The macrolactone archazolid is a novel, highly specific V-ATPase inhibitor with an IC 50
Vacuolar ATPases (V-ATPases)3 are heteromultimeric proteins that use the energy of ATP hydrolysis to translocate protons from the cytoplasm into intracellular compartments or across the plasma membrane of eukaryotic cells. This transport of protons is mediated by the membrane-integral V O complex, whereas the cleavage of ATP occurs at the cytoplasmatic V 1 complex (1). The V O complex is composed of single copies of subunits a, d, and e, and the ring-forming proteolipid subunits c, cЉ, and in fungi subunit cЈ also (2). Based on the crystal structure from the V O ring of K subunits, a homologue of the H ϩ -translocating subunit c in the V-type Na ϩ -ATPase from Enterococcus hirae, and a cryoelectron microscopy structure from the V-ATPase of Manduca sexta, an arrangement of 10 subunits is proposed for the V O ring (3, 4). The subunits c and cЈ are predicted to have four transmembrane helices (TM 1 to 4), whereas subunit cЉ contains an additional fifth transmembrane helix. All proteolipid subunits contain a conserved glutamate residue, subunits c and cЈ in TM4 and subunit cЉ in TM3, which are essential for proton transport across the membrane (2). This glutamate is a target for the covalent binding inhibitor N,NЈ-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCCD) and its derivatives (5-8).By regulating the pH homeostasis and membrane energization of cells, V-ATPases are involved in a variety of fundamental processes like vesicular trafficking or secondary transport. In addition, plasma membrane V-ATPases are responsible for extracellular acidification, e.g. in osteoclasts or metastasing tumor cells, and therefore play an important role in severe diseases such as osteoporosis or cancer (7). For these reasons the V-ATPase is a promising therapeutic target, and inhibitors of this enzyme are the focus of biomedical research. A variety of such compounds has been discovered of which the plecomacrolide inhibitors bafilomycin and concanamycin are the best studied examples (9). With IC 50 values at low nanomolar concentrations these compounds are highly specific inhibitors of the V-ATPase (10). Throughout the past years the binding site and inhibition mechanism of the plecomacrolides has been studied in more detail. In 2002 Bowman et al. (11) identified via mutagenesis studies in Neurospora crassa amino acids in V O subunit c that contribute to the binding of bafilomycin. In the same year photoaffinity labeling studies with the radioactive concanamycin derivative 125 I-concanolid A also resulted in the *