The use of biotinylated poly(ADP-ribose) for studies on poly(ADP-ribose)-protein interaction

Subcellular Quantitation of ADP-Ribosylation by High-Content Microscopy

ADP-ribosylation is a posttranslational modification with many functions ranging from the DNA damage response to transcriptional regulation. While nuclear ADP-ribosylation has been extensively studied in the context of genotoxic stress mediated by PARP1, signaling by other members of the family and in other cellular compartments is still not as well understood. In recent years, however, progress has been made with the development of new tools for detection of ADP-ribosylation by immunofluorescence, which allows for a spatial differentiation of signal intensity for different cellular compartments. Here, we present our method for the detection and quantification of compartment-specific ADP-ribosylation by immunofluorescence and show why the engineered macrodomain eAf5121 might be the best tool to date.

Small-Molecule Inhibitors of PARPs: From Tools for Investigating ADP-Ribosylation to Therapeutics

Over the last 60 years, poly-ADP-ribose polymerases (PARPs, 17 family members in humans) have emerged as important regulators of physiology and disease. Small-molecule inhibitors have been essential tools for unraveling PARP function, and recently the first PARP inhibitors have been approved for the treatment of various human cancers. However, inhibitors have only been developed for a few PARPs and in vitro profiling has revealed that many of these exhibit polypharmacology across the PARP family. In this review, we discuss the history, development, and current state of the field, highlighting the limitations and opportunities for PARP inhibitor development.

Quantitative analysis of the binding affinity of poly(ADP-ribose) to specific binding proteins as a function of chain length

Poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) is synthesized by poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases in response to genotoxic stress and interacts non-covalently with DNA damage checkpoint and repair proteins. Here, we present a variety of techniques to analyze this interaction in terms of selectivity and affinity. In vitro synthesized PAR was end-labeled using a carbonyl-reactive biotin analog. Binding of HPLC-fractionated PAR chains to the tumor suppressor protein p53 and to the nucleotide excision repair protein XPA was assessed using a novel electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA). Long ADP-ribose chains (55-mer) promoted the formation of three specific complexes with p53. Short PAR chains (16-mer) were also able to bind p53, yet forming only one defined complex. In contrast, XPA did not interact with short polymer, but produced a single complex with long PAR chains (55-mer). In addition, we performed surface plasmon resonance with immobilized PAR chains, which allowed establishing binding constants and confirmed the results obtained by EMSA. Taken together, we developed several new protocols permitting the quantitative characterization of PAR–protein binding. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the affinity of the non-covalent PAR interactions with specific binding proteins (XPA, p53) can be very high (nanomolar range) and depends both on the PAR chain length and on the binding protein.