The mitogen activated protein (MAP) kinase ERK2 contains recruitment sites that engage canonical and non-canonical motifs found in a variety of upstream kinases, regulating phosphatases and downstream targets. Interactions involving two of these sites, the D-recruitment site (DRS) and the F-recruitment site (FRS), have been shown to play a key role in signal transduction by ERK/MAP kinases. The dynamic nature of these recruitment events makes NMR uniquely suited to provide significant insight into these interactions. While NMR studies of kinases in general have been greatly hindered by their large size and complex dynamic behavior leading to the sub-optimal performance of standard methodologies, we have overcome these difficulties for inactive full-length ERK2 and obtained an acceptable level of backbone resonance assignments. This allowed a detailed investigation of the structural perturbations that accompany interactions involving both canonical and non-canonical recruitment events. No crystallographic information exists for the latter. We found that the chemical shift perturbations in inactive ERK2, indicative of structural changes in the presence of canonical and non-canonical motifs, are not restricted to the recruitment sites, but also involve the linker that connects the N- and C-lobes and, in most cases, a gatekeeper residue that is thought to exert allosteric control over catalytic activity. We also found that, even though the canonical motifs interact with the DRS utilizing both charge-charge and hydrophobic interactions, the non-canonical interactions primarily involve the latter. These results demonstrate the feasibility of solution NMR techniques for a comprehensive analysis of docking interactions in a full-length ERK/MAP kinase.

Evidence is emerging that elongation factor 2 kinase (eEF-2K) has potential as a target for anti-cancer therapy and possibly for the treatment of depression. Here the steady-state kinetic mechanism of eEF-2K is presented using a peptide substrate and is shown to conform to an ordered sequential mechanism with ATP binding first. Substrate inhibition by the peptide was observed and revealed to be competitive with ATP, explaining the observed ordered mechanism. Several small molecules are reported to inhibit eEF-2K activity with the most notable being the histidine kinase inhibitor NH125, which has been used in a number of studies to characterize eEF-2K activity in cells. While NH125 was previously reported to inhibit eEF-2K in vitro with an IC50 of 60 nM its mechanism of action was not established. Using the same kinetic assay the ability of an authentic sample of NH125 to inhibit eEF-2K was assessed over a range of substrate and inhibitor concentrations. A typical dose-response curve for the inhibition of eEF-2K by NH125 is best fit to an IC50 of 18 ± 0.25 µM and a Hill coefficient of 3.7 ± 0.14, suggesting that NH125 is a weak inhibitor of eEF-2K under the experimental conditions of a standard in vitro kinase assay. To test the possibility that NH125 is a potent inhibitor of eEF2 phosphorylation we assessed its ability to inhibit the phosphorylation of eEF2. Under standard kinase assay conditions NH125 exhibits similar weak ability to inhibit the phosphorylation of eEF2 by eEF-2K. Notably, the activity of NH125 is severely abrogated by the addition of 0.1 % triton to the kinase assay through a process that can be reversed upon dilution. These studies suggest that NH125 is as a non-specific colloidal aggregator in vitro, a notion further supported by the observation that NH125 inhibits other protein kinases, such as ERK2 and TRPM7 in a similar manner to eEF-2K. As NH125 is reported to inhibit eEF-2K in a cellular environment its ability to inhibit eEF2 phosphorylation was assessed in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer, A549 lung cancer and HEK-293T cell lines using a Western blot approach. No sign of decrease in the level of eEF2 phosphorylation was observed up to 12 hours following addition of NH125 to the media. Furthermore, contrary to the previously reported literatures, NH125 induced the phosphorylation of eEF-2.

