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Design, synthesis and functional characteristics of low molecular weight proline-rich motif (PRM) mimetics recognized by PRM binding domains

Subject Area Pharmacology
Term from 2007 to 2015
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 29078704
 
Final Report Year 2014

Final Report Abstract

Protein-protein interactions (PPI) are often mediated by specialized domains that represent difficult targets for ligand design. A particularly prominent group of such domains like ena/VASP homology 1 (EVH1), src-homology 3 (SH3), WW and GYF domains specifically recognize short proline-rich motifs (PRM) adopting a left-handed polyproline II helix (PPII) conformation. PRM-mediated PPI are widely utilized by nature and are involved in several relevant biological processes such as tyrosine kinase receptor signalling, endocytosis, cytoskeletal rearrangements, transcription, and splicing. Competitive small organic compounds are, so far, not known. Within the project, we developed a toolkit of rationally designed new chemical entities mimicking diproline and xP fragments in PPII conformation. Based on these building blocks we developed highly effective non-peptidic inhibitors of ena/VASP family EVH1 domains. We could show that these new inhibitors modulate the actin filament synthesis in invasive cancer cell lines. To prove that our toolkit of building blocks offers many applications, we synthesized peptide chimeras based on known Fyn-SH3, YAP-WW, and GYF peptides where PRMs are replaced by the new building blocks. We could demonstrate that these compounds bind to the specific PRM-binding regions of these domains.

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