High-resolution structures of multiple 5-HT3AR-setron complexes reveal a novel mechanism of competitive inhibition

  1. Sandip Basak
  2. Arvind Kumar
  3. Steven Ramsey
  4. Eric Gibbs
  5. Abhijeet Kapoor
  6. Marta Filizola
  7. Sudha Chakrapani  Is a corresponding author
  1. Case Western Reserve University, United States
  2. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States

Abstract

Serotonin receptors (5-HT3AR) play a crucial role in regulating gut movement, and are the principal target of setrons, a class of high-affinity competitive antagonists, used in the management of nausea and vomiting associated with radiation and chemotherapies. Structural insights into setron-binding poses and their inhibitory mechanisms are just beginning to emerge. Here, we present high-resolution cryo-EM structures of full-length 5-HT3AR in complex with palonosetron, ondansetron, and alosetron. Molecular dynamic simulations of these structures embedded in a fully-hydrated lipid environment assessed the stability of ligand-binding poses and drug-target interactions over time. Together with simulation results of apo- and serotonin-bound 5-HT3AR, the study reveals a distinct interaction fingerprint between the various setrons and binding-pocket residues that may underlie their diverse affinities. In addition, varying degrees of conformational change in the setron-5-HT3AR structures, throughout the channel and particularly along the channel activation pathway, suggests a novel mechanism of competitive inhibition.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Sandip Basak

    Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Arvind Kumar

    Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8421-8669
  3. Steven Ramsey

    Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Eric Gibbs

    Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Abhijeet Kapoor

    2Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3606-3463
  6. Marta Filizola

    Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Sudha Chakrapani

    Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, United States
    For correspondence
    Sudha.chakrapani@case.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0722-2338

Funding

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM108921,R01GM131216,R35GM134896)

  • Sudha Chakrapani

American Heart Association (17POST33671152)

  • Sandip Basak

American Heart Association (20POST35210394)

  • Arvind Kumar

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

Reviewing Editor

  1. Cynthia M Czajkowski, University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States

Version history

  1. Received: April 15, 2020
  2. Accepted: October 15, 2020
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: October 16, 2020 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: November 10, 2020 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2020, Basak 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

  • 2,475
    views
  • 359
    downloads
  • 36
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

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. Sandip Basak
  2. Arvind Kumar
  3. Steven Ramsey
  4. Eric Gibbs
  5. Abhijeet Kapoor
  6. Marta Filizola
  7. Sudha Chakrapani
(2020)
High-resolution structures of multiple 5-HT3AR-setron complexes reveal a novel mechanism of competitive inhibition
eLife 9:e57870.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.57870

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.57870

Further reading

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Plant Biology
    Henning Mühlenbeck, Yuko Tsutsui ... Cyril Zipfel
    Research Article

    Transmembrane signaling by plant receptor kinases (RKs) has long been thought to involve reciprocal trans-phosphorylation of their intracellular kinase domains. The fact that many of these are pseudokinase domains, however, suggests that additional mechanisms must govern RK signaling activation. Non-catalytic signaling mechanisms of protein kinase domains have been described in metazoans, but information is scarce for plants. Recently, a non-catalytic function was reported for the leucine-rich repeat (LRR)-RK subfamily XIIa member EFR (elongation factor Tu receptor) and phosphorylation-dependent conformational changes were proposed to regulate signaling of RKs with non-RD kinase domains. Here, using EFR as a model, we describe a non-catalytic activation mechanism for LRR-RKs with non-RD kinase domains. EFR is an active kinase, but a kinase-dead variant retains the ability to enhance catalytic activity of its co-receptor kinase BAK1/SERK3 (brassinosteroid insensitive 1-associated kinase 1/somatic embryogenesis receptor kinase 3). Applying hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) analysis and designing homology-based intragenic suppressor mutations, we provide evidence that the EFR kinase domain must adopt its active conformation in order to activate BAK1 allosterically, likely by supporting αC-helix positioning in BAK1. Our results suggest a conformational toggle model for signaling, in which BAK1 first phosphorylates EFR in the activation loop to stabilize its active conformation, allowing EFR in turn to allosterically activate BAK1.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Neuroscience
    Katarzyna Marta Zoltowska, Utpal Das ... Lucía Chávez-Gutiérrez
    Research Article

    Amyloid β (Aβ) peptides accumulating in the brain are proposed to trigger Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, molecular cascades underlying their toxicity are poorly defined. Here, we explored a novel hypothesis for Aβ42 toxicity that arises from its proven affinity for γ-secretases. We hypothesized that the reported increases in Aβ42, particularly in the endolysosomal compartment, promote the establishment of a product feedback inhibitory mechanism on γ-secretases, and thereby impair downstream signaling events. We conducted kinetic analyses of γ-secretase activity in cell-free systems in the presence of Aβ, as well as cell-based and ex vivo assays in neuronal cell lines, neurons, and brain synaptosomes to assess the impact of Aβ on γ-secretases. We show that human Aβ42 peptides, but neither murine Aβ42 nor human Aβ17–42 (p3), inhibit γ-secretases and trigger accumulation of unprocessed substrates in neurons, including C-terminal fragments (CTFs) of APP, p75, and pan-cadherin. Moreover, Aβ42 treatment dysregulated cellular homeostasis, as shown by the induction of p75-dependent neuronal death in two distinct cellular systems. Our findings raise the possibility that pathological elevations in Aβ42 contribute to cellular toxicity via the γ-secretase inhibition, and provide a novel conceptual framework to address Aβ toxicity in the context of γ-secretase-dependent homeostatic signaling.