Small Molecule Libraries Targeted to CBP and Attenuation AfosB Expression

描述(由申请人提供)：上瘾是一种慢性、复发性精神障碍，特征是强迫寻求药物的行为，尽管涉及的个人在身体、精神和社会上造成了重大伤害。在阐明成瘾发生的潜在神经适应方面取得了进展。这在一定程度上涉及到颠覆或劫持与奖赏、记忆和学习相关的正常神经元可塑性。细胞对外界刺激(包括滥用精神刺激剂等病理刺激)的反应方式之一是改变它们的基因表达模式，其中一个机制是通过表观遗传改变导致基因转录模式的改变。诱导增量FosB是一种与长期使用这些药物相关的典型的神经再生事件。暴露在滥用的精神刺激剂中，例如可卡因，会导致基因启动子的组蛋白乙酰化，从而激活包括FosB在内的早期反应基因。FosB启动子乙酰化的增加依赖于CBP(CREB结合蛋白)依赖的组蛋白乙酰转移酶(HAT)活性。因此，暴露于滥用药物，如可卡因和安非他明，已被证明导致伏隔核细胞中FosB蛋白表达增加。在慢性治疗中，FosB的一个更长寿的截断剪接变体--Delta FosB--被表达，并随着向成瘾状态的转变而在神经元中积累。Delta FosB在停药后存在一段较长的时间，因此它被认为是形成长期成瘾行为的诱因，因此有复发的倾向。这项研究要检验的关键生物学假设是，小分子抑制剂降低CBP活性将减少FosB基因启动子的乙酰化，进而降低FosB和Delta FosB蛋白的表达。在西奈山化学文库的高通量筛选中，在与CBP溴域的结合分析中发现了两系列命中分子。此外，在基于细胞的报告分析中，这些HITS已被证明抑制CBP介导的HAT活性。这些化学铅系列可以通过平行合成技术进行探索和精制，以创建CBP抑制剂的库。这项建议的广泛主题是通过有针对性的文库合成和药物化学来优化这些HITS，以提供小分子，通过减弱CBP HAT活性来抑制Delta FosB的诱导。这些小分子将作为药理学工具来研究向成瘾状态转变过程中潜在的神经元适应，并可能为预防或逆转成瘾提供一种新的治疗方式。 公共卫生相关性：成瘾是一种慢性、复发性精神障碍，其特征是强迫性寻求毒品的行为。与成瘾有关的神经元变化部分是表观遗传的，并导致大脑中与奖励、记忆和学习机制相关的正常神经元可塑性的颠覆或劫持。这项建议的主题是识别和优化调节和减弱与成瘾相关的表观遗传过程的小分子；这些小分子将作为药理学工具来研究向成瘾状态过渡的潜在神经过程，并可能为预防或逆转成瘾提供一种新的治疗方式。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Addiction is a chronic, relapsing psychiatric disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking behaviors despite significant physical, mental and social harm to the individuals involved. Progress has been made in elucidating the underlying neuroadaptions that occur in addiction. These involve, in part, a subversion, or hijacking of normal neuronal plasticity associated reward, memory and learning. One of the ways cells respond to external stimuli, including pathological stimuli such as abused psychostimulants, is by altering their pattern of gene expression and one mechanism for this is via epigenetic changes leading to altered patterns of gene transcription. Induction delta FosB is a well characterized neuroplastic event associated with chronic administration of these drugs. Exposure to abused psycostimulants, for example cocaine, leads to histone acetylation of gene promoters, and consequent transcriptional activation, of early response genes, including FosB. Increase in FosB promoter acetylation has been shown to be dependent on CBP (CREB binding protein) dependant histone acetyl transferase (HAT) activity. Thus exposure to drugs of abuses such cocaine and amphetamines have been shown to lead to increase FosB protein expression in cells of the nucleus accumbens. On chronic treatment, a longer lived truncated splice variant of FosB, delta FosB, is expressed and this accumulates in neurons as the transition to an addicted state occurs. Delta FosB is present for an extended period of time after drug is withdrawn and it has thus been implicated as a causative agent in the formation of longer term addictive behaviors and hence propensity for relapse. The key biological hypothesis to be tested by the proposed research is that attenuation of CBP activity by a small molecule inhibitor will reduce acetylation of the FosB gene promoter, which in turn will lower FosB and delta FosB protein expression. High throughput screens of chemical libraries at Mount Sinai have identified two series of hit molecules in a binding assay to CBP bromodomain. Further, these hits have been shown to inhibit CBP mediated HAT activity in cell based reporter assays. These chemical lead series are amenable to exploration and elaboration by parallel synthesis techniques to create libraries of CBP inhibitors. The broad theme of this proposal is to optimize these hits via targeted library synthesis and medicinal chemistry to provide small molecules which will inhibit delta FosB induction via attenuation of CBP HAT activity. These small molecules will function as pharmacological tools to investigate the underlying neuronal adaptations in transition to the addicted state and may provide a novel therapeutic modality for the prevention or reversal of addiction. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Addiction is a chronic, relapsing psychiatric disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking behaviors. Neuronal changes involved in addiction are partly epigenetic and result in a subversion, or hijacking of normal neuronal plasticity associated reward, memory and learning mechanisms in the brain. The theme of this proposal is to identify and optimize small molecules that modulate and attenuate the epigenetic processes associated with addiction; these small molecules will function as pharmacological tools to investigate the underlying neuronal processes in transition to the addicted state and may provide a novel therapeutic modality for the prevention or reversal of addiction.