196713-98-1Relevant articles and documents
Structure-Enabled Discovery of a Stapled Peptide Inhibitor to Target the Oncogenic Transcriptional Repressor TLE1
McGrath, Sally,Tortorici, Marcello,Drouin, Ludovic,Solanki, Savade,Vidler, Lewis,Westwood, Isaac,Gimeson, Peter,Van Montfort, Rob,Hoelder, Swen
supporting information, p. 9577 - 9584 (2017/07/22)
TLE1 is an oncogenic transcriptional co-repressor that exerts its repressive effects through binding of transcription factors. Inhibition of this protein–protein interaction represents a putative cancer target, but no small-molecule inhibitors have been published for this challenging interface. Herein, the structure-enabled design and synthesis of a constrained peptide inhibitor of TLE1 is reported. The design features the introduction of a four-carbon-atom linker into the peptide epitope found in many TLE1 binding partners. A concise synthetic route to a proof-of-concept peptide, cycFWRPW, has been developed. Biophysical testing by isothermal titration calorimetry and thermal shift assays showed that, although the constrained peptide bound potently, it had an approximately five-fold higher Kd than that of the unconstrained peptide. The co-crystal structure suggested that the reduced affinity was likely to be due to a small shift of one side chain, relative to the otherwise well-conserved conformation of the acyclic peptide. This work describes a constrained peptide inhibitor that may serve as the basis for improved inhibitors.