Compound profiling using a panel of steroid hormone receptor cell-based assays

A major focus in the current discovery of drugs targeting nuclear receptors (NRs) is identifying drugs with reduced side effects by improving selectivity, not only from other receptors but also by selective modulation of the NR of interest. Cellular assays not only provide valuable information on functional activity, potency, and selectivity but also are ideally suited for differentiating partial agonists and antagonists. The ability to partially activate a receptor is believed to be closely tied to the ability to selectively modulate the NR, resulting in expression of a subset of the normally regulated genes. To this end, the authors have built a complete panel of cell-based steroid hormone receptor assays for the androgen receptor, estrogen receptor alpha, estrogen receptor beta, glucocorticoid receptor, mineralocorticoid receptor, and progesterone receptor by stably engineering a Gal4 DNA-binding domain/nuclear receptor ligand-binding domain fusion protein into an upstream activation sequence beta-lactamase reporter cell line. Each assay was validated with known agonists and antagonists for correct pharmacology and high-throughput compatibility. To demonstrate the utility of these assays, the authors profiled 35 pharmacologically relevant compounds in a dose-response format against the panel in both agonist and antagonist modes. The results demonstrated that selective estrogen receptor modulators can be identified and differentiated, as well as mixed and partial agonists and antagonists easily detected in the appropriate assays. Importantly, a comparison of the chimeric assays with full-length reporter gene assay data from the literature shows a good degree of correlation in terms of selectivity and pharmacology of important ligands. Taken together, these steroid hormone receptor assays provide good selectivity, sensitivity, and appropriate pharmacology for high-throughput screening and selectivity profiling of modulators of steroid hormone receptors.     

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of nuclear receptor-degradation inducers

Compounds that regulate the function(s) of nuclear receptors (NRs) are useful for biological studies and as candidate therapeutic agents. Most such compounds are agonists or antagonists. On the other hand, we have developed specific protein degradation inducers, which we designated as SNIPERs (Specific and Nongenetic IAPs-dependent Protein ERasers), for selective degradation of target proteins. SNIPERs are hybrid molecules consisting of an appropriate ligand for the protein of interest, coupled to a ligand for inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs), which target the bound protein for polyubiquitination and proteasomal degradation. We considered that protein knockdown with SNIPERs would be a promising alternative approach for modulating NR function. In this study, we designed and synthesized degradation inducers targeting retinoic acid receptor (RAR), estrogen receptor (ER), and androgen receptor (AR). These newly synthesized RAR, ER, and AR SNIPERs, 9, 11, and 13, respectively, were confirmed to significantly reduce the levels of the corresponding NRs in live cells.     

Macro Domain家族成员LRP16是多种核受体的相互作用因子

LRP16基因是macro domain家族成员之一,C末端含有唯一的1个保守的功能结构域. 既往研究表明,该基因具有雌激素反应性,并可通过与雌激素受体α （ERα）相互作用调控其转录活性.近期我研究组发现,LRP16可与雄激素受体（AR）的共激活因子ART-27相互作用.本研究首先通过GST pull-down方法验证LRP16/ART-27/AR三者之间相互作用关系,并用免疫共沉淀实验明确了LRP16与AR存在直接的相互作用,且这种相互作用并不依赖于ART-27的存在;采用GST pull-down进一步明确LRP16与AR相互作用的结构域.结果发现,LRP16通过C端的macro domain结构域与AR的LBD域相互作用;鉴于核受体家族有较高程度的氨基酸序列保守性与功能结构域的相似性,通过GST pull-down验证了LRP16与核受体超家族成员ERβ、GR、PPARα、PPARγ的相互作用,提示LRP16至少还可与ERα以外的5个核受体家族成员相互作用;进一步采用核受体荧光素酶报告基因转染细胞,通过检测荧光素酶活性证实LRP16可增强AR、GR、ERβ、PPARα、PPARγ的转录激活活性.本研究初步证实,macro domain家族成员LRP16可与多个核受体相互作用,并增强其转录激活活性,是核受体家族的共激活因子,为进一步研究LRP16在核受体转录调控中的生理病理学功能奠定基础.