Approaches to discovering drugs that regulate E3 ubiquitin ligases.

The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) plays an essential role in a wide variety of cell regulatory signaling pathways. The clinical effectiveness of the proteasome inhibitor Velcade in the treatment of several human cancers underscores the importance of the UPS as a novel target area for pharmaceutical intervention. E3 ubiquitin ligases are key enzyme complexes that regulate and determine the ubiquitination of specific substrates, whose abnormal regulation has been implicated in multiple disease phenotypes. Targeting a selective E3 ligase may allow specific manipulation of distinct pathways and eventually lead to a better therapeutic index with reduced nonspecific side effects. Here, we aim to discuss the challenges of interfering with small molecules in this target class, as well as current strategies and progress in E3 ligase drug discovery.

An automated high throughput filtration assay: application to polymerase inhibitor identification.

A high throughput filtration assay was developed and automated for screening compounds and natural product extracts using 96-well filterplates. The selection of a hydrophobic membrane and appropriate capture conditions enabled us to perform the enzymatic reaction, capture of products, vacuum filtration, and detection in a single filtration microplate, without any transfer step. The hydrophobic membrane has the advantage of preventing any loss of aqueous solution during the enzymatic reaction. The results are comparable with those obtained in a solid plate format followed by transferring the reaction mixture to a traditional hydrophilic filterplate. This assay is being used to screen for microbial RNA polymerase inhibitors as potential new drugs for treatment of emerging antibiotic-resistant bacterial and fungal infections. The filtration setup can be applied to a variety of assay systems.

A chemiluminescent microtiter plate assay for sensitive detection of protein kinase activity.

A chemiluminescent protein kinase assay using biotinylated substrate peptides captured on a streptavidin-coated microtiter plate and monoclonal antibodies to detect their phosphorylation is described. Assay conditions were optimized and validated for sensitive measurement of protein kinase A, protein kinase C, Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CAM-KII), receptor interacting protein, and src activities. The newly developed chemiluminescent assay has several advantages over currently used radioactive or colorimetric methods. It is highly sensitive at low enzyme and substrate concentrations and high, close to physiological ATP levels. It is fast, simple to perform and amenable to automation and high-throughput drug screening. The assay is also robust, exhibiting minimum interference from solvents and test substances from various sources. Overall, among the presently available methods for the detection of protein kinase activity, chemiluminescence was found to provide the highest sensitivity under conditions most closely mimicking the intracellular environment. This assay is expected to be useful in both academic and industrial laboratories, especially in identifying novel classes of protein kinase inhibitors.

Constitutive presence of a catalytic fragment of protein kinase C epsilon in a small cell lung carcinoma cell line.

Protein kinase C (PKC) has been implicated in a variety of cellular responses such as proliferation, differentiation, and secretion. We assessed the role of PKC in the mitogenic effects of gastrin-releasing peptide (in a small cell lung cancer (SCLC) cell line. Using antisera that specifically recognize the PKC isoforms alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon, we determined that PKC epsilon is the major isoform in the SCLC cell line NCI-N417, followed by PKC alpha and delta. In addition to the 90-kDa PKC epsilon, our anti-PKC epsilon antiserum specifically detected a 40-kDa immunoreactive protein. Treatment of the cells with either 20 nM phorbol myristate acetate or 50 nM GRP enhanced significantly the level of the 40-kDa protein in a time-dependent (1-8 h), cycloheximide-sensitive fashion. Subcellular fractionation revealed that 90% of PKC epsilon was in particulate form, while the 40-kDa immunoreactive protein was cytosolic. To test the hypothesis that the 40-kDa soluble protein represented a catalytically independent PKC epsilon fragment, cytosolic extracts were assayed for kinase activity. 45-50% of the activity was apparent in the absence of the PKC activators phosphatidylserine and diacylglycerol. This effector-independent kinase activity was further purified by affinity chromatography using a synthetic peptide corresponding to the pseudosubstrate region of PKC epsilon (ERMRPRKRQGAVRRRV) coupled to Sepharose. The partially purified protein, recognized by the anti-PKC epsilon antiserum, exhibited histone kinase activity with kinetics similar to those of the tryptically generated catalytic fragment of brain PKC epsilon. This activity was inhibited by staurosporine (IC50 = 1 x 10(-8) M) and by the pseudosubstrate inhibitor peptide (IC50 = 7.7 x 10(-8) M). The SCLC kinase and the brain PKC epsilon catalytic fragment were similar as indicated by the relative sizes of the PKC epsilon immunoreactive peptides generated with protease V8 from Staphylococcus aureus (Mr approximately 37,000, 34,000, 28,000, 26,000, and 25,000). Taken together, we conclude that a variant SCLC cell line expresses a constitutively active catalytic fragment of PKC epsilon. Regulation by 12-O-tetradecanoyl-13-acetate or GRP via de novo protein synthesis suggests a novel mechanism of control of PKC diversity with implications for small cell lung cancer and possibly other malignancies.

