XXXV Reunião Anual da SBBqResumoID:2711


Crystal Structure of Bovine Purine Nucleoside Phosphorylase in Complex with AT2172 and Sulphate.

Pereira, H.M1; Berdini, V2; Cleasby, A2;  Garratt, R.C1



1- Instituto de Física de São Carlos, USP; 2- Astex Therapeutics, Cambridge, UK.

Purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP, E.C. 2.4.2.1) catalyses the cleavage of the glycosidic bond of ribo- and deoxyribonucleosides, in the presence of inorganic phosphate (Pi), to generate the purine base and ribose (deoxyribose)-1-phosphate. Human PNP is considered an important target for chemotherapeutic intervention since the discovery that PNP-deficiency is an inherited disease of purine metabolism, leading to T-cell immune deficiency. Consequently, potent inhibitors of human PNP are promising selective immunosuppressive agents for suppression of the host versus graft response in organ transplantation, for treatment of T-cell leukemias, and also for some T-cell mediated autoimmune diseases. The known structure of bovine PNP (bovPNP) was used for Virtual Screening (VS) in order to discover new potential ligands for PNP.  Approximately 30,000 compounds with MW below 280Da were tested. As a result, 20 compounds were selected for enzymatic assays. One of these compounds (AT2172) possesses an IC50 of 5 micromolar against bovPNP. In order to obtain the complex between AT2172 and the enzyme, the crystallization procedure of Mao et al., (1998) was followed. The ligand (at 5mM) was dissolved in mother liquor and introduced into the structure by soaking.
BovPNP-AT2172 data was collected from a single crystal on the 14.2 Station (SRS, Daresbury-UK) up to 2.1Å using a wavelength of 0.98Å. Data processing was performed with Mosflm and Scala (CCP4) yielding an overall completeness of 97.4% with an Rsym of 7,8% to 2.1Å, for a total of 14937 unique reflections. Molecular replacement using the MOLREP program and the uncomplexed bovPNP, resulted in a single solution (Rfactor 36.1%). Electron density maps were visualized using the Quanta program. One peak corresponding to the ligand AT2172 was found in the active site. The ligand was automatically placed using the X-ligand module of the Quanta program and refinement carried out using both CNX and REFMAC.  Quanta and Coot were used for model building and map visualization. The current values of R and Rfree are 16.6 and 21.1% respectively. This complex structure could help in the development of new inhibitors for human PNP.