The generation of high affinity, selective, and in vivo-stable peptide-based drugs is currently a major challenge in the field of drug development. Technologies exist that permit the generation of a vast diversity of chemical and conformational space and an example of such a technology is mRNA display, which utilizes protein translation machinery to produce a wide array of polypeptides starting from a combinatorial library of mRNA templates. The intention of this research was to bridge mRNA display to a reconstituted translation system using protein synthesis using recombinant elements (PURE) system for a new drug discovery platform. We hypothesized that it is possible to generate mRNA-peptidomimetic fusions using reconstituted translation system and chemo-enzymatically charged tRNAs, to incorporate unnatural amino acids into mRNA-peptidomimetic fusions. Upon demonstating that the reconstituted system was functional, we have synthesized hexapeptide fusion products containing four alanine residues and one biocytin residue. Fusions were assayed using urea-PAGE in the presence of streptavidin which allowed for unambiguous evaluation of the full length fusion fraction. It was determined that overall more fusion product was generated with template that codes for biocytin early in the coding sequence, but that the percent of biocytin-containing product stays similar regardless of the biocytin place in the coding region. We have also found that the change in template untranslated region length does not improve incorporation of biocytin in dipeptide fusions within the tested range. Finally, after first unsuccessful attempts to make sarcosine hexapeptide fusions, we investigated the effect of magnesium ion concentration on the translation reaction. As a result of four series of experiments performed involving both alanine and sarcosine fusion synthesis in parallel, we concluded that an increase in magnesium concentration from 5 mM to 20 mM coincided with enabling of the reconstituted system in making hexapeptide fusions with sarcosine in a significantly high number of cases. This research work arises from the need to enable a new drug discovery tool that will allow both synthesis and affinity maturation of peptide-based compounds. It represents our pioneering efforts to develop a new technology and ultimately help bring to existence compounds of significant therapeutic value.

The generation of high affinity, selective, and in vivo-stable peptide-based drugs is currently a major challenge in the field of drug development. Technologies exist that permit the generation of a vast diversity of chemical and conformational space and an example of such a technology is mRNA display, which utilizes protein translation machinery to produce a wide array of polypeptides starting from a combinatorial library of mRNA templates. The intention of this research was to bridge mRNA display to a reconstituted translation system using protein synthesis using recombinant elements (PURE) system for a new drug discovery platform. We hypothesized that it is possible to generate mRNA-peptidomimetic fusions using reconstituted translation system and chemo-enzymatically charged tRNAs, to incorporate unnatural amino acids into mRNA-peptidomimetic fusions. Upon demonstating that the reconstituted system was functional, we have synthesized hexapeptide fusion products containing four alanine residues and one biocytin residue. Fusions were assayed using urea-PAGE in the presence of streptavidin which allowed for unambiguous evaluation of the full length fusion fraction. It was determined that overall more fusion product was generated with template that codes for biocytin early in the coding sequence, but that the percent of biocytin-containing product stays similar regardless of the biocytin place in the coding region. We have also found that the change in template untranslated region length does not improve incorporation of biocytin in dipeptide fusions within the tested range. Finally, after first unsuccessful attempts to make sarcosine hexapeptide fusions, we investigated the effect of magnesium ion concentration on the translation reaction. As a result of four series of experiments performed involving both alanine and sarcosine fusion synthesis in parallel, we concluded that an increase in magnesium concentration from 5 mM to 20 mM coincided with enabling of the reconstituted system in making hexapeptide fusions with sarcosine in a significantly high number of cases. This research work arises from the need to enable a new drug discovery tool that will allow both synthesis and affinity maturation of peptide-based compounds. It represents our pioneering efforts to develop a new technology and ultimately help bring to existence compounds of significant therapeutic value.