Transmembrane signaling by interferon alpha involves diacylglycerol production and activation of the epsilon isoform of protein kinase C in Daudi cells.

The early events that occur after treatment of the highly interferon alpha (IFN-alpha)-sensitive human lymphoblastoid Daudi cell line with human leukocyte IFN-alpha have been examined. IFN-alpha treatment of Daudi cells results in a rapid and transient increase in the cellular content of diacylglycerol, which occurs in the absence of inositol phospholipid turnover, or an increase in intracellular calcium concentration. Furthermore, IFN-alpha treatment results in a selective, time-dependent activation of the Ca(2+)-independent epsilon isoform of protein kinase C (PKC), while the alpha isoform is unaffected by IFN-alpha treatment. In contrast, IFN-alpha treatment of an IFN-resistant subclone of Daudi cells had no effect on the diacylglycerol content of cells and on the activation of PKC-epsilon. The selective PKC inhibitor staurosporine blocked the transcriptional activation of IFN-alpha-stimulated genes, the cytoplasmic accumulation of mRNAs for these genes, and the induction of antiviral activity by IFN-alpha against vesicular stomatitis virus in IFN-sensitive cells. These observations suggest that transmembrane signaling of IFN-alpha involves diacylglycerol production and activation of PKC-epsilon in Daudi cells.

Distinct mechanisms of regulation of protein kinase C epsilon by hormones and phorbol diesters.

In this study, we examined the effects of T cell activators on the regulation of protein kinase C (PKC) isozymes present in thymocytes. Using affinity-purified anti-PKC antisera, we determined that the major PKC isoforms in murine thymocytes are PKC beta and PKC epsilon. The CD4+/CD8+ thymocyte subset expressed high levels of both PKC beta and PKC epsilon, whereas the CD4-/CD8- subset expressed much less of both. PKC beta was down-regulated following treatment of thymocytes with phorbol 12-myristate acetate (PMA) (2 x 10(-8) M) or ionomycin (0.4 microM). In contrast, PMA did not induce the down-regulation of PKC epsilon. Ionomycin alone, however, induced PKC epsilon down-regulation, similar to its effect on PKC beta. Similar observations were made on a promonocytic cell line, U937, which expresses PKC alpha, PKC beta (Strulovici, B., Daniel-Issakani, S., Oto, E., Nestor, J., Jr., Chan, H., and Tsou, A.-P. (1989) Biochemistry 28, 3569-3576), and PKC epsilon. To facilitate the study of PKC beta and PKC epsilon, we established a Chinese hamster ovary cell line which expresses murine PKC epsilon in addition to endogenous PKC alpha and PKC beta. Both PKC isoforms (beta and epsilon) were mostly in particulate form. PMA treatment left the majority of immunoreactive PKC epsilon intact. By contrast, thrombin treatment caused the disappearance of particulate and cytosolic PKC epsilon (60% by 10 min and 80% by 1 h). PMA and thrombin promoted the down-regulation of PKC beta with similar kinetics (100% down-regulation by 3 h). These results indicate that: 1) thymocytes express PKC epsilon; and 2) this isozyme exhibits a novel form of regulation distinct from the other PKC isozymes.

Immunocharacterization of beta- and zeta-subspecies of protein kinase C in bovine neutrophils.

The isoforms present in a crude preparation of bovine neutrophil protein kinase (PKC) were identified by immunodetection with antibodies directed against specific sequences of bovine and rat brain PKC isozymes. The major isoform of bovine neutrophil PKC was identified as beta-PKC and the minor one as zeta-PKC.

Insulin stimulates the activity of a novel protein kinase C, PKC-epsilon, in cultured fetal chick neurons.

