The Binding Mechanism of a Peptidic Cyclic Serine Protease Inhibitor
Serine proteases are classical objects for studies of catalytic and inhibitory mechanisms as well as interesting as therapeutic targets. Since small-molecule serine protease inhibitors generally suffer from specificity problems, peptidic inhibitors, isolated from phage-displayed peptide libraries, h...
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Published in | Journal of molecular biology Vol. 412; no. 2; pp. 235 - 250 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
Elsevier Ltd
16.09.2011
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Serine proteases are classical objects for studies of catalytic and inhibitory mechanisms as well as interesting as therapeutic targets. Since small-molecule serine protease inhibitors generally suffer from specificity problems, peptidic inhibitors, isolated from phage-displayed peptide libraries, have attracted considerable attention. Here, we have investigated the mechanism of binding of peptidic inhibitors to serine protease targets. Our model is upain-1 (CSWRGLENHRMC), a disulfide-bond-constrained competitive inhibitor of human urokinase-type plasminogen activator with a noncanonical inhibitory mechanism and an unusually high specificity. Using a number of modified variants of upain-1, we characterised the upain-1–urokinase-type plasminogen activator complex using X-ray crystal structure analysis, determined a model of the peptide in solution by NMR spectroscopy, and analysed binding kinetics and thermodynamics by surface plasmon resonance and isothermal titration calorimetry. We found that upain-1 changes both main-chain conformation and side-chain orientations as it binds to the protease, in particular its Trp3 residue and the surrounding backbone. The properties of upain-1 are strongly influenced by the addition of three to four amino acids long N-terminal and C-terminal extensions to the core, disulfide-bond-constrained sequence: The C-terminal extension stabilises the solution structure compared to the core peptide alone, and the protease-bound structure of the peptide is stabilised by intrapeptide contacts between the N-terminal extension and the core peptide around Trp3. These results provide a uniquely detailed description of the binding of a peptidic protease inhibitor to its target and are of general importance in the development of peptidic inhibitors with high specificity and new inhibitory mechanisms.
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► Upain-1 is a 12-residue-long cyclic disulfide-bond-constrained peptide. ► Upain-1 is a specific competitive inhibitor of urokinase-type plasminogen activator. ► NMR spectroscopy was used to determine a model for the solution structure of upain-1. ► The structure of the upain-1–enzyme complex was determined by X-ray crystallography. ► Upain-1 changes conformation as it binds to the enzyme. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0022-2836 1089-8638 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.jmb.2011.07.028 |