Pin1 WW Domain Ligand Library Synthesized with an Easy Solid-Phase Phosphorylating Reagent

Cell cycle regulatory enzyme Pin1 both catalyzes pSer/Thr-cis/trans-Pro isomerization and binds the same motif separately in its WW domain. To better understand the function of Pin1, a way to separate these activities is needed. An unnatural peptide library, R¹CO–pSer–Pro–NHR², was designed to identify ligands specific for the Pin1 WW domain. A new solid-phase phosphorylating reagent (SPPR) containing a phosphoramidite functional group was synthesized in one step from Wang resin. The SPPR was used in the preparation of the library by parallel synthesis. The final 315-member library was screened with our WW-domain-specific, enzyme-linked enzyme-binding assay (ELEBA). Four of the best hits were resynthesized, and the competitive dissociation constants were measured by ELEBA. NMR chemical-shift perturbations (CSP) of ligands with ¹⁵N-labeled Pin1 were used to measure K_d for the best four ligands directly, demonstrating that they were specific Pin1 WW domain ligands. Models of the ligands bound to the Pin1 WW domain were used to visualize the mode of binding in the WW domain.