1
|
Ganegamage S, Ramirez E, Alnakhala H, Tripathi A, Nguyen CCD, Zami A, Ostafe R, Tian S, Dettmer U, Fortin JS. 1,4-Diurea- and 1,4-Dithiourea-Substituted Aromatic Derivatives Selectively Inhibit α-Synuclein Oligomer Formation In Vitro. ACS Omega 2024; 9:1216-1229. [PMID: 38222653 PMCID: PMC10785335 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.3c07453] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Revised: 11/28/2023] [Accepted: 11/30/2023] [Indexed: 01/16/2024]
Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, affecting the elderly population worldwide. In PD, the misfolding of α-synuclein (α-syn) results in the formation of inclusions referred to as Lewy bodies (LB) in midbrain neurons of the substantia nigra and other specific brain localizations, which is associated with neurodegeneration. There are no approved strategies to reduce the formation of LB in the neurons of patients with PD. Our drug discovery program focuses on the synthesis of urea and thiourea compounds coupled with aminoindole moieties to abrogate α-syn aggregation and to slow down the progression of PD. We synthesized several urea and thiourea analogues with a central 1,4-phenyl diurea/thiourea linkage and evaluated their effectiveness in reducing α-syn aggregation with a special focus on the selective inhibition of oligomer formation among other proteins. We utilized biophysical methods such as thioflavin T (ThT) fluorescence assays, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), photoinduced cross-linking of unmodified proteins (PICUP), as well as M17D intracellular inclusion cell-based assays to evaluate the antiaggregation properties and cellular protection of our best compounds. Our results identified compound 1 as the best compound in reducing α-syn fibril formation via ThT assays. The antioligomer formation of compound 1 was subsequently superseded by compound 2. Both compounds selectively curtailed the oligomer formation of α-syn but not tau 4R isoforms (0N4R, 2N4R) or p-tau (isoform 1N4R). Compounds 1 and 2 failed to abrogate tau 0N3R fibril formation by ThT and atomic force microscopy. Compound 2 was best at reducing the formation of recombinant α-syn fibrils by TEM. In contrast to compound 2, compound 1 reduced the formation of α-syn inclusions in M17D neuroblastoma cells in a dose-dependent manner. Compound 1 may provide molecular scaffolds for the optimization of symmetric molecules for its α-syn antiaggregation activity with potential therapeutic applications and development of small molecules in PD.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Susantha
K. Ganegamage
- Department
of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Eduardo Ramirez
- Department
of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Heba Alnakhala
- Ann
Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical
School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States
| | - Arati Tripathi
- Ann
Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical
School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States
| | - Cuong Calvin Duc Nguyen
- Department
of Chemistry, College of Sciences, Purdue
University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Ashique Zami
- Purdue
Institute for Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Raluca Ostafe
- Purdue
Institute for Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Shiliang Tian
- Department
of Chemistry, College of Sciences, Purdue
University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| | - Ulf Dettmer
- Ann
Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical
School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States
| | - Jessica S. Fortin
- Department
of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Cho H, Lee J, Nho H, Lee K, Gim B, Lee J, Lee J, Ewert KK, Li Y, Feinstein SC, Safinya CR, Jin KS, Choi MC. Synchrotron X-ray study of intrinsically disordered and polyampholytic Tau 4RS and 4RL under controlled ionic strength. Eur Phys J E Soft Matter 2023; 46:73. [PMID: 37653246 DOI: 10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00328-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2023] [Accepted: 07/25/2023] [Indexed: 09/02/2023]
Abstract
Aggregated and hyperphosphorylated Tau is one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Tau is a polyampholytic and intrinsically disordered protein (IDP). In this paper, we present for the first time experimental results on the ionic strength dependence of the radius of gyration (Rg) of human Tau 4RS and 4RL isoforms. Synchrotron X-ray scattering revealed that 4RS Rg is regulated from 65.4 to 58.5 Å and 4RL Rg is regulated from 70.9 to 57.9 Å by varying ionic strength from 0.01 to 0.592 M. The Rg of 4RL Tau is larger than 4RS at lower ionic strength. This result provides an insight into the ion-responsive nature of intrinsically disordered and polyampholytic Tau, and can be implicated to the further study of Tau-Tau and Tau-tubulin intermolecular structure in ionic environments.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Hasaeam Cho
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea
| | - Jimin Lee
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea
| | - Hanjoon Nho
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea
| | - Keunmin Lee
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea
| | - Bopil Gim
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea
| | - Juncheol Lee
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea
| | - Jaehee Lee
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea
| | - Kai K Ewert
- Materials Department, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Department, Physics Department, and Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - Youli Li
- Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - Stuart C Feinstein
- Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Department, College of Creative Studies Biology, Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - Cyrus R Safinya
- Materials Department, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Department, Physics Department, and Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - Kyeong Sik Jin
- Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, POSTECH, Pohang, 37673, Korea
- Division of Advanced Nuclear Engineering, POSTECH, Pohang, 37673, Korea
| | - Myung Chul Choi
- Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea.
