scholarly journals Peptide Targeting of PDZ-Dependent Interactions as Pharmacological Intervention in Immune-Related Diseases

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (21) ◽  
pp. 6367
Author(s):  
Luis H. Gutiérrez-González ◽  
Selma Rivas-Fuentes ◽  
Silvia Guzmán-Beltrán ◽  
Angélica Flores-Flores ◽  
Jorge Rosas-García ◽  
...  

PDZ (postsynaptic density (PSD95), discs large (Dlg), and zonula occludens (ZO-1)-dependent interactions are widely distributed within different cell types and regulate a variety of cellular processes. To date, some of these interactions have been identified as targets of small molecules or peptides, mainly related to central nervous system disorders and cancer. Recently, the knowledge of PDZ proteins and their interactions has been extended to various cell types of the immune system, suggesting that their targeting by viral pathogens may constitute an immune evasion mechanism that favors viral replication and dissemination. Thus, the pharmacological modulation of these interactions, either with small molecules or peptides, could help in the control of some immune-related diseases. Deeper structural and functional knowledge of this kind of protein–protein interactions, especially in immune cells, will uncover novel pharmacological targets for a diversity of clinical conditions.

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 700-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Habibe Cansu Demirel ◽  
Tunca Dogan ◽  
Nurcan Tuncbag

Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs) are the key components in many cellular processes including signaling pathways, enzymatic reactions and epigenetic regulation. Abnormal interactions of some proteins may be pathogenic and cause various disorders including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Although inhibiting PPIs with small molecules is a challenging task, it gained an increasing interest because of its strong potential for drug discovery and design. The knowledge of the interface as well as the structural and chemical characteristics of the PPIs and their roles in the cellular pathways is necessary for a rational design of small molecules to modulate PPIs. In this study, we review the recent progress in the field and detail the physicochemical properties of PPIs including binding hot spots with a focus on structural methods. Then, we review recent approaches for structural prediction of PPIs. Finally, we revisit the concept of targeting PPIs from a systems biology perspective and we refer to approaches that are usually employed when the structural information is not present.


Author(s):  
Philipp Walch ◽  
Joel Selkrig ◽  
Leigh A. Knodler ◽  
Mandy Rettel ◽  
Frank Stein ◽  
...  

SummaryIntracellular bacterial pathogens inject effector proteins into host cells to hijack diverse cellular processes and promote their survival and proliferation. To systematically map effector-host protein-protein interactions (PPIs) during infection, we generated a library of 32 Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (STm) strains expressing chromosomally encoded affinity-tagged effector proteins, and quantified PPIs in macrophages and epithelial cells by Affinity-Purification Quantitative Mass-Spectrometry. Thereby, we identified 25 previously described and 421 novel effector-host PPIs. While effectors converged on the same host cellular processes, most had multiple targets, which often differed between cell types. Using reciprocal co-immunoprecipitations, we validated 13 out of 22 new PPIs. We then used this host-pathogen physical interactome resource to demonstrate that SseJ and SseL collaborate in redirecting cholesterol to the Salmonella Containing Vacuole (SCV) via NPC1, PipB directly recruits the organelle contact site protein PDZD8 to the SCV, and SteC promotes actin bundling by directly phosphorylating formin-like proteins.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 767-781
Author(s):  
Vanessa Pinatto Gaspar ◽  
Anelise Cardoso Ramos ◽  
Philippe Cloutier ◽  
José Renato Pattaro Junior ◽  
Francisco Ferreira Duarte Junior ◽  
...  

KIN (Kin17) protein is overexpressed in a number of cancerous cell lines, and is therefore considered a possible cancer biomarker. It is a well-conserved protein across eukaryotes and is ubiquitously expressed in all cell types studied, suggesting an important role in the maintenance of basic cellular function which is yet to be well determined. Early studies on KIN suggested that this nuclear protein plays a role in cellular mechanisms such as DNA replication and/or repair; however, its association with chromatin depends on its methylation state. In order to provide a better understanding of the cellular role of this protein, we investigated its interactome by proximity-dependent biotin identification coupled to mass spectrometry (BioID-MS), used for identification of protein–protein interactions. Our analyses detected interaction with a novel set of proteins and reinforced previous observations linking KIN to factors involved in RNA processing, notably pre-mRNA splicing and ribosome biogenesis. However, little evidence supports that this protein is directly coupled to DNA replication and/or repair processes, as previously suggested. Furthermore, a novel interaction was observed with PRMT7 (protein arginine methyltransferase 7) and we demonstrated that KIN is modified by this enzyme. This interactome analysis indicates that KIN is associated with several cell metabolism functions, and shows for the first time an association with ribosome biogenesis, suggesting that KIN is likely a moonlight protein.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ylenia Cau ◽  
Daniela Valensin ◽  
Mattia Mori ◽  
Sara Draghi ◽  
Maurizio Botta

