The human vitamin D receptor (hVDR) is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, involved in calcium and phosphate homeostasis; hence implicated in a number of diseases, such as Rickets and Osteoporosis. This receptor binds 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (also referred to as 1,25(OH)2D3) and other known ligands, such as lithocholic acid. Specific interactions between the receptor and ligand are crucial for the function and activation of this receptor, as implied by the single point mutation, H305Q, causing symptoms of Type II Rickets. In this work, further understanding of the significant and essential interactions between the ligand and the receptor were deciphered, through a combination of rational and random mutagenesis. A hVDR mutant, H305F, was engineered with increased sensitivity towards lithocholic acid, with an EC50 value of 10 µM and 40 + 14 fold activation in mammalian cell assays, while maintaining wild-type activity with 1,25(OH)2D3. Furthermore, via random mutagenesis, a hVDR mutant, H305F/H397Y, was discovered to bind a novel small molecule, cholecalciferol, a precursor in the 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 biosynthetic pathway, which does not activate wild-type hVDR. This variant, H305F/H397Y, binds and activates in response to cholecalciferol concentrations as low as 100 nM, with an EC50 value of 300 nM and 70 + 11 fold activation in mammalian cell assays.

Nuclear receptors are ligand-activated transcription factors that play significant roles in various biological processes within the body, such as cell development, hormone metabolism, reproduction, and cardiac function. As transcription factors, nuclear receptors are involved in many diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, and arthritis, resulting in approximately 10-15% of the pharmaceutical drugs presently on the market being targeted toward nuclear receptors. Structurally, nuclear receptors consist of a DNA-binding domain (DBD), responsible for binding specific sequences of DNA called response elements, fused to a ligand-binding domain (LBD) through a hinge region. The LBD binds a small molecule ligand. Upon ligand binding, the LBD changes to an active conformation leading to the recruitment of coactivator (CoAC) proteins and initiation of transcription. As a result of their involvement in disease, there is an emphasis on engineering nuclear receptors for applications in gene therapy, drug discovery and metabolic engineering.

Nuclear receptors (NRs) are important transcription factors involved in the regulation of a variety of physiological processes such as embryonic development, cell differentiation and homeostasis (for review, see Mangelsdorf et al., 1995 TenBaum and Baniahrned, 1997). In contrast to membrane bound receptors, they bind small lipophilic ligands and function in the nucleus as ligand-modulated transcription factors. The ligands for nuclear receptors include steroids (glucocorticoids, progestins, mineralocorticoids, androgens and estrogens), vitamin D3, retinoids, thyroid hormone, prostaglandins, farnesoids etc. Several other nuclear receptors are classified as orphan receptors for which no ligand has yet been identified. More than 300 nuclear receptors have now been identified and together these proteins comprise the single largest family of metazoan transcription factors, the nuclear receptor superfamily. Recently, a unified nomenclature has been evolved (nuclear receptor nomenclature committee, 1999), a summary of which is presented in Table 1.

