Anna Charalampidou, Thomas Nehls, Christian Meyners, Satish Gandhesiri, Sebastian Pomplun, Bradley L. Pentelute, Frederik Lermyte and Felix Hausch*,
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Engineering at the amino acid level is key to enhancing the properties of existing proteins in a desired manner. So far, protein engineering has been dominated by genetic approaches, which have been extremely powerful but only allow for minimal variations beyond the canonical amino acids. Chemical peptide synthesis allows the unrestricted incorporation of a vast set of unnatural amino acids with much broader functionalities, including the incorporation of post-translational modifications or labels. Here we demonstrate the potential of chemical synthesis to generate proteins in a specific conformation, which would have been unattainable by recombinant protein expression. We use recently established rapid automated flow peptide synthesis combined with solid-phase late-stage modifications to rapidly generate a set of FK506-binding protein 51 constructs bearing defined intramolecular lactam bridges. This trapped an otherwise rarely populated transient pocket─as confirmed by crystal structures─which led to an up to 39-fold improved binding affinity for conformation-selective ligands and represents a unique system for the development of ligands for this rare conformation. Overall, our results show how rapid automated flow peptide synthesis can be applied to precision protein engineering.
The drug target FKBP51 can be selectively bound in an F67-out conformation, which, however, is populated to only 0.4% in the absence of ligands. By site-specific lactamization within the protein, enabled by automated flow peptide/protein synthesis, the F67-out-like conformation was stabilized.
期刊介绍:
ACS Central Science publishes significant primary reports on research in chemistry and allied fields where chemical approaches are pivotal. As the first fully open-access journal by the American Chemical Society, it covers compelling and important contributions to the broad chemistry and scientific community. "Central science," a term popularized nearly 40 years ago, emphasizes chemistry's central role in connecting physical and life sciences, and fundamental sciences with applied disciplines like medicine and engineering. The journal focuses on exceptional quality articles, addressing advances in fundamental chemistry and interdisciplinary research.