more closed forms of the eukaryotic enzymes when substrates are bound; the largest changes are associated with the binding of the nucleotide. Comparisons with earlier structures provide a basis for the design of drugs that are specifically directed at either human or bacterial enzymes. The site of binding the amino acid substrate is highly conserved in bacterial as well as eukaryotic glutamine synthetases, while the nucleotide-binding site varies to a much larger degree. Thus the latter site offers the best target for specific drug design. Differences between mammalian and plant enzymes are much more subtle, suggesting that herbicides targeting glutamine synthetase must be designed with caution.

The crystal structures of YibK from Haemophilus influenzae (HI0766) have been determined with and without bound cofactor product S-adenosylhomocysteine (AdoHcy) at 1.7 and 2.0 A resolution, respectively. The molecule adopts an alpha/beta fold, with a topology that differs from that of the classical methyltransferases. Most notably, HI0766 contains a striking knot that forms the binding crevice for the cofactor. The knot formation is correlated with an alternative arrangement of the secondary structure units compared with the classical methyltransferases. Two loop regions undergo conformational changes upon AdoHcy binding. In contrast to the extended conformation of the cofactor seen in the classical methyltransferase structures, AdoHcy binds to HI0766 in a bent conformation. HI0766 and its close sequence relatives are all shorter versions of the more remotely related rRNA/tRNA methyltransferases of the spoU sequence family. We propose that the spoU sequence family contains the same core domain for cofactor binding as HI0766 but has an additional domain for substrate binding. The substrate-binding domain is absent in HI0766 sequence family and may be provided by another Haemophilus influenzae partner protein, which is yet to be identified.