A new role of low barrier hydrogen bond in mediating protein stability by small molecules

Low barrier hydrogen bond (LBHB) is a special type of hydrogen bond which occurs where two heteroatoms with similar pKa values share a single proton resulting in an unusually strong and short hydrogen bond. LBHBs in protein play important roles in enzyme catalysis and maintaining protein structural integrity but its other biochemical roles are unknown. Here we report a novel function of LBHB in selectively inducing tubulin protein degradation. A tubulin inhibitor, 3-(3-Phenoxybenzyl) amino-β-carboline (PAC), promotes selective degradation of αβ-tubulin heterodimers by binding to the colchicine site of β-tubulin. Biochemical studies have revealed that PAC specifically destabilizes tubulin, making it prone to aggregation that then predisposes it to ubiquitinylation and then degradation. Structural activity analyses have indicated that the destabilization is mediated by a single hydrogen bond formed between the pyridine nitrogen of PAC and βGlu198, which is identified as a LBHB. In contrast, another two tubulin inhibitors only forming normal hydrogen bonds with βGlu198 exhibit no degradation effect. Thus, the LBHB accounts for the degradation. Most importantly, we screened for compounds capable of forming LBHB with βGlu198 and demonstrated that BML284, a Wnt signaling activator, also promotes tubulin heterodimers degradation in a PAC-like manner as expected. Our study has identified a novel approach for designing tubulin degraders, providing a unique example of LBHB function and suggests that designing small molecules to form LBHBs with protein residues resulting in the highly specific degradation of a target protein could be a new strategy for drug development.