Targeted Delivery of Ubiquitin-Conjugated BH3 Peptide-Based Mcl-1 Inhibitors into Cancer Cells

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• 作者：Avinash Muppidi ; Kenichiro Doi ; Selvakumar Edwardraja ; Surya V. S. R. K. Pulavarti ; Thomas Szyperski ; Hong-Gang Wang ; Qing Lin
• 刊名：Bioconjugate Chemistry
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：February 19, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：25
• 期：2
• 页码：424-432
• 全文大小：437K
• ISSN：1520-4812

文摘

BH3 peptides are key mediators of apoptosis and have served as the lead structures for the development of anticancer therapeutics. Previously, we reported the application of a simple cysteine-based side chain cross-linking chemistry to NoxaBH3 peptides that led to the generation of the cross-linked NoxaBH3 peptides with increased cell permeability and higher inhibitory activity against Mcl-1 (Muppidi, A., Doi, K., Edwardraja, S., Drake, E. J., Gulick, A. M.,Wang, H.-G., Lin, Q. (2012) J. Am. Chem. Soc.134, 14734). To deliver cross-linked NoxaBH3 peptides selectively into cancer cells for enhanced efficacy and reduced systemic toxicity, here we report the conjugation of the NoxaBH3 peptides with the extracellular ubiquitin, a recently identified endogenous ligand for CXCR4, a chemokine receptor overexpressed in cancer cells. The resulting ubiquitin-NoxaBH3 peptide conjugates showed increased inhibitory activity against Mcl-1 and selective killing of the CXCR4-expressing cancer cells. The successful delivery of the NoxaBH3 peptides by ubiquitin into cancer cells suggests that the ubiquitin/CXCR4 axis may serve as a general route for the targeted delivery of anticancer agents.