Modulating FOXO3 transcriptional activity by small, DBD-binding molecules
Abstract
FOXO transcription factors are critical regulators of cell homeostasis and steer cell death, differentiation and longevity in mammalian cells. By combined pharmacophore-modelling-based in silico and fluorescence polarization-based screening we identified small molecules that physically interact with the DNA-binding domain (DBD) of FOXO3 and modulate the FOXO3 transcriptional program in human cells. The mode of interaction between compounds and the FOXO3-DBD was assessed via NMR spectroscopy and docking studies. We demonstrate that compounds S9 and its oxalate salt S9OX interfere with FOXO3 target promoter binding, gene transcription and modulate the physiologic program activated by FOXO3 in cancer cells. These small molecules prove the druggability of the FOXO-DBD and provide a structural basis for modulating these important homeostasis regulators in normal and malignant cells.
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in manuscript and supporting files.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Austrian Science Fund (I3089-B28)
- Judith Hagenbuchner
- Veronika Obsilova
- Tomas Obsil
- Michael J Ausserlechner
Grantová Agentura České Republiky (17-33854L)
- Veronika Obsilova
- Tomas Obsil
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Xavier Darzacq, University of California, Berkeley, United States
Publication history
- Received: May 29, 2019
- Accepted: December 1, 2019
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 2, 2019 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: December 4, 2019 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: December 18, 2019 (version 3)
- Version of Record updated: January 15, 2020 (version 4)
Copyright
© 2019, Hagenbuchner et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 2,722
- Page views
-
- 430
- Downloads
-
- 9
- Citations
Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Crossref, PubMed Central, Scopus.
Download links
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)
Further reading
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Mitochondrial biogenesis requires the import of >1,000 mitochondrial preproteins from the cytosol. Most studies on mitochondrial protein import are focused on the core import machinery. Whether and how the biophysical properties of substrate preproteins affect overall import efficiency is underexplored. Here, we show that protein traffic into mitochondria can be disrupted by amino acid substitutions in a single substrate preprotein. Pathogenic missense mutations in ADP/ATP translocase 1 (ANT1), and its yeast homolog ADP/ATP carrier 2 (Aac2), cause the protein to accumulate along the protein import pathway, thereby obstructing general protein translocation into mitochondria. This impairs mitochondrial respiration, cytosolic proteostasis, and cell viability independent of ANT1’s nucleotide transport activity. The mutations act synergistically, as double mutant Aac2/ANT1 causes severe clogging primarily at the translocase of the outer membrane (TOM) complex. This confers extreme toxicity in yeast. In mice, expression of a super-clogger ANT1 variant led to neurodegeneration and an age-dependent dominant myopathy that phenocopy ANT1-induced human disease, suggesting clogging as a mechanism of disease. More broadly, this work implies the existence of uncharacterized amino acid requirements for mitochondrial carrier proteins to avoid clogging and subsequent disease.
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Metabolic scaling, the inverse correlation of metabolic rates to body mass, has been appreciated for more than 80 years. Studies of metabolic scaling have largely been restricted to mathematical modeling of caloric intake and oxygen consumption, and mostly rely on computational modeling. The possibility that other metabolic processes scale with body size has not been comprehensively studied. To address this gap in knowledge, we employed a systems approach including transcriptomics, proteomics, and measurement of in vitro and in vivo metabolic fluxes. Gene expression in livers of five species spanning a 30,000-fold range in mass revealed differential expression according to body mass of genes related to cytosolic and mitochondrial metabolic processes, and to detoxication of oxidative damage. To determine whether flux through key metabolic pathways is ordered inversely to body size, we applied stable isotope tracer methodology to study multiple cellular compartments, tissues, and species. Comparing C57BL/6 J mice with Sprague-Dawley rats, we demonstrate that while ordering of metabolic fluxes is not observed in in vitro cell-autonomous settings, it is present in liver slices and in vivo. Together, these data reveal that metabolic scaling extends beyond oxygen consumption to other aspects of metabolism, and is regulated at the level of gene and protein expression, enzyme activity, and substrate supply.