In this study we examined the effects of insulin on protein kinase C (PKC) activity in cultured fetal chick neurons. PKC activity, measured as 32P incorporation into histone H1 in the presence of calcium (500 microM), phosphatidylserine (100 micrograms/ml), and diolein (3.3 micrograms/ml) minus the incorporation in the presence of calcium alone, was detected in neuronal cytosolic (207 +/- 33 pmol/min/mg) and membrane (33 +/- 8 pmol/min/mg) fractions. Insulin added to intact neurons increased the activity of PKC in both cytosolic and membrane fractions by about 40%. Neurons preincubated with cycloheximide (10 micrograms/ml) 30 min prior to insulin treatment showed the same degree of stimulation of PKC activity by insulin. The activation of PKC was maximal within 5-10 min of insulin exposure and was sustained for at least 60 min. Insulin stimulated PKC in a dose-dependent manner, with a maximal response obtained at 100 ng/ml. Addition of phosphatidylserine and diolein to neuronal cell extracts resulted in the phosphorylation of four major cytosolic proteins (70, 57, 18, and 16 kDa) and one major membrane protein (75 kDa). Phosphorylation of all five proteins was increased 2-fold in extracts from insulin-treated neurons. Immunoblot analysis of whole cell extracts using antibodies against PKC-alpha, PKC-beta, PKC-gamma, PKC-delta, and PKC-epsilon revealed that cultured fetal chick neurons contained only one of these PKC isoforms, the epsilon-isoform. The enzyme was mostly cytosolic. Insulin had no effect on either the amount of distribution of PKC-epsilon in cultured neurons but induced a small change in the mobility of PKC-epsilon on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels. When assay conditions were designed to measure specifically the activity of PKC-epsilon, using a synthetic peptide substrate in the absence of calcium, activity was 50 +/- 12% higher in insulin-treated cells (p less than 0.005). PKC activity in control and insulin treated-neurons was almost completely inhibited when assays included a peptide identical to the pseudo-substrate binding site of PKC-epsilon. We conclude that PKC-epsilon is the major PKC isoform present in cultured fetal chick neurons. Insulin stimulates PKC-epsilon activity by a mechanism that does not involve translocation of the enzyme from cytosol to membrane.

Lipopolysaccharide response is linked to the GTP binding protein, Gi2, in the promonocytic cell line U937.

Phorbol esters induce the differentiation of the human promonocytic cell line U937 to a monocyte/macrophage. This process is associated with the induction of interleukin 1 beta (IL-1 beta) gene expression (Strulovici, B., Daniel-Issakani, S., Oto, E., Nestor, J., Jr., Chan, H., and Ping-Tsou, A. (1989) Biochemistry 28, 3569-3576). Here we describe the induction by phorbol esters of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) responsiveness in U937 cells. Preincubation with phorbol myristate acetate (TPA, 5 x 10(-8) M) for at least 4-6 h and up to 12 h followed by 3 h of LPS treatment induced a 4-fold enhancement in the accumulation of IL-1 beta transcripts compared to treatment with TPA alone. This "priming" effect was specific for protein kinase C agonists and required de novo protein synthesis. Exposure of [35S]methionine-labeled U937 cells to phorbol esters induced the de novo synthesis of a protein which migrated with a 40-kDa molecular mass in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, had an isoelectric point of 5.7 (p 40/5.7), and was recognized by a specific antibody to the pertussis toxin (PT)-sensitive Gi2. The time course for the appearance of Gi2 correlated with that for the induction of LPS responsiveness by TPA. Moreover, the LPS response was PT-sensitive. In cells treated with LPS for 5 min, Gi2 showed diminished ADP-ribosylation by PT. Treatment of U937 cells with LPS for 30 min induced phosphorylation of Gi2 and enhanced PT labeling. In a cell-free assay, phosphorylation of Gi2 by protein kinase C type III, rendered it a better PT substrate. The present findings thus suggest: 1) that TPA induces LPS responsiveness in U937 cells via de novo synthesis of Gi2; 2) that the LPS response (enhanced IL-1 production) is linked to a pertussis toxin-sensitive G protein which we identified as Gi2; and 3) that LPS leads to phosphorylation of Gi2.

Activation of distinct protein kinase C isozymes by phorbol esters: correlation with induction of interleukin 1 beta gene expression.

Treatment of human promyelocytic leukemia cells U937 with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (TPA) induces them to differentiate into monocytic cells [Harris, P., & Ralph, P. (1985) J. Leukocyte Biol. 37, 407-422]. Here we investigated the effects of TPA on interleukin 1 gene expression and the possible role of protein kinase C (PKC) in this process. Addition of TPA to serum-starved U937 cells induced the expression of the interleukin 1 beta (IL-1 beta) gene. This effect was apparent as early as 2 h and peaked at 24 h in the presence of 5 X 10(-8) M TPA. Higher concentrations of TPA, which partially or totally depleted protein kinase C levels in the cells (10(-9)-2 X 10(-5) M), had an inhibitory effect on IL-1 beta mRNA expression. Cell-permeable 1,2-dioctanoyl-sn-glycerol (diC8), a diacylglycerol that activates PKC in intact cells and cell-free systems, did not mimic the effect of TPA on the IL-1 beta mRNA induction. To determine the protein kinase C isozymes present in the control and TPA- (5 X 10(-8) M) treated U937 cells, we prepared antipeptide antibodies that specifically recognize the alpha, beta, and gamma isoforms of protein kinase C in rat brain cytosol and U937 cell extracts. In "control" U937 cells, 30% of PKC alpha was particulate, and PKC beta was cytosolic, while there was no detectable PKC gamma.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)