Poster Presentation Australian & New Zealand Society of Magnetic Resonance Conference 2017

Backbone Chemical Shift Assignments of the Anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 Family Protein, Bfl-1: Validation of Low Molecular Weight Hits from Fragment-based and High Throughput Screens (#122)

Shenggen Yao 1 , Erinna F Lee 2 , Marco Evangelista 2 , David W Keizer 1 , Jeff Mitchell 3 , Kym Lowes 3 , Martin Scanlon 4 , Pooja Sharma 3 , Helene Jousett 3 , Guillaume Lessene 3 , Douglas W Fairlie 2
  1. Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
  2. Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute, Heidelberg, VIC, Australia
  3. Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, VIC, Australia
  4. Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Parkville, VIC, Australia

Key-players in the intrinsic apoptosis pathway are the B-cell lymphoma protein 2 (Bcl-2) family of proteins. Despite the opposing pro- or anti-apoptotic functions of the various family members, they all exhibit a high degree of sequence and structural similarity in their “Bcl-2 homology regions”, in particular, the presence of a highly conserved hydrophobic ligand binding groove. Both pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins within the Bcl-2 family have long been considered targets for new anti-cancer drug development. Therefore, characterising interactions between the proteins and hit/lead compounds identified by fragment-based or high throughput compound screens at the level of individual amino acid residues is a critical step for lead/ligand optimization, and is at the heart of structure-based drug discovery. Here, we report the backbone chemical shift assignments for one of the anti-apoptotic proteins, Bfl-1, and NMR titration results for the validation and quantification of several low-molecular weight hits arising from fragment-based or high throughput compound screens. Compound binding to Bfl-1 was observed proximal to its hydrophobic groove whilst titration experiments enabled confirmation of binding affinity.