Computationally designed high specificity inhibitors delineate the roles of BCL2 family proteins in cancer
Abstract
Many cancers overexpress one or more of the six human pro-survival BCL2 family proteins to evade apoptosis. To determine which BCL2 protein or proteins block apoptosis in different cancers, we computationally designed three-helix bundle protein inhibitors specific for each BCL2 pro-survival protein. Following in vitro optimization, each inhibitor binds its target with high picomolar to low nanomolar affinity and at least 300-fold specificity. Expression of the designed inhibitors in human cancer cell lines revealed unique dependencies on BCL2 proteins for survival which could not be inferred from other BCL2 profiling methods. Our results show that designed inhibitors can be generated for each member of a closely-knit protein family to probe the importance of specific protein-protein interactions in complex biological processes.
Data availability
-
Computationally designed, high specificity inhibitors delineate the roles of BCL2 family proteins in cancerPublicly available at the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no: GSE80194).
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (P41GM103533)
- Stephanie Berger
- Erik Procko
- David Baker
Australian Research Council (FT150100212)
- Erinna F Lee
National Institutes of Health (R01 GM115545)
- Betty W Shen
- Barry L Stoddard
National Institutes of Health (R01 CA158921-04)
- Daciana Margineantu
- David M Hockenbery
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (HDTRA1-10-0040)
- Stephanie Berger
- Erik Procko
- David Baker
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI-027779)
- Stephanie Berger
- Erik Procko
- David Baker
National Science Foundation (Graduate Research Fellowship Program)
- Stephanie Berger
Worldwide Cancer Research (15-0025)
- Erinna F Lee
- W Douglas Fairlie
Cancer Council Victoria (1057949)
- Erinna F Lee
- W Douglas Fairlie
Pew Charitable Trusts
- Daniel-Adriano Silva
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología
- Daniel-Adriano Silva
National Health and Medical Research Council (1024620)
- Erinna F Lee
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Yibing Shan, DE Shaw Research, United States
Version history
- Received: August 4, 2016
- Accepted: November 1, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: November 2, 2016 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: November 29, 2016 (version 2)
- Version of Record updated: December 20, 2016 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2016, Berger et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 5,135
- views
-
- 1,082
- downloads
-
- 63
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Cancer Biology
- Cell Biology
Mutations in the gene for β-catenin cause liver cancer cells to release fewer exosomes, which reduces the number of immune cells infiltrating the tumor.
-
- Cancer Biology
- Cell Biology
Enhanced protein synthesis is a crucial molecular mechanism that allows cancer cells to survive, proliferate, metastasize, and develop resistance to anti-cancer treatments, and often arises as a consequence of increased signaling flux channeled to mRNA-bearing eukaryotic initiation factor 4F (eIF4F). However, the post-translational regulation of eIF4A1, an ATP-dependent RNA helicase and subunit of the eIF4F complex, is still poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that IBTK, a substrate-binding adaptor of the Cullin 3-RING ubiquitin ligase (CRL3) complex, interacts with eIF4A1. The non-degradative ubiquitination of eIF4A1 catalyzed by the CRL3IBTK complex promotes cap-dependent translational initiation, nascent protein synthesis, oncogene expression, and cervical tumor cell growth both in vivo and in vitro. Moreover, we show that mTORC1 and S6K1, two key regulators of protein synthesis, directly phosphorylate IBTK to augment eIF4A1 ubiquitination and sustained oncogenic translation. This link between the CRL3IBTK complex and the mTORC1/S6K1 signaling pathway, which is frequently dysregulated in cancer, represents a promising target for anti-cancer therapies.