Cyclic Peptidic Mimetics of Apollo Peptides Targeting Telomeric Repeat Binding Factor 2 (TRF2) and Apollo Interaction

• Published in: ACS medicinal chemistry letters Vol. 9; no. 5; pp. 507 - 511
• Main Authors: Chen, Xia, Liu, Liu, Chen, Yong, Yang, Yuting, Yang, Chao-Yie, Guo, Tianyue, Lei, Ming, Sun, Haiying, Wang, Shaomeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: WASHINGTON American Chemical Society 10.05.2018; Amer Chemical Soc; American Chemical Society (ACS)
• Subjects: Apollo; Chemistry, Medicinal; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; Letter; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; peptidic mimetics; Pharmacology & Pharmacy; protein−protein interaction; Science & Technology; Telomere; TRF2; peptidic mimetics; Telomere; TRF2; Apollo; protein−protein interaction; CELLS; COMPLEX; SHELTERIN; DNA; POT1; protein-protein interaction; SNM1B/APOLLO; PROTECTS HUMAN TELOMERES; PROTEINS
• ISSN: 1948-5875; 1948-5875
• DOI: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.8b00152

Telomeric repeat binding factor 2 (TRF2) is a telomere-associated protein that plays an important role in the formation of the 3′ single strand DNA overhang and the “T loop”, two structures critical for the stability of the telomeres. Apollo is a 5′-exonuclease recruited by TRF2 to the telomere and contributes to the formation of the 3′ single strand DNA overhang. Knocking down of Apollo can induce DNA damage response similar to that caused by the knocking down of TRF2. In this Letter, we report the design and synthesis of a class of cyclic peptidic mimetics of the TRFH binding motif of Apollo (ApolloTBM). We found conformational control of the C terminal residues of ApolloTBM can effectively improve the binding affinity. We have obtained a crystal structure of a cyclic peptidic Apollo peptide mimetic (34) complexed with TRF2, which provides valuable guidance to the future design of TRF2 inhibitors.