Proteasome is a multi-activity enzyme involved in a ubiquitin-dependent turnover of cytoplasmic and nuclear proteins. It recognizes and digests short-lived regulatory proteins, influencing cellular processes as crucial as progression of the cell cycle, transcription, oncogenesis and flux of substrates through metabolic pathways. The enzyme is responsible also for the housekeeping chores, degrading misfolded or oxidatively damaged proteins. Defects in the proteasome action play a causal role in development of a number of diseases, among which are cerebral ischemia and neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s diseases. Being a multifunctional proteolytic machinery, the proteasome must act under a strict control to prevent massive degradation of all intracellular proteins, which would result in a cell death. One of the levels of such a control is the proteasome structure itself. The core particle called 20S proteasome is a barrel-like structure made up of four rings of seven subunits each. The outer (α) rings play predominantly a structural role forming a kind of a gated channel leading to the proteolytic chamber. The inner-β-rings harbor six active sites, concealed inside the cavity formed by the β subunits. So far, the only proteasome-targeting agents used in clinics are competitive inhibitors, directly blocking the enzyme’s active sites. However, the multi-subunit barrel-like structure of the 20S proteasome encourages to test compounds which can target allosteric interactions between subunits and influence the gating mechanism, involved in the control of the substrates’ uptake. Such modulators may provide a precise and substrate-specific regulation of the proteasome catalytic performance. Additionally, targeting the allosteric interactions may enable not only inhibition but also stimulation of the proteasome, which is crucial in managing disorders connected with the proteasome not sufficient activity, such as neurodegenerative diseases. A variety of protein ligands, interacting with the outer ring of the 20S proteasome and modulating its activity, is already known. They can serve as templates for design of putative small-molecule allosteric drugs. In an effort to find synthetic compounds able to enhance or suppress the performance of the proteasome active centers we utilize one of such protein ligands – HIV-1 Tat protein. The protein is known to inhibit the core proteasome and to interfere with the physiological PA28 activator in its binding to the 20S. G48RKKRRQRRRPS59 fragment of HIV-1 Tat (Tat1) occurred to be very efficient in the 20S proteasome inhibition. By single and multiple alanine substitutions we have recognized “hot spots” in the sequence of Tat1. NMR and molecular dynamics calculations allowed us to correlate these putative pharmacophores with the structural turns. By introduction of a non-peptide turn-inducing modification to the Tat1 sequence we have obtained the derivatives highly toxic for human cultured cancer cells HeLa.S3. The work was supported by grants: NCN 2011/01/B/ST5/06616 and DS/8440-4-0172-2
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