Modelling polyketide synthases and related macromolecular complexes

Polyketide synthases (PKS) are enzyme complexes that synthesise many natural products of medicinal interest, notably a large number of antibiotics. The present work investigated the mupirocin biosynthesis system, comparing it with similar pathways such as thiomarinol and kalimantacin. The focus was on the structural modelling of the protein complexes involved in antibiotic synthesis, via molecular simulation and the analysis of structural and sequence data. Structural docking of acyl carrier proteins (ACP) cognate for an HMG-CoA synthase orthologue responsible for β-methylation (MupH) identified key residues involved in the recognitions specificity of the interacting partners, further supported by mutagenesis experiments, which thus allows prediction of β-methylation sites in PKS. Moreover, complementation and mutagenesis experiments performed on MupH homologs from kalimantacin and thiomarinol systems suggests specificity between the ACP:HCS proteins in the β-branching suggesting the possibility of engineering multiple specific β-branching modifications into the same pathway. Molecular dynamics simulations of ACPs from the mupirocin cluster revealed that the PKS ACPs form a cavity upon the attachment of the phosphopantetheine and acyl chains similar to what is seen in the fatty acid synthase ACPs and provide a better understanding of the structure function relationship in these small proteins. Molecular docking of the putative cognate substrate with the ketosynthase (KS) homo dimer of module 5 of the MmpA in the mupirocin pathway revealed a loop that may control specificity for the α-hydroxylated substrate and mutagenesis experiments support this proposition

Highlights from the 1st Student Symposium on Computational Biology and Life Sciences, organised by ISCB Regional Student Group, UK

Abstract This short report summarises the scientific content and activities of a student-led event, the 1st student symposium by the UK Regional Student Group of the International Society for Computational Biology. The event took place on October 2014

Bioactivation of isoxazole-containing bromodomain and extra-terminal domain (BET) inhibitors

The 3,5-dimethylisoxazole motif has become a useful and popular acetyl-lysine mimic employed in isoxazole-containing bromodomain and extra-terminal (BET) inhibitors but may introduce the potential for bioactivations into toxic reactive metabolites. As a test, we coupled deep neural models for quinone formation, metabolite structures, and biomolecule reactivity to predict bioactivation pathways for 32 BET inhibitors and validate the bioactivation of select inhibitors experimentally. Based on model predictions, inhibitors were more likely to undergo bioactivation than reported non-bioactivated molecules containing isoxazoles. The model outputs varied with substituents indicating the ability to scale their impact on bioactivation. We selected OXFBD02, OXFBD04, and I-BET151 for more in-depth analysis. OXFBD\u27s bioactivations were evenly split between traditional quinones and novel extended quinone-methides involving the isoxazole yet strongly favored the latter quinones. Subsequent experimental studies confirmed the formation of both types of quinones for OXFBD molecules, yet traditional quinones were the dominant reactive metabolites. Modeled I-BET151 bioactivations led to extended quinone-methides, which were not verified experimentally. The differences in observed and predicted bioactivations reflected the need to improve overall bioactivation scaling. Nevertheless, our coupled modeling approach predicted BET inhibitor bioactivations including novel extended quinone methides, and we experimentally verified those pathways highlighting potential concerns for toxicity in the development of these new drug leads

Ablation of TRIP-Br2, a novel regulator of fat lipolysis, thermogenesis and oxidative metabolism, prevents diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance

SUMMARY Obesity develops due to altered energy homeostasis favoring fat storage. Here we describe a novel transcription co-regulator for adiposity and energy metabolism, TRIP-Br2 (also called SERTAD2). TRIP-Br2 null mice are resistant to obesity and obesity-related insulin resistance. Adipocytes of the knockout (KO) mice exhibited greater stimulated lipolysis secondary to enhanced expression of hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) and β3-adrenergic (Adrb3) receptors. The KOs also exhibit higher energy expenditure due to increased adipocyte thermogenesis and oxidative metabolism by up-regulating key enzymes in respective processes. Our data show for the first time that a cell cycle transcriptional co-regulator, TRIP-Br2, modulates fat storage through simultaneous regulation of lipolysis, thermogenesis and oxidative metabolism. These data together with the observation that TRIP-BR2 expression is selectively elevated in visceral fat in obese humans suggests that this transcriptional co-regulator is a novel therapeutic target for counteracting the development of obesity, insulin resistance and hyperlipidemia

A conserved motif flags acyl carrier proteins for β-branching in polyketide synthesis

Type I PKSs often utilise programmed β-branching, via enzymes of an “HMG-CoA synthase (HCS) cassette”, to incorporate various side chains at the second carbon from the terminal carboxylic acid of growing polyketide backbones. We identified a strong sequence motif in Acyl Carrier Proteins (ACPs) where β-branching is known. Substituting ACPs confirmed a correlation of ACP type with β-branching specificity. While these ACPs often occur in tandem, NMR analysis of tandem β-branching ACPs indicated no ACP-ACP synergistic effects and revealed that the conserved sequence motif forms an internal core rather than an exposed patch. Modelling and mutagenesis identified ACP Helix III as a probable anchor point of the ACP-HCS complex whose position is determined by the core. Mutating the core affects ACP functionality while ACP-HCS interface substitutions modulate system specificity. Our method for predicting β-carbon branching expands the potential for engineering novel polyketides and lays a basis for determining specificity rules

Highlights of the 1st Student Symposium of the ISCB RSG UK

This short report summarises the scientific content and activities of a student-led event, the 1st student symposium by the UK Regional Student Group of the International Society for Computational Biology. The event took place on the 8th of October 2014