Le récepteur X des farnésoïdes (FXR) fait partie de la superfamille des récepteurs nucléaires et agit comme un facteur de transcription suite à la liaison d’un ligand spécifique. Le récepteur FXR, activé par les acides biliaires, joue un rôle essentiel dans le métabolisme des lipides et du glucose en plus de réguler l’homéostasie des acides biliaires. Notre laboratoire a récemment mis en évidence une nouvelle voie de régulation du récepteur PPARγ en réponse au récepteur de la ghréline. En effet, la ghréline induit l’activation transcriptionnelle de PPARγ via une cascade de signalisation impliquant les kinases Erk1/2 et Akt, supportant un rôle périphérique de la ghréline dans les pathologies associées au syndrome métabolique. Il est de plus en plus reconnu que la cascade métabolique impliquant PPARγ fait également intervenir un autre récepteur nucléaire, FXR. Dans ce travail, nous montrons que la ghréline induit l’activation transcriptionnelle de FXR de manière dose-dépendante et induit également la phosphorylation du récepteur sur ses résidus sérine. En utilisant des constructions tronquées ABC et CDEF de FXR, nous avons démontré que la ghréline régule l’activité de FXR via les domaines d’activation AF-1 et AF-2. L’effet de la ghréline et du ligand sélectif GW4064 sur l’induction de FXR est additif. De plus, nous avons démontré que FXR est la cible d’une autre modification post-traductionnelle, soit la sumoylation. En effet, FXR est un substrat cellulaire des protéines SUMO-1 et SUMO-3 et la sumoylation du récepteur est ligand-indépendante. SUMO-1 et SUMO-3 induisent l’activation transcriptionnelle de FXR de façon dose-dépendante. Nos résultats indiquent que la lysine 122 est le site prédominant de sumoylation par SUMO-1, quoiqu’un mécanisme de coopération semble exister entre les différents sites de sumoylation de FXR. Avec son rôle émergeant dans plusieurs voies du métabolisme lipidique, l’identification de modulateurs de FXR s’avère être une approche fort prometteuse pour faire face à plusieurs pathologies associées au syndrome métabolique et au diabète de type 2. / The farnesoid X receptor (FXR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor within the nuclear receptor superfamily. FXR is activated by bile acids and plays a crucial role in the regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism and in bile acid homeostasis. Our group has recently identified the contribution of the ghrelin receptor in the regulation of the nuclear receptor PPARγ. Indeed, ghrelin triggers transcriptional activation of PPARγ through a concerted signaling cascade involving Erk1/2 and Akt kinases. These results support the peripheral actions of ghrelin in diseases associated with the metabolic syndrome. It is recognized that there is interplay between PPARγ metabolic cascade and FXR. Here, we demonstrate that ghrelin promotes FXR transcriptional activity in a dose-dependent manner and also promotes its phosphorylation on serine residues. By using truncated ABC and CDEF constructs of FXR, we found that ghrelin induces FXR activity through the AF-1 and AF-2 activation domains. The ghrelin-induced FXR activity is additive to the induction by the selective agonist GW4064. Also, we demonstrate that FXR is the target of sumoylation, another post-translational modification. In particular, FXR is modified by SUMO-1 and SUMO-3 in a ligand-independent manner. SUMO-1 and SUMO-3 promote dose-dependent transcriptional activity of FXR. Our results show that lysine 122 is the prevalent site of sumoylation by SUMO-1, though a compensation mechanism seems to exist between the various sumoylation sites of FXR. With its emerging role in several metabolic cascades, identification of FXR modulators represents a promising approach for the treatment of the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Le criblage virtuel est largement employé pour la recherche de nouveaux médicaments.La sélection de structures pour les méthodes de criblage virtuel basées sur la structure reste problématique. Nous avons montré que les propriétés physico-chimiques du site de liaison, critères simples et peu coûteux en temps de calcul, pouvaient être utilisées pour guider celle-ci.L’évaluation des méthodes de criblage virtuel, critique pour vérifier leur fiabilité, repose sur la qualité de banques d’évaluation. Nous avons construit la NRLiSt BDB, n’incluant que des données vérifiées manuellement et prenant en compte le profil pharmacologique des ligands. Une étude à l’aide du logiciel Surflex-Dock montre qu’elle devrait devenir la base de données de référence, pour l’évaluation des méthodes de criblage virtuel et pour rechercher de nouveaux ligands des récepteurs nucléaires. L’application d’un protocole hiérarchique de criblage in silico/in vitro, a permis d’identifier de nouveaux composés inhibiteurs de l’IL-6, potentiellement utilisables dans le traitement de la polyarthrite rhumatoïde. Les résultats in vitro devront être confirmés par des tests in vivo. / Virtual screening is widely used in drug discovery processes.Structure selection in structure-based virtual screening methods is still problematic. We showed that simple and “low cost” binding site physico-chemical properties could be used to guide structure selection.The evaluation of virtual screening methods, necessary to ensure their reliability, relies on benchmarking databases quality. We created the NRLiSt BDB, gathering only manually curated data and taking into account ligands pharmacological profiles. A study using Surflex-Dock showed that the NRLiSt BDB should become the reference, both for the evaluation of virtual screening methods and for the identification of new ligands of the nuclear receptors.The use of a in silico/invitro hierarchical approach screening allowed to identify new IL-6 inhibitors, that could be used in rheumatoid arthritis treatment. In vitro results should be confirmed in vivo.

[Truncated abstract] Breast cancer is the cause of significant suffering and death in our community. It is now estimated that the risk of developing breast cancer for an Australian woman before the age of 85 is 1 in 8, with this risk rising for unknown reasons. While mortality rates from breast cancer are falling due to increased awareness and early detection, few new treatments have been developed from an advanced understanding of the molecular basis of the disease. From decades of scientific research it is clear that estrogen (E2) has a large role to play in breast cancer. However, the basic mechanism behind E2 action in breast cancer remains unclear. E2 plays a fundamental role in breast cancer cell proliferation and is highly expressed in breast cancers, thus, it is important to understand both E2 and its receptor, the estrogen receptor (ER). The ER is a member of the nuclear receptor (NR) superfamily. The NR superfamily consists of a large group of proteins which regulate a large number of homeostatic proteins together with regulator proteins termed coregulators and corepressors. SRA (steroid receptor RNA activator) is the only known RNA coactivator and augments transactivation by NRs. SRA has been demonstrated to play an important role in mediating E2 action (Lanz et al., 1999; Lanz et al., 2003) and its expression is aberrant in many human breast tumors, suggesting a potential role in breast tumorigenesis (Murphy et al., 2000). Despite evidence that an alternative splice variant of SRA exists as a protein (Chooniedass-Kothari et al., 2004), it has been conclusively shown that SRA can function as an RNA transcript to coactivate NR transcription (Lanz et al., 1999; Lanz et al., 2002; Lanz et al., 2003). The precise mechanism by which SRA augments ER activity remains unknown. However, it is currently hypothesized that SRA acts as an RNA scaffold for other coregulators at the transcription initiation site. Several SRA stem loops have been identified as important for SRA function, including structure (STR) 1, 5 and 7 (Lanz et al., 2002; Zhao et al., 2007). Previously, I sought to identify SRA-binding proteins using a specific stem-loop structure of SRA (STR7) that was identified as both important for its coactivator function (Lanz et al., 2002) and also as a target for proteins from breast cancer cell extracts (Hatchell, 2002). From a yeast E. Hatchell Abstract iii III hybrid screen using STR7 as bait, I identified a novel protein which was named SLIRP (Patent Number: WO/2007/009194): SRA stem-Loop Interacting RNA-binding Protein (Hatchell, 2002; Hatchell et al., 2006). '...' This thesis demonstrates that SLIRP modulates NR transactivation, provides mechanistic insight into interactions between SRA, SRC-1, HSP-60 and NCoR and suggests that SLIRP may regulate mitochondrial function. These studies contribute significantly to the growing field of NR biology, and contribute more specifically to the elucidation of estrogen action in breast cancer. Furthermore, it lays a strong and exciting foundation for further studies to evaluate SLIRP as a biomarker and potential therapeutic target in hormone dependent cancers.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2004. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2004. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2004. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.