ll
Resource
Yoneyama-Hirozane et al., 2017). The development of PARP monoenzymes and polyenzymes are differentiated by the type
monoenzyme assays is limited by a lack of understanding of residue found in that position, with hydrophobic isoleucine,
around the substrates for their MARylation activities, and at the leucine, or tyrosine residues found in most monoenzymes
time this work was initiated no antibodies capable of detecting (Leu189 and Tyr254 in PARP16), versus the polar glutamate
MARylation existed. While substrate identification efforts for found in polyenzymes, which contain the canonical H-Y-E motif
the PARP monoenzymes have been published (Carter-O’Connell (Glu1138 in PARP5b, Figure 1B). In addition to the energetic ben-
et al., 2016; Carter-O’Connell et al., 2018; Feijs et al., 2013; Jwa efits of placing a hydrophobic group on the ligand near a hydro-
and Chang, 2012; Lu et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2017), generating phobic residue in the protein, the isoindoline clashes with the
in vitro assays using the reported substrates has been chal- glutamate in overlays with H-Y-E PARP crystal structures (not
lenging (Wigle et al., 2019).
shown), further supporting the overall selectivity of this ligand
+
During our efforts to develop NAD -competitive inhibitors of for H-Y-I/L/Y PARPs over H-Y-E PARPs. It still retains binding
PARPmonoenzymes we havedeveloped an in-depthunderstand- to PARP1, PARP2 and PARP4, however on average relative to
ing of the structure-activity relationships (SAR) within the PARP other H-Y-I/L/Y PARPs it is 17-, 13-, and 15-fold selective,
+
family. We have identified regions of several NAD -competitive in- respectively. In this PARP16 crystal structure, there are three
hibitor templates that accommodate a wide range of substitutions independently solved copies of the protein-ligand complex per
without resulting in a loss of binding affinity. Inspired by previous asymmetric unit, and when the three copies are superimposed,
work in the kinase field where pan-inhibitor templates have been both the protein D loop and the piperidine moiety on the ligand
used to generate in vitro fluorescent (Lebakken et al., 2007) and reveal conformational flexibility. Notably, the piperidine in all
cellular NanoBRET probes (Machleidt et al., 2015), we took advan- three copies binds toward the surface of the pocket, exposing
tage of these observations and have generated a versatile set of vectors that extend toward solvent. This observation was ex-
+
NAD -competitive probes consisting of a PARP inhibitor con- ploited in the design of TR-FRET (RBN011147) and NanoBRET
nected to a fluorescent group or biotin moiety via a flexible linker. (RBN011198) probes (Figure 1C). Extensions off the piperidine
Here, we report the development of both in vitro and cellular probe NH with linkers connected to either biotin or fluorophore Nano-
displacement assays using these compounds. These high- BRET 590SE led to probes that retained affinity to the H-Y-I/L/
throughput biophysical assays do not require knowledge of the
Y
PARPs when compared with the parent molecule,
substrate for each PARP, circumventing a challenge to screening RBN010860. Based on the published crystal structure of the
these enzymes. The in vitro probe displacement assays are based literature inhibitor PJ34 bound to PARP5b (Figure 1B) (Abdel-
on time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (TR- karim et al., 2001; Haikarainen et al., 2014b), a separate probe
FRET) between acceptor and donor pairs bound to a hexahistidine was designed for the H-Y-E PARPs, which includes the monoen-
(
His6) tag on the protein and the biotin group on the active site zymes, PARP3 and PARP4. Using a similar concept, and exploit-
probe. The TR-FRET assays correlate well to enzyme inhibition as- ing a solvent-exposed vector, linkers connected to the fluoro-
says(Wigleetal., 2019),anduseupto50-foldlessprotein,typically phore NanoBRET 590SE were extended off the parent
improving the resolution of inhibitor potency to the single-digit molecule RBN011829, an analog of PJ34, to yield RBN012148
nanomolar range. The cellular assays are based on biolumines- (Figure 1D). The affinities of the probes for all the PARP enzymes
cence resonance energy transfer (BRET) between a NanoLuc- are shown in Figure 1E and tabulated in Table S1.
tagged protein and a fluorescent group on the active site probe
(
NanoBRET). The NanoBRET assays typically resolve inhibitor po- Development of TR-FRET Probe Displacement Assays
tency into the triple-digit picomolar range. A series of PARP inhib- for H-Y-I/L/Y PARPs Using RBN011147
itors was tested in both the TR-FRET and NanoBRET assays and The binding of RBN011147 to H-Y-(I/L/Y) PARPs was confirmed
we observed good correlation of potencies. In addition, we show using TR-FRET where donor/acceptor pairs consisting of two
that the NanoBRET assays can be used to investigate cellular resi- configurations shown in Figure 2A were examined: (1) streptavidin
dence times of PARP inhibitors. Overall, these assays are versatile labeled with europium chelate + anti-His antibody labeled with
biophysical tools that enable PARP chemical biology.
ULight dye and (2) streptavidin labeled with ULight dye + anti-
His antibody labeled with europium chelate. The configuration
that gave the best signal-to-background for each PARP was iden-
tified and selected for further assay development. An example of
the assay development process followed is shown for PARP7 in
RESULTS
Design of TR-FRET and NanoBRET Probes
RBN010860 is an inhibitor originating from a fragment screening Figures 2B–2E. First, a simultaneous titration of enzyme, active
hit against PARP16 that binds to several H-Y-I/L/Y PARPs with site probe, donor, and acceptor was performed and conditions
sub-micromolar affinity as measured by surface plasmon reso- for further assay development were selected based on achieving
nance (SPR) (Figure 1E; Table S1). A crystal structure of concentrations near the apex of the hook points while minimizing
RBN010860 bound to PARP16 is depicted in Figure 1A. protein use and ensuring robust signal-to-background (Figure 2B).
PARP16 has a canonical three-dimensional structure of PARP DMSO titrations were performed to understand the sensitivity of
monoenzyme active sites, and the binding mode of the com- the binding signal to the solvent used for solubilizing the test com-
pound in PARP16 is representative of the binding mode in other pounds (Figure 2C). In many instances there was significant
PARPs. The cis amide of the pyridazinone makes hydrogen DMSO sensitivity above 1% and we chose to use 0.25% DMSO
bonds with the backbone of Gly153, and the aromatic ring stacks in the assays to avoid major loss of signal. To search for control
with Tyr193. In addition, the observed binding mode places the compounds for each assay, a reference set of PARP inhibitors
hydrophobic isoindoline group in a region where most PARP plus the parent compound of the probe (RBN010860) was
878 Cell Chemical Biology 27, 877–887, July 16, 2020