Centre of Advanced Study in Crystallography and Biophysics, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai, 600 025, India.
Department of Biosciences and Medical Biology, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunner Str. 34, Salzburg, A-5020, Austria.
Protein J. 2023 Aug;42(4):343-354. doi: 10.1007/s10930-023-10114-8. Epub 2023 Apr 24.
In many bacteria, the High Temperature requirement A (HtrA) protein functions as a chaperone and protease. HtrA is an important factor in stress tolerance and plays a significant role in the virulence of several pathogenic bacteria. Camostat, gabexate and nafamostat mesylates are serine protease inhibitors and have recently shown a great impact in the inhibition studies of SARS-CoV2. In this study, the inhibition of Listeria monocytogenes HtrA (LmHtrA) protease activity was analysed using these three inhibitors. The cleavage assay, using human fibrinogen and casein as substrates, revealed that the three inhibitors effectively inhibit the protease activity of LmHtrA. The agar plate assay and spectrophotometric analysis concluded that the inhibition of nafamostat (IC value of 6.6 ± 0.4 µM) is more effective compared to the other two inhibitors. Previous studies revealed that at the active site of the protease, these inhibitors are hydrolysed and one of the hydrolysates is covalently bound to the active site serine. To understand the mode of binding of these inhibitors at the active site of LmHtrA, docking of the inhibitors followed by molecular dynamics simulations were carried out. Analysis of the LmHtrA-inhibitor complex structures revealed that the covalently bound inhibitor is unable to occupy the S1 pocket of the LmHtrA which is in contrast to the previously determined camostat and nafamostat complex structures. This observation provides the first glimpse of the substrate specificity of LmHtrA which is not known. The obtained results also suggest that the development of novel inhibitors of LmHtrA and its homologs with active site architecture similar to LmHtrA can be pursued with suitable modification of these inhibitors. To date, only a very few studies have been carried out on identifying the inhibitors of HtrA proteolytic activity.
在许多细菌中,高温需求 A(HtrA)蛋白作为伴侣蛋白和蛋白酶发挥作用。HtrA 是应激耐受的重要因素,在几种致病性细菌的毒力中起重要作用。卡莫司他、加贝酯和甲磺酸萘莫司他是丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂,最近在抑制 SARS-CoV2 的研究中显示出了巨大的影响。在这项研究中,使用这三种抑制剂分析了李斯特菌 HtrA(LmHtrA)蛋白酶活性的抑制。使用人纤维蛋白原和酪蛋白作为底物的切割测定表明,这三种抑制剂有效地抑制了 LmHtrA 的蛋白酶活性。琼脂平板测定和分光光度分析得出结论,与其他两种抑制剂相比,奈莫司他(IC 值为 6.6±0.4 µM)的抑制作用更有效。先前的研究表明,在蛋白酶的活性部位,这些抑制剂被水解,其中一种水解产物与活性部位丝氨酸共价结合。为了了解这些抑制剂在 LmHtrA 活性部位的结合方式,进行了抑制剂的对接和分子动力学模拟。对 LmHtrA-抑制剂复合物结构的分析表明,共价结合的抑制剂无法占据 LmHtrA 的 S1 口袋,这与之前确定的卡莫司他和奈莫司他复合物结构相反。这一观察结果首次提供了 LmHtrA 底物特异性的见解,而这种特异性目前尚不清楚。所得结果还表明,可以通过对这些抑制剂进行适当的修饰,来开发具有与 LmHtrA 相似的活性部位结构的 LmHtrA 及其同源物的新型抑制剂。迄今为止,只有少数研究致力于鉴定 HtrA 蛋白水解活性的抑制剂。