14-3-3 is a class of proteins able to interact with a multitude of targets by establishing protein-protein interactions (PPIs). They are usually found in all eukaryotes with a conserved secondary structure and high sequence homology among species. 14-3-3 proteins are involved in many physiological and pathological cellular processes either by triggering or interfering with the activity of specific protein partners. In the last years, the scientific community has collected many evidences on the role played by seven human 14-3-3 isoforms in cancer or neurodegenerative diseases. Indeed, these proteins regulate the molecular mechanisms associated to these diseases by interacting with (i) oncogenic and (ii) pro-apoptotic proteins and (iii) with proteins involved in Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases. The discovery of small molecule modulators of 14-3-3 PPIs could facilitate complete understanding of the physiological role of these proteins, and might offer valuable therapeutic approaches for these critical pathological states.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhong-Qiu Yu ◽  
Xiao-Man Liu ◽  
Dan Zhao ◽  
Dan-Dan Xu ◽  
Li-Lin Du

Protein-protein interactions are vital for executing nearly all cellular processes. To facilitate the detection of protein-protein interactions in living cells of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, here we present an efficient and convenient method termed the Pil1 co-tethering assay. In its basic form, we tether a bait protein to mCherry-tagged Pil1, which forms cortical filamentary structures, and examine whether a GFP-tagged prey protein colocalizes with the bait. We demonstrate that this assay is capable of detecting pairwise protein-protein interactions of cytosolic proteins and nuclear proteins. Furthermore, we show that this assay can be used for detecting not only binary protein-protein interactions, but also ternary and quaternary protein-protein interactions. Using this assay, we systematically characterized the protein-protein interactions in the Atg1 complex and in the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PtdIns3K) complexes and found that Atg38 is incorporated into the PtdIns3K complex I via an Atg38-Vps34 interaction. Our data show that this assay is a useful and versatile tool and should be added to the routine toolbox of fission yeast researchers.


MedChemComm ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 2216-2227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wiktoria Jedwabny ◽  
Szymon Kłossowski ◽  
Trupta Purohit ◽  
Tomasz Cierpicki ◽  
Jolanta Grembecka ◽  
...  

A computationally affordable, non-empirical model based on electrostatic multipole and dispersion terms successfully predicts the binding affinity of inhibitors of menin–MLL protein–protein interactions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 2881-2896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Carro

Antibiotics are potent pharmacological weapons against bacterial infections; however, the growing antibiotic resistance of microorganisms is compromising the efficacy of the currently available pharmacotherapies. Even though antimicrobial resistance is not a new problem, antibiotic development has failed to match the growth of resistant pathogens and hence, it is highly critical to discover new anti-infective drugs with novel mechanisms of action which will help reducing the burden of multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Protein–protein interactions (PPIs) are involved in a myriad of vital cellular processes and have become an attractive target to treat diseases. Therefore, targeting PPI networks in bacteria may offer a new and unconventional point of intervention to develop novel anti-infective drugs which can combat the ever-increasing rate of multidrug-resistant bacteria. This review describes the progress achieved towards the discovery of molecules that disrupt PPI systems in bacteria for which inhibitors have been identified and whose targets could represent an alternative lead discovery strategy to obtain new anti-infective molecules.


BMC Genomics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Humza A. Khan ◽  
Manish J. Butte

Abstract Background Inborn errors of immunity (IEI) are a group of genetic disorders that impair the immune system, with over 400 genes described so far, and hundreds more to be discovered. To facilitate the search for new genes, we need a way to prioritize among all the genes in the genome those most likely to play an important role in immunity. Results Here we identify a new list of genes by linking known IEI genes to new ones by using open-source databases of protein-protein interactions, post-translational modifications, and transcriptional regulation. We analyze this new set of 2,530 IEI-related genes for their tolerance of genetic variation and by their expression levels in various immune cell types. Conclusions By merging genes derived from protein interactions of known IEI genes with transcriptional data, we offer a new list of candidate genes that may play a role in as-yet undiscovered IEIs.


2010 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. A32
Author(s):  
Alba Chimirri ◽  
Laura De Luca ◽  
Stefania Ferro ◽  
Rosaria Gitto ◽  
Anna Maria Monforte ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5638
Author(s):  
Jinhong Cho ◽  
Jinyoung Park ◽  
Eunice EunKyeong Kim ◽  
Eun Joo Song

Deubiquitinating enzymes regulate various cellular processes, particularly protein degradation, localization, and protein–protein interactions. The dysregulation of deubiquitinating enzyme (DUB) activity has been linked to several diseases; however, the function of many DUBs has not been identified. Therefore, the development of methods to assess DUB activity is important to identify novel DUBs, characterize DUB selectivity, and profile dynamic DUB substrates. Here, we review various methods of evaluating DUB activity using cell lysates or purified DUBs, as well as the types of probes used in these methods. In addition, we introduce some techniques that can deliver DUB probes into the cells and cell-permeable activity-based probes to directly visualize and quantify DUB activity in live cells. This review could contribute to the development of DUB inhibitors by providing important information on the characteristics and applications of various probes used to evaluate and detect DUB activity in vitro and in vivo.


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