The hypoxia-inducible transcription factor HIF1α drives expression of many glycolytic enzymes. Here we show that hypoxic glycolysis, in turn, increases HIF1α transcriptional activity and stimulates tumor growth, revealing a novel feed-forward mechanism of glycolysis-HIF1α signaling. Negative regulation of HIF1α by AMPK1 is bypassed in hypoxic cells, due to ATP elevation by increased glycolysis, thereby preventing phosphorylation and inactivation of the HIF1α transcriptional co-activator p300. Notably, of the HIF1α activated glycolytic enzymes we evaluated by gene silencing, aldolase A (ALDOA) blockade produced the most robust decrease in glycolysis, HIF-1 activity and cancer cell proliferation. Furthermore, either RNAi-mediated silencing of ALDOA or systemic treatment with a specific small molecule inhibitor of aldolase A was sufficient to increase overall survival in a xenograft model of metastatic breast cancer. In establishing a novel glycolysis-HIF-1α feed-forward mechanism in hypoxic tumor cell, our results also provide a preclinical rationale to develop aldolase A inhibitors as a generalized strategy to treat intractable hypoxic cancer cells found widely in most solid tumors.

Eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase (eEF-2K) is an atypical protein kinase regulated by Ca2+ and calmodulin (CaM). Its only known substrate is eukaryotic elongation factor 2 (eEF-2), whose phosphorylation by eEF-2K impedes global protein synthesis. To date, the mechanism of eEF-2K autophosphorylation has not been fully elucidated. To investigate the mechanism of autophosphorylation, human eEF-2K was co-expressed with λ-phosphatase, and purified from bacteria in a three-step protocol using a calmodulin-affinity column. Purified eEF-2K was induced to autophosphorylate by incubation with Ca2+/CaM in the presence of MgATP. Analyzing tryptic or chymotryptic peptides by mass spectrometry monitored the autophosphorylation over 0–180 minutes. The following five major autophosphorylation sites were identified, Thr-348, Thr-353, Ser-445, Ser-474 and Ser-500. In the presence of Ca2+/CaM, robust phosphorylation of Thr-348 occurs within seconds of adding MgATP. Mutagenesis studies suggest that phosphorylation of Thr-348 is required for substrate (eEF-2 or a peptide substrate) phosphorylation, but not self-phosphorylation. Phosphorylation of Ser-500 lags behind the phosphorylation of Thr-348, and is associated with calcium-independent activity of eEF-2K. Mutation of Ser-500 to Asp, but not Ala, renders eEF-2K calcium-independent. Surprisingly, this calcium-independent activity requires the presence of calmodulin.

The extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase, ERK2, fully activated by phosphorylation and without a His6-tag, shows little tendency to dimerize with or without either calcium or magnesium ions when analyzed by light scattering or analytical ultracentrifugation. Light scattering shows that ~ 90% of ERK2 is monomeric. Sedimentation equilibrium data (obtained at 4.8–11.2 μM ERK2) with or without magnesium (10 mM) are well described by an ideal one-component model with a fitted molar mass of 40,180 ± 240 Da (- Mg2+ ions) and 41,290 ± 330 Da (+ Mg2+ ions). These values, close to the sequence-derived mass of 41,711 Da, indicate that no significant dimerization of ERK2 occurs in solution. Analysis of sedimentation velocity data for a 15 μM solution of ERK2 with an enhanced van Holde-Weischet method determined the sedimentation coefficient (s) to be ~ 3.22 S for activated ERK2 with or without 10 mM MgCl2. The frictional coefficient ratio (f/f0) of 1.28 calculated from the sedimentation velocity and equilibrium data is close to that expected for a globular protein of ~ 42 kDa. The translational diffusion coefficient of ~ 8.3 × 10-7 cm2s-1 calculated from the experimentally determined molar mass and sedimentation coefficient agrees with the value determined by dynamic light scattering in the absence and presence of calcium or magnesium ions and a value determined by NMR spectrometry. ERK2 has been proposed to homodimerize and bind only to cytoplasmic but not nuclear proteins. Our light scattering data show, however, that ERK2 forms a strong 1:1 complex of ~ 57 kDa with the cytoplasmic scaffold protein PEA-15. Thus ERK2 binds PEA-15 as a monomer. Our data provide strong evidence that ERK2 is monomeric under physiological conditions. Analysis of the same ERK2 construct with the non-physiological His6-Tag shows substantial dimerization under the same ionic conditions.