The generation of high affinity, selective, and in vivo-stable peptide-based drugs is currently a major challenge in the field of drug development. Technologies exist that permit the generation of a vast diversity of chemical and conformational space and an example of such a technology is mRNA display, which utilizes protein translation machinery to produce a wide array of polypeptides starting from a combinatorial library of mRNA templates. The intention of this research was to bridge mRNA display to a reconstituted translation system using protein synthesis using recombinant elements (PURE) system for a new drug discovery platform. We hypothesized that it is possible to generate mRNA-peptidomimetic fusions using reconstituted translation system and chemo-enzymatically charged tRNAs, to incorporate unnatural amino acids into mRNA-peptidomimetic fusions. Upon demonstating that the reconstituted system was functional, we have synthesized hexapeptide fusion products containing four alanine residues and one biocytin residue. Fusions were assayed using urea-PAGE in the presence of streptavidin which allowed for unambiguous evaluation of the full length fusion fraction. It was determined that overall more fusion product was generated with template that codes for biocytin early in the coding sequence, but that the percent of biocytin-containing product stays similar regardless of the biocytin place in the coding region. We have also found that the change in template untranslated region length does not improve incorporation of biocytin in dipeptide fusions within the tested range. Finally, after first unsuccessful attempts to make sarcosine hexapeptide fusions, we investigated the effect of magnesium ion concentration on the translation reaction. As a result of four series of experiments performed involving both alanine and sarcosine fusion synthesis in parallel, we concluded that an increase in magnesium concentration from 5 mM to 20 mM coincided with enabling of the reconstituted system in making hexapeptide fusions with sarcosine in a significantly high number of cases. This research work arises from the need to enable a new drug discovery tool that will allow both synthesis and affinity maturation of peptide-based compounds. It represents our pioneering efforts to develop a new technology and ultimately help bring to existence compounds of significant therapeutic value. / Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of / Graduate

The discovery of a method by which proteins of interest can selectively be labeled with a probe of choice intracellularly is a longstanding goal in chemical biology research. Conventional labeling techniques have utilized large domain tags but despite the development of small labeling molecules there have been no short peptide sequences known to covalently label a small molecule without the aid of an enzymatic process or metal chelation. We aimed to find a sequence of nucleophilic peptides that reacted covalently and specifically with electrophilic small labeling molecules using mRNA display. Our goal was to show that an electrophilic small labeling molecule that is brought in proximal distance to a protein of interest via affinity can result in nucleophilic attack by a neighboring nucleophilic amino acid to covalently label the protein of interest. Utilizing affinity between a small labeling molecule and a protein of interest to bring them spatially close to one another maximizes the chance that a covalent reaction can take place and provides selectivity between two components in a complex mixture. Towards this goal, we developed several electrophilic fluorescent small molecules. Covalent labeling was achieved using electrophilic bait in the form of sulfonate esters, a polyethylene oxide linker provided structural flexibility, and a fluorescent affinity tag containing a rhodamine backbone served as the potential binding site to a key peptide sequence encoded within a protein of interest. The synthetic routes to access our electrophilic rhodamine B and sulforhodamine 101 fluorophores were optimized. Key intermediates were produced and served as flexible points of modification to make various analogs of our desired electrophilic fluorophores. The affinity between proteins containing the peptide sequence and the fluorescent electrophiles were determined by fluorescence polarization. Covalent labeling was determined to be both time and concentration dependent. The expected published affinity between the peptides and fluorophore was not high enough to produce selective labeling. However, our small labeling molecules were found to be effective at labeling various proteins in vitro. In addition, our electrophilic fluorophores have been found superior to sulforhodamine 101 in live cell imaging of astrocytes.

A growing body of literature suggests Breast Cancer-Associated Protein 1 (BRCA1) is important not only as a cause, but also as a target in the quest for cancer treatment. BRCA1 deficient cells treated with radiation as well as PARP inhibitors and other chemotherapeutics demonstrate a greater sensitivity than cells with wild type BRCA1. Inhibitors of BRCA1 would take advantage of this synthetic lethality and represent a significant advance in cancer treatment as well as an understanding of the biology of DNA repair. Despite significant study of BRCA1 protein and function, it is a large protein (220 KDa) that is still largely uncharacterized, but its N- and C-terminal domains have been described by significant structural data. The BRCT (BRCA1 C-Terminal) Domain is a phosphoprotein binding domain that is commonly mutated or lost in cancers and has a binding cleft seemingly very suitable for drug design. Small molecule screens have been conducted against this domain, but the resulting hits with moderate affinity have not been shown to induce BRCA1 deficient phenotypes. Phosphopeptides have also been studied as potential BRCA1 inhibitors, yet despite some having affinities in the mid-nanomolar range the presence of a phosphate is not without its pharmacologic challenges. We generated an mRNA display library with 1.3 x 10^13 cyclized peptides covalently attached to the mRNA that encoded them. Eight rounds of selection exposing the library to a GST-BRCT fusion resulted in selection of non-phosphorylated peptides that bind to a BRCT domain of BRCA1. The sequences resulting from the selection have common homologies and initial characterization has shown that these peptides may be the first viable non-phosphoserine containing inhibitors of BRCA1.

