TY - JOUR
T1 - An aggregation sensing reporter identifies leflunomide and teriflunomide as polyglutamine aggregate inhibitors
AU - Fuentealba, Rodrigo A.
AU - Marasa, Jayne
AU - Diamond, Marc I.
AU - Piwnica-Worms, David
AU - Weihl, Conrad C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (AG031867 to C.C.W., P50 CA94056 to D.P.-W.) and the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders, Washington University in St Louis (pilot grant to C.C.W. and D.P.-W.).
PY - 2012/2
Y1 - 2012/2
N2 - Intracellular protein aggregation is a common pathologic feature in neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington' disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson' disease. Although progress towards understanding protein aggregation in vitro has been made, little of this knowledge has translated to patient therapy. Moreover, mechanisms controlling aggregate formation and catabolism in cellulo remain poorly understood. One limitation is the lack of tools to quantitatively monitor protein aggregation and disaggregation. Here, we developed a protein-aggregation reporter that uses huntingtin exon 1 containing 72 glutamines fused to the N-terminal end of firefly luciferase (httQ72-Luc). httQ72-Luc fails to aggregate unless seeded by a non-luciferase-containing polyglutamine (polyQ) protein such as Q80-cfp. Upon co-aggregation, httQ72-luc becomes insoluble and loses its enzymatic activity. Using httQ72-Luc with Q80(CFP/YFP) as seeds, we screened the Johns Hopkins Clinical Compound Library and identified leflunomide, a dihydroorotate dehydrogenase inhibitor with immunosuppressive and anti-psoriatic activities, as a novel drug that prevents polyQ aggregation. Leflunomide and its active metabolite teriflunomide inhibited protein aggregation independently of their known role in pyrimidine biosynthesis, since neither uridine treatment nor other pyrimidine biosynthesis inhibitors affected polyQ aggregation. Inducible cell line and cycloheximide-chase experiments indicate that these drugs prevent incorporation of expanded polyQ into an aggregate. This study demonstrates the usefulness of luciferase-based protein aggregate reporters for high-throughput screening applications. As current trials are under-way for teriflunomide in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, we propose that this drug be considered a possible therapeutic agent for polyQ diseases.
AB - Intracellular protein aggregation is a common pathologic feature in neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington' disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson' disease. Although progress towards understanding protein aggregation in vitro has been made, little of this knowledge has translated to patient therapy. Moreover, mechanisms controlling aggregate formation and catabolism in cellulo remain poorly understood. One limitation is the lack of tools to quantitatively monitor protein aggregation and disaggregation. Here, we developed a protein-aggregation reporter that uses huntingtin exon 1 containing 72 glutamines fused to the N-terminal end of firefly luciferase (httQ72-Luc). httQ72-Luc fails to aggregate unless seeded by a non-luciferase-containing polyglutamine (polyQ) protein such as Q80-cfp. Upon co-aggregation, httQ72-luc becomes insoluble and loses its enzymatic activity. Using httQ72-Luc with Q80(CFP/YFP) as seeds, we screened the Johns Hopkins Clinical Compound Library and identified leflunomide, a dihydroorotate dehydrogenase inhibitor with immunosuppressive and anti-psoriatic activities, as a novel drug that prevents polyQ aggregation. Leflunomide and its active metabolite teriflunomide inhibited protein aggregation independently of their known role in pyrimidine biosynthesis, since neither uridine treatment nor other pyrimidine biosynthesis inhibitors affected polyQ aggregation. Inducible cell line and cycloheximide-chase experiments indicate that these drugs prevent incorporation of expanded polyQ into an aggregate. This study demonstrates the usefulness of luciferase-based protein aggregate reporters for high-throughput screening applications. As current trials are under-way for teriflunomide in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, we propose that this drug be considered a possible therapeutic agent for polyQ diseases.
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U2 - 10.1093/hmg/ddr500
DO - 10.1093/hmg/ddr500
M3 - Article
C2 - 22052286
AN - SCOPUS:84856103060
SN - 0964-6906
VL - 21
SP - 664
EP - 680
JO - Human molecular genetics
JF - Human molecular genetics
IS - 3
M1 - ddr500
ER -