Molecular basis for activation of lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase by a compound that increases HDL cholesterol

  1. Kelly A Manthei
  2. Shyh-Ming Yang
  3. Bolormaa Baljinnyam
  4. Louise Chang
  5. Alisa Glukhova
  6. Wenmin Yuan
  7. Lita A Freeman
  8. David J Maloney
  9. Anna Schwendeman
  10. Alan T Remaley
  11. Ajit Jadhav
  12. John JG Tesmer  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of Michigan, United States
  2. National Institutes of Health, United States
  3. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, United States
  4. Purdue University, United States

Abstract

Lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) and LCAT-activating compounds are being investigated as treatments for coronary heart disease (CHD) and familial LCAT deficiency (FLD). Herein we report the crystal structure of human LCAT in complex with a potent piperidinylpyrazolopyridine activator and an acyl intermediate-like inhibitor, revealing LCAT in an active conformation. Unlike other LCAT activators, the piperidinylpyrazolopyridine activator binds exclusively to the membrane-binding domain (MBD). Functional studies indicate that the compound does not modulate the affinity of LCAT for HDL, but instead stabilizes residues in the MBD and facilitates channeling of substrates into the active site. By demonstrating that these activators increase the activity of an FLD variant, we show that compounds targeting the MBD have therapeutic potential. Our data better define the substrate binding site of LCAT and pave the way for rational design of LCAT agonists and improved biotherapeutics for augmenting or restoring reverse cholesterol transport in CHD and FLD patients.

Data availability

The atomic coordinates and structure factors for the complex have been deposited in the PDB with accession code 6MVD.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Kelly A Manthei

    Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3874-8228
  2. Shyh-Ming Yang

    National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1928-136X
  3. Bolormaa Baljinnyam

    National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Louise Chang

    Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Alisa Glukhova

    Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Wenmin Yuan

    Department of Pharmaceutical Science, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Lita A Freeman

    Lipoprotein Metabolism Section, Cardiovascular-Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. David J Maloney

    National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Anna Schwendeman

    Department of Pharmaceutical Science, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Alan T Remaley

    Lipoprotein Metabolism Section, Cardiovascular-Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Ajit Jadhav

    National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7955-1451
  12. John JG Tesmer

    Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, United States
    For correspondence
    jtesmer@purdue.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1125-3727

Funding

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

  • Alan T Remaley

National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (Division of Preclinical Innovation)

  • Ajit Jadhav

American Heart Association (15POST24870001)

  • Kelly A Manthei

National Institutes of Health (F32HL131288)

  • Kelly A Manthei

American Heart Association (16POST27760002)

  • Wenmin Yuan

National Institutes of Health (HL071818)

  • John JG Tesmer

National Institutes of Health (HL122416)

  • John JG Tesmer

American Heart Association (13SDG17230049)

  • Anna Schwendeman

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Arun Radhakrishnan, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States

Version history

  1. Received: September 1, 2018
  2. Accepted: November 6, 2018
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: November 27, 2018 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: December 3, 2018 (version 2)

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

Metrics

  • 2,533
    Page views
  • 347
    Downloads
  • 31
    Citations

Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Crossref, PubMed Central, Scopus.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Kelly A Manthei
  2. Shyh-Ming Yang
  3. Bolormaa Baljinnyam
  4. Louise Chang
  5. Alisa Glukhova
  6. Wenmin Yuan
  7. Lita A Freeman
  8. David J Maloney
  9. Anna Schwendeman
  10. Alan T Remaley
  11. Ajit Jadhav
  12. John JG Tesmer
(2018)
Molecular basis for activation of lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase by a compound that increases HDL cholesterol
eLife 7:e41604.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41604

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41604

Further reading

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Medicine
    Giulia Leanza, Francesca Cannata ... Nicola Napoli
    Research Article

    Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is associated with higher fracture risk, despite normal or high bone mineral density. We reported that bone formation genes (SOST and RUNX2) and advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) were impaired in T2D. We investigated Wnt signaling regulation and its association with AGEs accumulation and bone strength in T2D from bone tissue of 15 T2D and 21 non-diabetic postmenopausal women undergoing hip arthroplasty. Bone histomorphometry revealed a trend of low mineralized volume in T2D (T2D 0.249% [0.156–0.366]) vs non-diabetic subjects 0.352% [0.269–0.454]; p=0.053, as well as reduced bone strength (T2D 21.60 MPa [13.46–30.10] vs non-diabetic subjects 76.24 MPa [26.81–132.9]; p=0.002). We also showed that gene expression of Wnt agonists LEF-1 (p=0.0136) and WNT10B (p=0.0302) were lower in T2D. Conversely, gene expression of WNT5A (p=0.0232), SOST (p<0.0001), and GSK3B (p=0.0456) were higher, while collagen (COL1A1) was lower in T2D (p=0.0482). AGEs content was associated with SOST and WNT5A (r=0.9231, p<0.0001; r=0.6751, p=0.0322), but inversely correlated with LEF-1 and COL1A1 (r=–0.7500, p=0.0255; r=–0.9762, p=0.0004). SOST was associated with glycemic control and disease duration (r=0.4846, p=0.0043; r=0.7107, p=0.00174), whereas WNT5A and GSK3B were only correlated with glycemic control (r=0.5589, p=0.0037; r=0.4901, p=0.0051). Finally, Young’s modulus was negatively correlated with SOST (r=−0.5675, p=0.0011), AXIN2 (r=−0.5523, p=0.0042), and SFRP5 (r=−0.4442, p=0.0437), while positively correlated with LEF-1 (r=0.4116, p=0.0295) and WNT10B (r=0.6697, p=0.0001). These findings suggest that Wnt signaling and AGEs could be the main determinants of bone fragility in T2D.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    Valentin Bohl, Nele Merret Hollmann ... Axel Mogk
    Research Article

    Heat stress can cause cell death by triggering the aggregation of essential proteins. In bacteria, aggregated proteins are rescued by the canonical Hsp70/AAA+ (ClpB) bi-chaperone disaggregase. Man-made, severe stress conditions applied during, e.g., food processing represent a novel threat for bacteria by exceeding the capacity of the Hsp70/ClpB system. Here, we report on the potent autonomous AAA+ disaggregase ClpL from Listeria monocytogenes that provides enhanced heat resistance to the food-borne pathogen enabling persistence in adverse environments. ClpL shows increased thermal stability and enhanced disaggregation power compared to Hsp70/ClpB, enabling it to withstand severe heat stress and to solubilize tight aggregates. ClpL binds to protein aggregates via aromatic residues present in its N-terminal domain (NTD) that adopts a partially folded and dynamic conformation. Target specificity is achieved by simultaneous interactions of multiple NTDs with the aggregate surface. ClpL shows remarkable structural plasticity by forming diverse higher assembly states through interacting ClpL rings. NTDs become largely sequestered upon ClpL ring interactions. Stabilizing ring assemblies by engineered disulfide bonds strongly reduces disaggregation activity, suggesting that they represent storage states.