Molecular imaging of phosphorylation events for drug development.

PURPOSE: Protein phosphorylation mediated by protein kinases controls numerous cellular processes. A genetically encoded, generalizable split firefly luciferase (FL)-assisted complementation system was developed for noninvasive monitoring phosphorylation events and efficacies of kinase inhibitors in cell culture and in small living subjects by optical bioluminescence imaging. PROCEDURES: An Akt sensor (AST) was constructed to monitor Akt phosphorylation and the effect of different PI-3K and Akt inhibitors. Specificity of AST was determined using a non-phosphorylable mutant sensor containing an alanine substitution (ASA). RESULTS: The PI-3K inhibitor LY294002 and Akt kinase inhibitor perifosine led to temporal- and dose-dependent increases in complemented FL activities in 293T human kidney cancer cells stably expressing AST (293T/AST) but not in 293T/ASA cells. Inhibition of endogenous Akt phosphorylation and kinase activities by perifosine also correlated with increase in complemented FL activities in 293T/AST cells but not in 293T/ASA cells. Treatment of nude mice bearing 293T/AST xenografts with perifosine led to a 2-fold increase in complemented FL activities compared to that of 293T/ASA xenografts. Our system was used to screen a small chemical library for novel modulators of Akt kinase activity. CONCLUSION: This generalizable approach for noninvasive monitoring of phosphorylation events will accelerate the discovery and validation of novel kinase inhibitors and modulators of phosphorylation events.

Transforming growth factor-beta regulation of bone morphogenetic protein-1/procollagen C-proteinase and related proteins in fibrogenic cells and keratinocytes.

Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) induces increased extracellular matrix deposition. Bone morphogenetic protein-1 (BMP-1) also plays key roles in regulating vertebrate matrix deposition; it is the procollagen C-proteinase (PCP) that processes procollagen types I-III, and it may also mediate biosynthetic processing of lysyl oxidase and laminin 5. Here we show that BMP-1 is itself up-regulated by TGF-beta1 and that secreted BMP-1, induced by TGF-beta1, is either processed to an active form or remains as unprocessed proenzyme, in a cell type-dependent manner. In MG-63 osteosacrcoma cells, TGF-beta1 elevated levels of BMP-1 mRNA approximately 7-fold and elevated levels of mRNA for mammalian tolloid (mTld), an alternatively spliced product of the BMP1 gene, to a lesser extent. Induction of RNA was dose- and time-dependent and cycloheximide-inhibitable. Secreted BMP-1 and mTld, induced by TGF-beta1 in MG-63 and other fibrogenic cell cultures, were predominantly in forms in which proregions had been removed to yield activated enzyme. TGF-beta1 treatment also induced procollagen N-proteinase activity in fibrogenic cultures, while expression of the procollagen C-proteinase enhancer (PCPE), a glycoprotein that stimulates PCP activity, was unaffected. In contrast to fibrogenic cells, keratinocytes lacked detectable PCPE under any culture conditions and were induced by TGF-beta1 to secrete BMP-1 and mTld predominantly as unprocessed proenzymes.

RNA cleavage and chain elongation by Escherichia coli DNA-dependent RNA polymerase in a binary enzyme.RNA complex.

In the absence of DNA, Escherichia coli RNA polymerase (EC 2.7.7.6) can bind RNA to form an equimolar binary complex with the concomitant release of the sigma factor. We show now that E. coli RNA polymerase binds at a region near the 3' terminus of the RNA and that an RNA in such RNA.RNA polymerase complexes undergoes reactions previously thought to be unique to nascent RNA in ternary complexes with DNA. These include GreA/GreB-dependent cleavage of the RNA and elongation by 3'-terminal addition of NMP from NTP. Both of these reactions are inhibited by rifampicin. Hence, by several criteria, the RNA in binary complexes is bound to the polymerase in a manner quite similar to that in ternary complexes. These findings can be explained by a model for the RNA polymerase ternary complex in which the RNA is bound at the 3' terminus through two protein binding sites located up to 10 nt apart. In this model, the stability of RNA binding to the polymerase in the ternary complex is due primarily to its interaction with the protein.

A C-terminal deletion in Corynebacterium glutamicum homoserine dehydrogenase abolishes allosteric inhibition by L-threonine.

In Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Corynebacterium glutamicum, homoserine dehydrogenase (HD), the enzyme after the branch point of the threonine/methionine and lysine biosynthetic pathways, is allosterically inhibited by L-threonine. To investigate the regulation of the C. glutamicum HD enzyme by L-threonine, the structural gene, hom, was mutated by UV irradiation of whole cells to obtain a deregulated allele, homdr. L-Threonine inhibits the wild-type (wt) enzyme with a Ki of 0.16 mM. The deregulated enzyme remains 80% active in the presence of 50 mM L-threonine. The homdr gene mutant was isolated and cloned in E. coli. In a C. glutamicum wt host background, but not in E. coli, the cloned homdr gene is genetically unstable. The cloned homdr gene is overexpressed tenfold in C. glutamicum and is active in the presence of over 60 mM L-threonine. Sequence analysis revealed that the homdr mutation is a single nucleotide (G1964) deletion in codon 429 within the hom reading frame. The resulting frame-shift mutation radically alters the structure of the C terminus, resulting in ten amino acid (aa) changes and a deletion of the last 7 aa relative to the wt protein. These observations suggest that the C terminus may be associated with the L-threonine allosteric response. The homdr mutation is unstable and probably deleterious to the cell. This may explain why only one mutation was obtained despite repeated mutagenesis.