Discovery and Characterization of Peptide Inhibitors for Calcium and Integrin Binding Protein 1.
Puhl, A.C., Bogart, J.W., Haberman, V.A., Larson, J.E., Godoy, A.S., Norris-Drouin, J.L., Cholensky, S.H., Leisner, T.M., Frye, S.V., Parise, L.V., Bowers, A.A., Pearce, K.H.(2020) ACS Chem Biol 15: 1505-1516
- PubMed: 32383857 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acschembio.0c00144
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
6OCX, 6OD0 - PubMed Abstract: 
Calcium and integrin binding protein 1 (CIB1) is an EF-hand-containing, small intracellular protein that has recently been implicated in cancer cell survival and proliferation. In particular, CIB1 depletion significantly impairs tumor growth in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Thus, CIB1 is a potentially attractive target for cancer chemotherapy that has yet to be validated by a chemical probe. To produce a probe molecule to the CIB1 helix 10 (H10) pocket and demonstrate that it is a viable target for molecular intervention, we employed random peptide phage display to screen and select CIB1-binding peptides. The top peptide sequence selected, UNC10245092, was produced synthetically, and binding to CIB1 was confirmed by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and a time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (TR-FRET) assay. Both assays showed that the peptide bound to CIB1 with low nanomolar affinity. CIB1 was cocrystallized with UNC10245092, and the 2.1 Å resolution structure revealed that the peptide binds as an α-helix in the H10 pocket, displacing the CIB1 C-terminal H10 helix and causing conformational changes in H7 and H8. UNC10245092 was further derivatized with a C-terminal Tat-derived cell penetrating peptide (CPP) to demonstrate its effects on TNBC cells in culture, which are consistent with results of CIB1 depletion. These studies provide a first-in-class chemical tool for CIB1 inhibition in cell culture and validate the CIB1 H10 pocket for future probe and drug discovery efforts.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States.