1. Academic Validation
  2. Proteomic discovery of chemical probes that perturb protein complexes in human cells

Proteomic discovery of chemical probes that perturb protein complexes in human cells

  • Mol Cell. 2023 May 18;83(10):1725-1742.e12. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2023.03.026.
Michael R Lazear 1 Jarrett R Remsberg 2 Martin G Jaeger 1 Katherine Rothamel 3 Hsuan-Lin Her 3 Kristen E DeMeester 1 Evert Njomen 1 Simon J Hogg 4 Jahan Rahman 4 Landon R Whitby 5 Sang Joon Won 1 Michael A Schafroth 1 Daisuke Ogasawara 1 Minoru Yokoyama 1 Garrett L Lindsey 1 Haoxin Li 1 Jason Germain 1 Sabrina Barbas 1 Joan Vaughan 6 Thomas W Hanigan 1 Vincent F Vartabedian 7 Christopher J Reinhardt 1 Melissa M Dix 1 Seong Joo Koo 8 Inha Heo 8 John R Teijaro 7 Gabriel M Simon 5 Brahma Ghosh 9 Omar Abdel-Wahab 4 Kay Ahn 10 Alan Saghatelian 6 Bruno Melillo 11 Stuart L Schreiber 12 Gene W Yeo 3 Benjamin F Cravatt 13
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
  • 2 Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. Electronic address: remsberg@scripps.edu.
  • 3 Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
  • 4 Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10021, USA.
  • 5 Vividion Therapeutics, 5820 Nancy Ridge Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA.
  • 6 Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA.
  • 7 Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
  • 8 Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Discovery Technologies and Molecular Pharmacology, Janssen Research and Development, Turnhoutseweg 30, 2340 Beerse, Belgium.
  • 9 Discovery Chemistry, Janssen Research & Development, Spring House, PA 19477, USA.
  • 10 Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Discovery Technologies and Molecular Pharmacology, Janssen Research and Development, Spring House, PA 19477, USA.
  • 11 Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
  • 12 Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science Program, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
  • 13 Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. Electronic address: cravatt@scripps.edu.
Abstract

Most human proteins lack chemical probes, and several large-scale and generalizable small-molecule binding assays have been introduced to address this problem. How compounds discovered in such "binding-first" assays affect protein function, nonetheless, often remains unclear. Here, we describe a "function-first" proteomic strategy that uses size exclusion chromatography (SEC) to assess the global impact of electrophilic compounds on protein complexes in human cells. Integrating the SEC data with cysteine-directed activity-based protein profiling identifies changes in protein-protein interactions that are caused by site-specific liganding events, including the stereoselective engagement of cysteines in PSME1 and SF3B1 that disrupt the PA28 Proteasome regulatory complex and stabilize a dynamic state of the spliceosome, respectively. Our findings thus show how multidimensional proteomic analysis of focused libraries of electrophilic compounds can expedite the discovery of chemical probes with site-specific functional effects on protein complexes in human cells.

Keywords

activity-based protein profiling; chemical probe; covalent; cysteine; proteasome; protein complexes; proteomics; size-exclusion chromatography; spliceosome.

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