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Biology subjects

Vuorinen, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Vuorinen, A..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

A chemoproteomic platform for reactive fragment profiling against the deubiquitinases

Chemoproteomics is a powerful method capable of detecting interactions between small molecules and the proteome, however its use as a high-throughput screening method for chemical libraries has so far been limited. To address this need, we have further developed a chemoproteomics workflow to screen cysteine reactive covalent fragments in cell lysates against the deubiquitinating (DUB) enzymes using activity-based protein profiling. By using targeted ubiquitin probes, we have addressed sensitivity and affinity limitations, enabling target identification and covalent fragment library profiling in a 96-well plate format. The use of data independent acquisition (DIA) methods for MS analysis combined with automated Evosep liquid chromatography (LC) reduced instrument runtimes to 21 minutes per sample and simplified the workflow. In this proof-of-concept study, we have profiled 138 covalent fragments against 57 DUB proteins and validated four hit fragments against OTUD7B and UCHL3 through site identification experiments and orthogonal biochemical activity assays. Graphical abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=93 SRC="FIGDIR/small/526632v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (19K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@2e036borg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@e27962org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@8f1caaorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1a3159a_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

biochemistry↗

A novel tubulin binding molecule drives differentiation of acute myeloid leukaemia cells

Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) continues to have a poor prognosis, especially in the elderly. One reason for this is that many treatment regimens are not well tolerated by elderly patients. Much current focus is on the development of therapies that can target specific vulnerabilities of AML while having fewer toxic side effects. However, despite much recent progress in developing better drugs, many patients with AML still die within a year of diagnosis, partly due to the fact that it is difficult to identify therapeutic targets that are effective across multiple AML subtypes. One common factor across AML subtypes is the presence of a block in differentiation. Thus screening for compounds that can overcome this block in genetically diverse AML models should allow for the identification of agents that are not dependent on a specific mutation for their efficacy. Here, we used a phenotypic screen to identify novel compounds that stimulate differentiation in several AML cell lines. Lead compounds were shown to decrease tumour burden and to increase survival in vivo. Using multiple complementary target deconvolution approaches, these compounds were revealed to be anti-mitotic tubulin disruptors that cause differentiation by inducing a G2-M mitotic arrest. Together, these results reveal a novel function for tubulin disruptors in causing differentiation of AML cells.

cancer biology↗