Discovering novel calcineurin inhibitors through quantitative mapping of protein-peptide affinity landscapes

Abstract

Transient, regulated binding of globular protein domains to Short Linear Motifs (SLiMs) in disordered regions of other proteins drives cellular signaling. Mapping the energy landscapes of these interactions is essential for deciphering and therapeutically perturbing signaling networks, but is challenging due to their weak affinities. We present a powerful technology, MRBLE-pep, that simultaneously quantifies protein binding to a library of peptides directly synthesized on beads containing unique spectral codes. Using computational modeling and MRBLE-pep, we systematically probe binding of calcineurin (CN), a conserved protein phosphatase essential for the immune response and target of immunosuppressants, to the PxIxIT SLiM. We establish that flanking residues and post- translational modifications critically contribute to PxIxIT-CN affinity, and discover CN-inhibitory peptides with unprecedented affinity and therapeutic potential. The quantitative measurements provided by this approach will improve computational modeling efforts, elucidate a broad range of weak protein-SLiM interactions, and revolutionize our understanding of signaling networks.