Peptides are a promising class of therapeutic candidates due to their high specificity and affinity for cellular protein targets. However, peptides are susceptible to protease degradation and are typically not cell-permeable. In efforts to design more effective peptide drug discovery systems, investigators have discovered that incorporation of non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs) and macrocyclization overcome these limitations, making peptides more drug-like. In this work, we exploit the promiscuity of wild-type aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) to ‘mischarge’ ncAAs onto tRNA and ribosomally incorporate them into peptides using a cell-free translation system. We have demonstrated the ability to incorporate five ncAAs into a single peptide with near-wild type yield and fidelity. We also demonstrated the in situ incorporation of ncAAs containing azide and alkyne functionalities, enabling the use of CuAAC (click chemistry) to generate triazole-bridged cyclic peptides. When combined with bisalkylation of peptides containing two cysteines via an α,α’-dibromo-m-xylene linker, we created bicyclic peptides which are structurally similar to the highly bioactive knotted peptide natural products. Biological display methods, such as mRNA display, are powerful peptide discovery tools based on their ability to generate libraries of >1014 unique peptides. We combined our ability to incorporate ncAAs with our bicyclization technique adapted for use with mRNA display to create knotted peptide library scaffolds. We performed side-by-side monocyclic and bicyclic in vitro selections against a model protein (streptavidin). Both selections resulted in peptides with mid-nM affinity, and the bicyclic selection yielded a peptide with remarkable protease resistance. We used a new library that enables the generation of a diverse collection of linear, monocyclic and bicyclic scaffolds in one pot, increasing the likelihood of target-ligand conformational alignment. We performed a second selection against streptavidin and revealed a nearly unanimous preference for linear peptides containing an HPQ motif, a known streptavidin-binding sequence. However, when we used these libraries for in vitro selection against a biological target, DNA repair protein XRCC4, we did not observe convergence. In summary, we have developed a novel technique for production of bicyclic peptide libraries. These highly-constrained protease-stable scaffolds can be used as platforms to identify high affinity, drug-like ligands using mRNA display.

Peptides are emerging as promising therapeutics due to their inhibitory affinity towards protein-protein interactions (PPI). However, peptides have been limited mainly by their poor bio-stability and lack of cell permeability. Efforts to generate drug-like peptides have led to the development of macrocyclic peptides, which exhibit improved stability. Yet, most macrocyclic peptides still require the assistance of a cell penetrating peptide (CPP) for cellular entry. High throughput technologies have been exceptional tools for the discovery of peptides to interrupt PPIs. This work details the recent advancements we have made to improve our high throughput technique, mRNA display, to yield more therapeutically relevant peptides to inhibit PPIs. Our advancements are focused on cell permeability, protease stability, and secondary structure for enhanced affinity. Here we develop and optimize a cyclic CPP that can be included in future mRNA display libraries. We also tested the ability of our CPP to deliver an impermeable peptide cargo into cells. We rationally designed and tested linear and cyclic peptides to improve affinity to the BRCA1 protein. We used computational work to complement our experimental results for our CPPs and BRCA1 inhibitors. We examined peptides that arose from a library containing a mix of linear, monocyclic, and bicyclic peptides constructed using orthogonal cyclization chemistries. We rationally designed cyclic peptides and tested their affinity against Hsp70. We proposed a novel selection strategy to find optimal CPP motifs.

<p>DNA-recognizing proteins are involved in a multitude of important life-processes. Therefore, it is of great interest to understand the underlying mechanisms that set the rules for sequence specific protein–DNA interactions. Previous attempts aiming to resolve these interactions have been focused on naturally occurring systems. Due to the complexity of such systems, conclusions about structure–function relationship in protein–DNA interactions have been moderate. </p><p>To expand the knowledge of protein–DNA recognition, we have utilized<i> in vitro</i> evolution techniques. A phage display system was modified to express the DNA-binding, helix-turn-helix protein Cro from bacteriophage λ. A single-chain variant of Cro (scCro) was mutated in the amino acid residues important for sequence-specific DNA-binding. Three different phage-libraries were constructed. </p><p>Affinity selection towards a synthetic ORas12 DNA-ligand generated a consensus motif. Two clones containing the motif exhibited high specificity for ORas12 as compared to control ligands. The third library selection, based on the discovered motif, generated new protein variants with increased affinity for ORas-ligands. Competition experiments showed that Arg was important for high affinity, but the affinity was reduced in presence of Asp or Glu. By measuring <i>K</i>_D values of similar variant proteins, it was possible to correlate DNA-binding properties to the protein structure.</p><p>mRNA display of scCro was also conducted. The system retained the wild-type DNA-binding properties and allowed for functional selection of the mRNA–scCro fusion. Selected species was eluted and the gene encoding the scCro was recovered by PCR. </p><p>The two <i>in vitro</i> selection methods described in this thesis can be used to increase the knowledge of the structure–function relationship regarding protein–DNA recognition. Furthermore, we have also shown that new helix-turn-helix proteins exhibiting novel DNA-binding specificity can be constructed by phage display. The ability to construct proteins with altered DNA-specificity has various important applications in molecular biology and in gene therapy.</p>