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
He X, Man VH, Gao J, Wang J. Investigation of the Structure of Full-Length Tau Proteins with Coarse-Grained and All-Atom Molecular Dynamics Simulations. ACS Chem Neurosci 2023; 14:209-217. [PMID: 36563129 DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.2c00381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Tau proteins not only have many important biological functions but also are associated with several neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, it is still a challenge to identify the atomic structure of full-length tau proteins due to their lengthy and disordered characteristics and the factor that there are no crystal structures of full-length tau proteins available. We performed multi- and large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of the full-length tau monomer (the 2N4R isoform and 441 residues) in aqueous solution under biological conditions with coarse-grained and all-atom force fields. The obtained atomic structures produced radii of gyration and chemical shifts that are in excellent agreement with those of experiment. The generated monomer structure ensemble would be very useful for further studying the oligomerization mechanism and discovering tau oligomerization inhibitors, which are important events in AD drug development.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Xibing He
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Computational Chemical Genomics Screening Center, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States
| | - Viet Hoang Man
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Computational Chemical Genomics Screening Center, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States
| | - Jie Gao
- Department of Neuroscience, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio 43210, United States
| | - Junmei Wang
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Computational Chemical Genomics Screening Center, School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Tesei G, Lindorff-Larsen K. Improved predictions of phase behaviour of intrinsically disordered proteins by tuning the interaction range. Open Res Eur 2023; 2:94. [PMID: 37645312 PMCID: PMC10450847 DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.14967.2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/16/2022] [Indexed: 08/31/2023]
Abstract
The formation and viscoelastic properties of condensates of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) is dictated by amino acid sequence and solution conditions. Because of the involvement of biomolecular condensates in cell physiology and disease, advancing our understanding of the relationship between protein sequence and phase separation (PS) may have important implications in the formulation of new therapeutic hypotheses. Here, we present CALVADOS 2, a coarse-grained model of IDPs that accurately predicts conformational properties and propensities to undergo PS for diverse sequences and solution conditions. In particular, we systematically study the effect of varying the range of the nonionic interactions and use our findings to improve the temperature scale of the model. We further optimize the residue-specific model parameters against experimental data on the conformational properties of 55 proteins, while also leveraging 70 hydrophobicity scales from the literature to avoid overfitting the training data. Extensive testing shows that the model accurately predicts chain compaction and PS propensity for sequences of diverse length and charge patterning, as well as at different temperatures and salt concentrations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Giulio Tesei
- Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory & the Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Kresten Lindorff-Larsen
- Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory & the Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Tesei G, Lindorff-Larsen K. Improved predictions of phase behaviour of intrinsically disordered proteins by tuning the interaction range. Open Res Eur 2023; 2:94. [PMID: 37645312 PMCID: PMC10450847 DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.14967.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/16/2022] [Indexed: 02/13/2024]
Abstract
The formation and viscoelastic properties of condensates of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) is dictated by amino acid sequence and solution conditions. Because of the involvement of biomolecular condensates in cell physiology and disease, advancing our understanding of the relationship between protein sequence and phase separation (PS) may have important implications in the formulation of new therapeutic hypotheses. Here, we present CALVADOS 2, a coarse-grained model of IDPs that accurately predicts conformational properties and propensities to undergo PS for diverse sequences and solution conditions. In particular, we systematically study the effect of varying the range of the nonionic interactions and use our findings to improve the temperature scale of the model. We further optimize the residue-specific model parameters against experimental data on the conformational properties of 55 proteins, while also leveraging 70 hydrophobicity scales from the literature to avoid overfitting the training data. Extensive testing shows that the model accurately predicts chain compaction and PS propensity for sequences of diverse length and charge patterning, as well as at different temperatures and salt concentrations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Giulio Tesei
- Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory & the Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Kresten Lindorff-Larsen
- Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory & the Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Ye H, Han Y, Li P, Su Z, Huang Y. The Role of Post-Translational Modifications on the Structure and Function of Tau Protein. J Mol Neurosci 2022; 72:1557-1571. [PMID: 35325356 DOI: 10.1007/s12031-022-02002-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 03/14/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Involving addition of chemical groups or protein units to specific residues of the target protein, post-translational modifications (PTMs) alter the charge, hydrophobicity, and conformation of a protein, which in tune influences protein function, protein - protein interaction, and protein aggregation. While the occurrence of PTMs is dynamic and subject to regulations, conformational disorder of the target protein facilitates PTMs. The microtubule-associated protein tau is a typical intrinsically disordered protein that undergoes a variety of PTMs including phosphorylation, acetylation, ubiquitination, methylation, and oxidation. Accumulated evidence shows that these PTMs play a critical role in regulating tau-microtubule interaction, tau localization, tau degradation and aggregation, and reinforces the correlation between tau PTMs and pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disease. Here, we review tau PTMs with an emphasis on their influence on tau structure. With available biophysical characterization results, we describe how PTMs induce conformational changes in tau monomer and regulate tau aggregation. Compared to functional analysis of tau PTMs, biophysical characterization of tau PTMs is lagging. While it is challenging, characterizing the specific effects of PTMs on tau conformation and interaction is indispensable to unravel the tau PTM code.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Haiqiong Ye
- Key Laboratory of Industrial Fermentation (Ministry of Education), Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Hubei Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Department of Biological Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China
| | - Yue Han
- Key Laboratory of Industrial Fermentation (Ministry of Education), Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Hubei Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Department of Biological Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China
| | - Ping Li
- Key Laboratory of Industrial Fermentation (Ministry of Education), Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Hubei Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Department of Biological Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China
| | - Zhengding Su
- Key Laboratory of Industrial Fermentation (Ministry of Education), Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Hubei Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.,Department of Biological Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China
| | - Yongqi Huang
- Key Laboratory of Industrial Fermentation (Ministry of Education), Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China. .,Hubei Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China. .,Department of Biological Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China.
| |
Collapse
|