1. Peptidomimetic inhibitors of APC–Asef interaction block colorectal cancer migration
- Author
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Qiufen Zhang, Xiuyan Yang, Jianxiu Yu, Haiming Jiang, Yanlong Zhao, Jian Zhang, Xinyi Liu, Geng Wu, Yu Chen, Rong Deng, Kun Song, Jian Li, Shaoyong Lu, Jialin Shang, Guo-Qiang Chen, and Y Eugene Chinn
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Colorectal cancer ,Peptidomimetic ,Adenomatous polyposis coli ,Chemical probe ,CDC42 ,GTPase ,Biology ,Binding, Competitive ,03 medical and health sciences ,Cell Movement ,medicine ,Humans ,Receptor ,Molecular Biology ,Cancer ,Cell Biology ,medicine.disease ,030104 developmental biology ,Adenomatous Polyposis Coli ,Biochemistry ,Cancer research ,biology.protein ,Peptidomimetics ,Colorectal Neoplasms ,Peptides ,Oligopeptides ,Rho Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factors ,Protein Binding - Abstract
The binding of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) to its receptor Asef relieves the negative intramolecular regulation of Asef and leads to aberrant cell migration in human colorectal cancer. Because of its crucial role in metastatic dissemination, the interaction between APC and Asef is an attractive target for anti-colorectal-cancer therapy. We rationally designed a series of peptidomimetics that act as potent inhibitors of the APC interface. Crystal structures and biochemical and cellular assays showed that the peptidomimetics in the APC pocket inhibited the migration of colorectal cells by disrupting APC-Asef interaction. By using the peptidomimetic inhibitor as a chemical probe, we found that CDC42 was the downstream GTPase involved in APC-stimulated Asef activation in colorectal cancer cells. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of exploiting APC-Asef interaction to regulate the migration of colorectal cancer cells, and provides what to our knowledge is the first class of protein-protein interaction inhibitors available for the development of cancer therapeutics targeting APC-Asef signaling.
- Published
- 2017
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