Design of a peptidic inhibitor that targets the dimer interface of a prototypic galectin

• Published in: Oncotarget Vol. 6; no. 38; pp. 40970 - 40980
• Main Authors: Vladoiu, Maria Claudia, Labrie, Marilyne, Létourneau, Myriam, Egesborg, Philippe, Gagné, Donald, Billard, Étienne, Grosset, Andrée-Anne, Doucet, Nicolas, Chatenet, David, St-Pierre, Yves
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Impact journals 01.12.2015; Impact Journals LLC
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Amino Acid Substitution; Apoptosis - drug effects; Blotting, Western; Cellular Biology; Drug Design; Galectins - antagonists & inhibitors; Galectins - chemistry; Galectins - genetics; Humans; Jurkat Cells; Life Sciences; Models, Molecular; Peptides - chemical synthesis; Peptides - pharmacology; Protein Binding; Protein Multimerization - drug effects; Protein Structure, Quaternary; Recombinant Proteins - chemistry; Recombinant Proteins - metabolism; Recombinant Proteins - pharmacology; Research Paper; T-cells; apoptosis; peptide; inhibitor; galectin
• ISSN: 1949-2553; 1949-2553
• DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.5403

Galectins are small soluble lectins that bind α-galactosides via their carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD). Their ability to dimerize is critical for the crosslinking of glycoprotein receptors and subsequent cellular signaling. This is particularly important in their immunomodulatory role via the induction of T-cell apoptosis. Because galectins play a central role in many pathologies, including cancer, they represent valuable therapeutic targets. At present, most inhibitors have been directed towards the CRD, a challenging task in terms of specificity given the high structural homology of the CRD among galectins. Such inhibitors are not effective at targeting CRD-independent functions of galectins. Here, we report a new class of galectin inhibitors that specifically binds human galectin-7 (hGal-7), disrupts the formation of homodimers, and inhibits the pro-apoptotic activity of hGal-7 on Jurkat T cells. In addition to representing a new means to achieve specificity when targeting galectins, such inhibitors provide a promising alternative to more conventional galectin inhibitors that target the CRD with soluble glycans or other small molecular weight allosteric inhibitors.