Discovery and Characterization of Peptide Inhibitors for Calcium and Integrin Binding Protein 1

ACS Chem Biol. 2020 Jun 19;15(6):1505-1516. doi: 10.1021/acschembio.0c00144. Epub 2020 May 26.

Abstract

Calcium and integrin binding protein 1 (CIB1) is an EF-hand-containing, small intracellular protein that has recently been implicated in cancer cell survival and proliferation. In particular, CIB1 depletion significantly impairs tumor growth in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Thus, CIB1 is a potentially attractive target for cancer chemotherapy that has yet to be validated by a chemical probe. To produce a probe molecule to the CIB1 helix 10 (H10) pocket and demonstrate that it is a viable target for molecular intervention, we employed random peptide phage display to screen and select CIB1-binding peptides. The top peptide sequence selected, UNC10245092, was produced synthetically, and binding to CIB1 was confirmed by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and a time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (TR-FRET) assay. Both assays showed that the peptide bound to CIB1 with low nanomolar affinity. CIB1 was cocrystallized with UNC10245092, and the 2.1 Å resolution structure revealed that the peptide binds as an α-helix in the H10 pocket, displacing the CIB1 C-terminal H10 helix and causing conformational changes in H7 and H8. UNC10245092 was further derivatized with a C-terminal Tat-derived cell penetrating peptide (CPP) to demonstrate its effects on TNBC cells in culture, which are consistent with results of CIB1 depletion. These studies provide a first-in-class chemical tool for CIB1 inhibition in cell culture and validate the CIB1 H10 pocket for future probe and drug discovery efforts.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Calcium-Binding Proteins / antagonists & inhibitors*
  • Calorimetry / methods
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Drug Discovery
  • Humans
  • Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions
  • Protein Conformation

Substances

  • CIB1 protein, human
  • Calcium-Binding Proteins