DNA-recognizing proteins are involved in a multitude of important life-processes. Therefore, it is of great interest to understand the underlying mechanisms that set the rules for sequence specific protein–DNA interactions. Previous attempts aiming to resolve these interactions have been focused on naturally occurring systems. Due to the complexity of such systems, conclusions about structure–function relationship in protein–DNA interactions have been moderate. To expand the knowledge of protein–DNA recognition, we have utilized in vitro evolution techniques. A phage display system was modified to express the DNA-binding, helix-turn-helix protein Cro from bacteriophage λ. A single-chain variant of Cro (scCro) was mutated in the amino acid residues important for sequence-specific DNA-binding. Three different phage-libraries were constructed. Affinity selection towards a synthetic ORas12 DNA-ligand generated a consensus motif. Two clones containing the motif exhibited high specificity for ORas12 as compared to control ligands. The third library selection, based on the discovered motif, generated new protein variants with increased affinity for ORas-ligands. Competition experiments showed that Arg was important for high affinity, but the affinity was reduced in presence of Asp or Glu. By measuring KD values of similar variant proteins, it was possible to correlate DNA-binding properties to the protein structure. mRNA display of scCro was also conducted. The system retained the wild-type DNA-binding properties and allowed for functional selection of the mRNA–scCro fusion. Selected species was eluted and the gene encoding the scCro was recovered by PCR. The two in vitro selection methods described in this thesis can be used to increase the knowledge of the structure–function relationship regarding protein–DNA recognition. Furthermore, we have also shown that new helix-turn-helix proteins exhibiting novel DNA-binding specificity can be constructed by phage display. The ability to construct proteins with altered DNA-specificity has various important applications in molecular biology and in gene therapy.

abstract: Protein affinity reagents have aptly gained profound importance as capture reagents and drugs in basic research, biotechnology, diagnostics and therapeutics. However, due to the cost, labor and time associated with production of antibodies focus has recently changed towards potential of peptides to act as protein affinity reagents. Affinity peptides are easy to work with, non-immunogenic, cost effective and amenable to scale up. Even though researchers have developed several affinity peptides, we are far from compiling library of peptides that encompasses entire human proteome. My thesis describes high throughput pipeline that can be used to develop and characterize affinity peptides that bind several discrete sites on target proteins. Chapter 2 describes optimization of cell-free protein expression using commercially available translation systems and well-known leader sequences. Presence of internal ribosome entry site upstream of coding region allows maximal expression in HeLa cell lysate whereas translation enhancing elements are best suited for expression in rabbit reticulocyte lysate and wheat germ extract. Use of optimal vector and cell lysate combination ensures maximum protein expression of DNA libraries. Chapter 3 describes mRNA display selection methodology for developing affinity peptides for target proteins using large diversity DNA libraries. I demonstrate that mild denaturant is not sufficient to increase selection pressure for up to three rounds of selection and increasing number of selection rounds increases probability of finding affinity peptide s. These studies enhance fundamental understanding of mRNA display and pave the way for future optimizations to accelerate convergence of in vitro selections. Chapter 4 describes a high throughput double membrane dot blot system to rapidly screen, identify and characterize affinity peptides obtained from selection output. I used dot blot to screen potential affinity peptides from large diversity of previously ii uncharacterized mRNA display selection output. Further characterization of potential peptides allowed determination of several high affinity peptides from having Kd range 150- 450 nM. Double membrane dot blot is automation amenable, easy and affordable solution for analyzing selection output and characterizing peptides without ne ed for much instrumentation. Together these projects serve as guideline for evolution of cost effective high throughput pipeline for identification and characterization of affinity peptides. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Biochemistry 2014