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Duclos RI, Blue KD, Rufo MJ, Chen X, Guo JJ, Ma X, Lencer WI, Chinnapen DJF. Conjugation of peptides to short-acyl-chain ceramides for delivery across mucosal cell barriers. Bioorg Med Chem Lett 2020; 30:127014. [PMID: 32081448 PMCID: PMC7174066 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2020.127014] [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] [Received: 12/06/2019] [Accepted: 02/04/2020] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
Robust transport of therapeutic peptides and other medicinal molecules across tight epithelial barriers would overcome the major obstacle to oral delivery. We have already demonstrated that peptides conjugated to gangliosides (GM1 and GM3) having non-native short N-acyl groups hijack the endogenous process of intracellular lipid sorting resulting in transcytosis and delivery across epithelial barriers in vitro and in vivo. Here, we report synthetic methodologies to covalently conjugate peptides directly to short-acyl-chain C6-ceramides. We found that the short-acyl-chain ceramide domain is solely responsible for transcytosis in vitro. This clarifies and expands the platform of short-acyl-chain sphingolipids for conjugated peptide delivery across tight mucosal cell barriers from gangliosides to just the ceramide itself.
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Affiliation(s)
- Richard I Duclos
- Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
| | - Kiara D Blue
- Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
| | - Michael J Rufo
- Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
| | - Xiaoling Chen
- Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
| | - Jason J Guo
- Barnett Institute for Chemical and Biological Analysis, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
| | - Xiaoyu Ma
- Barnett Institute for Chemical and Biological Analysis, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
| | - Wayne I Lencer
- Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, United States; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States; Harvard Digestive Diseases Center, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
| | - Daniel J F Chinnapen
- Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, United States; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
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Cho JA, Chinnapen DJF. Targeting friend and foe: Emerging therapeutics in the age of gut microbiome and disease. J Microbiol 2018; 56:183-188. [PMID: 29492875 DOI: 10.1007/s12275-018-8037-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2018] [Revised: 02/09/2018] [Accepted: 02/11/2018] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Mucosal surfaces that line our gastrointestinal tract are continuously exposed to trillions of bacteria that form a symbiotic relationship and impact host health and disease. It is only beginning to be understood that the cross-talk between the host and microbiome involve dynamic changes in commensal bacterial population, secretion, and absorption of metabolites between the host and microbiome. As emerging evidence implicates dysbiosis of gut microbiota in the pathology and progression of various diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, and allergy, conventional treatments that either overlook the microbiome in the mechanism of action, or eliminate vast populations of microbes via wide-spectrum antibiotics need to be reconsidered. It is also becoming clear the microbiome can influence the body's response to therapeutic treatments for cancers. As such, targeting the microbiome as treatment has garnered much recent attention and excitement from numerous research labs and biotechnology companies. Treatments range from fecal microbial transplantation to precision-guided molecular approaches. Here, we survey recent progress in the development of innovative therapeutics that target the microbiome to treat disease, and highlight key findings in the interplay between host microbes and therapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jin Ah Cho
- Department of Food and Nutrition, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 34134, Republic of Korea
| | - Daniel J F Chinnapen
- Division of Gastroenterology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, 02115, USA.
- Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, USA.
- Harvard Digestive Diseases Center, Boston, 02115, USA.
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Abstract
Experimental strategies involving in vitro selection, designed to test the validity of the "RNA World Hypothesis", have demonstrated a significantly broader catalytic range for RNA (and, nucleic acids in general) than found in naturally occurring ribozymes. We wished to explore whether photochemical reactions could be catalyzed by nucleic acid enzymes. In vitro selection experiments were carried out to obtain "photolyase" deoxyribozymes, capable of photoreversing thymine cyclobutane dimers in the presence of a cofactor, serotonin. During in vitro selection from a thymine-dimer containing random DNA library, irradiated with light >300 nm, two pools of catalytic nucleic molecules emerged--one that required serotonin for activity, and another pool that, surprisingly, did not. Characterization of the serotonin-independent clones indicated the optimal wavelength for its repair activity (approximately 1,400-fold) to be approximately 300 nm, notably red-shifted from the absorption maximum of the DNA itself. The folded enzyme may contain a G-quadruplex (whose spectra have red-shifted tails relative to duplex absorbance), and our hypothesis has the folded enzyme as an antenna for the efficient channelling of light or electrons to the thymine dimer, much in the manner of protein photolyases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dipankar Sen
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
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Abstract
DNA aptamers were selected for their ability to bind simultaneously to the protein cytochrome c and to the metalloporphyrin hemin. Such aptamers each contained a conserved guanine-rich core, analogous to sequences shown previously to form a hemin-binding site when folded. The detailed study of CH6A, a deletion mutant of one clone, indicated that in the presence of hemin the guanine-rich core of the aptamer folded to form a guanine quadruplex. Both hemin and potassium ions were required for this folding. The binding of fully oxidized cytochrome c to this DNA-hemin complex resulted in an absorbance difference spectrum in the Soret region, which could be used as an indicator of binding behavior. It was found that cytochrome c bound more tightly to the folded CH6A DNA-hemin complex than to the folded CH6A DNA alone. A single hemin molecule and a single cytochrome c bound to each molecule of folded CH6A. Footprinting experiments showed the binding site of the cytochrome c to be a partial duplex element of the aptamer, immediately flanking its guanine-rich hemin-binding site. The order of addition of hemin and cytochrome c appeared not to affect either the formation rate or the structure of the final ternary complex. The ternary complex represents the docking of a nucleic acid-heme complex to cytochrome c (a protein-heme complex). Future experiments will focus on investigating the optimal electron-transfer path between the two iron centers through intervening protein and DNA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel J F Chinnapen
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada
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