Disrupting Protein-Protein Interactions with Self-Assembling Macrocycles

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PROJECT SUMMARY The long-term objective is to understand the chemistry of a new class of ring-shaped (macrocyclic) molecules and the potential that these molecules might have in modulating interactions between proteins. Controlling protein-protein interactions is an under-explored area of research and is fertile ground for the discovery of new drug leads and strategies. Academic labs, biotech companies and big pharma are investing increasing energies into these pursuits. Preparing rings represents a synthetic challenge that rarely has a general solution. That is, while many methods have been used successfully, they can be limited in scope or substrate specificity. Dynamic covalent chemistry is a powerful alternative to traditional synthesis, but commonly, the result is a mixture of products. Fortuitously, simple chemistries have been discovered to make molecules in 2 steps that spontaneously dimerize to yield a single macrocyclic product in quantitative yield. The backbone of these molecules offers numerous sites for manipulation. Groups that could affect selectivity and affinity of the macrocycle toward a protein target can be incorporated and the size of the ring can be changed. The proposed efforts focus on three general aims. The first two aims are chemical. Having established the generality of the motif over the last period, the affect that substitution has on shape, the critical element of drug design, will be probed. Shape influences affinity, solubility and important parameters like logP which predicts whether a molecule crosses membranes. The current studies are extended to larger rings that adopt protein-like shapes (beta-sheets). These efforts will be executed in the lab of the PI using primarily undergraduates. The third aim is biological. The collaborating co-I works on breast cancer. Protein-protein interactions between BRCA1 and PALB2 (breast cancer gene products) are explored with truncated models that recapitulate the native system. The ability of the proposed macrocycles to modulate interactions between these proteins will be assessed.