A Plug-and-Play Platform for the Formation of Trifunctional Cysteine Bioconjugates that also Offers Control over Thiol Cleavability

Linkers that enable the site-selective synthesis of chemically modified proteins are of great interest to the field of chemical biology. Homogenous bioconjugates often show advantageous pharmacokinetic profiles and consequently increased efficacy in vivo. Cysteine residues have been exploited as a route to site-selectively modify proteins, and many successfully approved therapeutics make use of cysteine directed conjugation reagents. However, commonly used linkers, including maleimide–thiol conjugates, are not stable to the low concentrations of thiol present in blood. Furthermore, only a few cysteine-targeting reagents enable the site-selective attachment of multiple functionalities: a useful tool in the fields of theranostics and therapeutic blood half-life extension. Herein, we demonstrate the application of the pyridazinedione motif to enable site-selective attachment of three functionalities to a protein bearing a single cysteine residue. Extending upon previously documented dual modification work, here we demonstrate that by exploiting a bromide leaving group as an additional reactive point on the pyridazinedione scaffold, a thiol or aniline derivative can be added to a protein, post-conjugation. Thiol cleavability appraisal of the resultant C–S and C–N linked thio-bioconjugates demonstrated C–S functionalized linkers to be cleavable and C–N functionalized linkers to be noncleavable when incubated in an excess of glutathione. The plug-and-play trifunctional platform was exemplified by attaching clinically relevant motifs: biotin, fluorescein, a polyethylene glycol chain, and a model peptide. This platform provides a rare opportunity to combine up to three functionalities on a protein in a site-selective fashion. Furthermore, by selecting the use of a thiol or an amine for functionalization, we provide unique control over linker cleavability toward thiols, allowing this novel linker to be applied in a range of physiological environments

Long receptor residence time of C26 contributes to super agonist activity at the human β2 adrenoceptor

Super agonists produce greater functional responses than endogenous agonists in the same assay, and their unique pharmacology is the subject of increasing interest and debate. We propose that receptor residence time and the duration of receptor signaling contribute to the pharmacology of super agonism. We have further characterized the novel β2 adrenoceptor agonist C26 (7-[(R)-2-((1R,2R)-2-benzyloxycyclopentylamino)-1-hydroxyethyl]-4-hydroxybenzothiazolone), which displays higher intrinsic activity than the endogenous ligand adrenaline in cAMP accumulation, β-arrestin-2 recruitment, and receptor internalization assays. C26 recruited β-arrestin-2, and internalized the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)-taggedβ2 adrenoceptor at a slow rate, with half-life (t1/2) values of 0.78 ± 0.1 and 0.78 ± 0.04 hours, respectively. This was compared with 0.31 ± 0.04 and 0.34 ± 0.01 hours for adrenaline-mediated β-arrestin-2 recruitment and GFP-β2 internalization, respectively. The slower rate for C26 resulted in levels of β-arrestin-2 recruitment increasing up to 4-hour agonist incubation, at which point the intrinsic activity was determined to be 124.3 ± 0.77% of the adrenaline response. In addition to slow functional kinetics, C26 displayed high affinity with extremely slow receptor dissociation kinetics, giving a receptor residence half-life of 32.7 minutes at 37°C, which represents the slowest dissociation rate we have observed for any β2 adrenoceptor agonist tested to date. In conclusion, we propose that the gradual accumulation of long-lived active receptor complexes contributes to the increased intrinsic activity of C26 over time. This highlights the need to consider the temporal aspects of agonist binding and signaling when characterizing ligands as super agonists