Universiẗat, Diss., 2007--Giessen.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2008--Frankfurt (Main). / Zsfassung in dt. und engl. Sprache.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2000--Essen.

Techn. University, Diss., 2006--München.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2004--Köln.

Traditionally, drug discovery programs have focused on prioritising compounds by their affinity to a specific target in isolation, which was hypothesised to be the cause of a particular disease. Through chemical inhibition, the disease could, thus, be prevented or at the very least, controlled. These hypotheses require significant validation before drug screening can begin which relates to lengthy and expensive programs. Furthermore, drug screening against a single target in isolation is not a realistic model of cellular behaviour and is not appropriately tailored to more complex diseases such as cancer. Phenotypic drug discovery, on the other hand, bypasses any involvement of known targets, instead focusing on the desired outcome – the phenotype. In this way, drugs are biased by their potency on the phenotype and not against any particular targets. The molecular mechanism of action need not be known at all, however, it can be useful to later reveal the target(s) involved by various deconvolution methods. This thesis describes a cooperative ligand based phenotypic drug discovery approach, undertaken in order to develop more suitable small molecule drugs for cancer treatment. For this purpose, the promiscuous pyrazolopyrimidine inhibitor PP1 was chosen as a starting model compound. Modification of PP1 on the N1 position allowed a series of water solubilising groups to be incorporated into the pyrazolopyrimidine scaffold which created an initial 12-membered library. Testing against MCF7 breast cancer cells and looking at phenotypic end points such as cell proliferation, cell mobility and cell cycle, generated early target-agnostic structure/anti-proliferative activity relationships. These early results, along with compounds published in recent literature, were used to generate further libraries. Profiling lead compounds against a selection of 18 kinases known to be targeted by PP1, showed the compounds were inhibiting either SRC family or mTOR kinases which enabled the creation of two, structure specific, groups of inhibitors. Further lead optimisation led to the rapid discovery of preclinical candidates with excellent drug-like properties and potencies in both cellular assays and against their respective targets. Compounds also showed improved selectivity profiles compared to PP1 and commonly known inhibitors of SRC and mTOR kinases. Reported, herein, is the discovery of the first sub-nanomolar SRC inhibitor which does not inhibit the kinase ABL and shows excellent properties suitable for further preclinical development.

This thesis evaluated the influence of stabilized urea with sulphur on the yield and quality of winter wheat crop. Qualitative elements were used as a method how to observe influence of fertilizers on content of nitrogenous substances, gluten and sedimentation value. Experiment was conducted through small plot field trial in agricultural years 2012/2013, 2013/2014 a 2014/2015 in two different localities. First area is located in south Moravia on property of agricultural experiment station School Farm Žabčice. Second area is located in Vatín in Vysočina region. There were six different variants enrolled in the experiment: 1. unfertilized soil, 2. ALZON 46 + Ammonium sulfate granulated 100% dosage (fertilizers ratio 1:1), 3. ALZON 46 + SA granulated 80% dosage (1:1), 4. ALZON 25 - 6S 100% dosage, 5. ALZON 25 - 6S 80% dosage, 6. Urea + SA granulated (1:1). In the experiment results were compared between fertilizers without nitrification inhibitors (urea) and fertilizers with nitrification inhibitors (ALZON 46 and ALZON 25 - 6S) in both localities. The influence based on applicated dosage on parameters listed above was observed too. Crop yield and qualitative parameters were influenced by the locality. In agricultural experiment station in Žabčice was achieved better yield with better quality of the crop. In south Moravia the best and comparable results in all observed parameters achieved ALZON 46 + SA 100 % and urea + SA. In agricultural experiment station in Vatín the best results achieved ALZON 46 + SA 100 %. In both localities the worst results were observed in ALZON 25 - 6S 80% dosage.

Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) is an inherited autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder caused by a GAA trinucleotide repeat expansion mutation within the first intron of the FXN gene. Normal individuals have 5 to 30 GAA repeats, whereas affected individuals have from approximately 70 to more than 1,000 GAA triplets. In addition to progressive neurological disability, FRDA is associated with cardiomyopathy and an increased risk of diabetes mellitus. Currently there is no effective therapy for FRDA and this is perhaps due to the lack of an effective system to test potential drugs. Therefore, the main aim of this thesis is to develop a novel cell culture system, to aid in rapid drug screening for FRDA. Firstly, I have demonstrated the establishment of novel cell culture systems, including primary fibroblasts, neural stem cells (NSC) and splenocytes, from FRDA YAC transgenic mouse models (YG8 and YG22). Then, I have shown the differentiation of NSCs into neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. The presence of these cells was confirmed by using cell specific immunofluorescence assays. I have also shown that both YG8 and YG22 rescue mice have less tolerance to hydrogen peroxide induced oxidative stress than WT mice, as similarly seen in FRDA patient fibroblasts. Recent findings indicate that FRDA is associated with heterochromatin-mediated silencing of the FXN gene accompanied by histone changes, flanking the GAA repeats. This suggested potential therapeutic use of compounds which can reduce the methylation and increase the acetylation of histone proteins. Therefore, using human and mouse primary fibroblast cell lines I have investigated the efficacy and tolerability of various DNA demethylating agents, GAA interacting compounds and class III histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors. Although DNA demethylating agents showed increased FXN expression, no correlation between the level of DNA methylation and FXN expression was identified. Nevertheless, the use of GAA interacting compounds, particularly DB221, and the HDAC inhibitor, nicotinamide, have shown encouraging results, provoking us to use such compounds in future long-term in vivo studies. In addition, I have also investigated the long-term efficacy of two benzamide-type HDAC inhibitors, RGFA 136 and RGFP 109, on the FRDA YAC transgenic mice. No overt toxicity was identified with either drug, indicating a safe administration of these compounds. Both compounds produced improved functional analysis together with significantly reduced DRG neurodegeneration. However, neither of these compounds was shown to significantly increase the FXN mRNA expression. Nevertheless, elevated levels of frataxin protein in the brain tissues were obtained with RGFP 109, suggesting that RGFP 109 is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier. I have also found increased levels of global acetylated H3 and H4 histone proteins in brain tissues, along with significant increase in aconitase enzyme activity, particularly with RGFP 109 treatments. Overall, these results support future clinical trial development with such compounds.

Extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2) are important kinases regulating cell proliferation and cell migration, and have been established as therapeutic targets for cancer treatment. Previously, we found that ERK1 phosphorylates histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) to regulate its enzymatic activity. However, whether HDAC6 reciprocally modulates ERK1 activity is unknown. Here, we have discovered that ERK1/2 are acetylated proteins and shown that HDAC6 manipulates ERK1’s kinase activity via deacetylation. We demonstrated that both ERK1 and ERK2 interact with HDAC6 physically. We showed that the acetylation level of GST-ERK1/2 increased in a dose- and time-dependent manner upon treatment with a pan-HDAC inhibitor, Trichostatin A. Furthermore, the treatment by HDAC6-specific inhibitor, ACY-1215, also increased the level of acetylated GST-ERK1/2. We also noted that ERK1/2 acetylation levels increased in HDAC6-knockout mouse embryonic fibroblasts and in HDAC6-knockdown A549 cell lines compared with controls. In addition, we determined that acetyltransferases CBP and p300 acetylate ERK1/2. We have identified novel acetylation sites located in ERK1 and ERK2 by mass-spectrometry analysis. Among these acetylation sites, ERK1 lysine 72 acetylation status is related to ERK1 phosphorylation. The acetylation-mimicking mutant exhibits a decreased kinase activity toward ELK1, while the deacetylation-mimicking mutant exhibits a similar level of kinase activity as the wild-type ERK1, suggesting that acetylation/deacetylation alters ERK1 enzymatic activities. Taken together, our results suggest that HDAC6 may regulate ERK1’s kinase activity via deacetylation of its lysine 72 residue.

Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・論文博士 / 博士(工学) / 乙第12494号 / 論工博第4048号 / 新制||工||1503(附属図書館) / 28244 / (主査)教授 村上 正浩, 教授 杉野目 道紀, 教授 濵地 格 / 学位規則第4条第2項該当