Assembly of the eIF4E/eIF4G complex has a central role in the regulation of gene expression at the level of translation initiation. This complex is regulated by the 4E-BPs, which compete with eIF4G for binding to eIF4E and which have tumor-suppressor activity. To pharmacologically mimic 4E-BP function we developed a high-throughput screening assay for identifying small-molecule inhibitors of the eIF4E/eIF4G interaction. The most potent compound identified, 4EGI-1, binds eIF4E, disrupts eIF4E/eIF4G association, and inhibits cap-dependent translation but not initiation factor-independent translation. While 4EGI-1 displaces eIF4G from eIF4E, it effectively enhances 4E-BP1 association both in vitro and in cells. 4EGI-1 inhibits cellular expression of oncogenic proteins encoded by weak mRNAs, exhibits activity against multiple cancer cell lines, and appears to have a preferential effect on transformed versus nontransformed cells. The identification of this compound provides a new tool for studying translational control and establishes a possible new strategy for cancer therapy.

Activation of growth factor receptors by ligand binding initiates a cascade of events leading to cell growth and division. Progression through the cell cycle is controlled by cyclin-dependent protein kinases (Cdks), but the mechanisms that link growth factor signaling to the cell cycle machinery have not been established. We report here that Ras proteins play a key role in integrating mitogenic signals with cell cycle progression through G 1 . Ras is required for cell cycle progression and activation of both Cdk2 and Cdk4 until ϳ2 h before the G 1 /S transition, corresponding to the restriction point. Analysis of Cdk-cyclin complexes indicates that Ras signaling is required both for induction of cyclin D1 and for downregulation of the Cdk inhibitor p27 KIP1. Constitutive expression of cyclin D1 circumvents the requirement for Ras signaling in cell proliferation, indicating that regulation of cyclin D1 is a critical target of the Ras signaling cascade.

To obtain a comprehensive assessment of metabolite levels from extracts of leukocytes, we have recorded ultra-high-resolution 1 H-13 C HSQC NMR spectra of cell extracts, which exhibit spectral signatures of numerous small molecules. However, conventional acquisition of such spectra is time consuming and hampers measurements on multiple samples, which would be needed for statistical analysis of metabolite concentrations. Here we show that the measurement time can be dramatically reduced without loss of spectral quality when using non-linear sampling (NLS) and a new highfidelity Forward Maximum-entropy (FM) reconstruction algorithm. This FM reconstruction conserves all measured time domain data points and guesses the missing data points by an iterative process. This consists of discrete Fourier transformation of the sparse time-domain data set, computation of the spectral entropy, determination of a multidimensional entropy gradient, and calculation of new values for the missing time domain data points with a conjugate gradient approach. Since this procedure does not alter measured data points it reproduces signal intensities with high fidelity and does not suffer from a dynamic-range problem. As an example we measured a natural abundance 1 H-13 C HSQC spectrum of metabolites from granulocyte cell extracts. We show that a high-resolution 1 H-13 C HSQC spectrum with 4k complex increments recorded linearly within 3.7 days can be reconstructed from 1/7 th of the increments with nearly identical spectral appearance, indistinguishable signal intensities and comparable or even lower root mean square (rms) and peak noise patterns measured in signal-free areas. Thus, this approach allows recording of ultra-high resolution 1 H-13 C HSQC spectra in a fraction of the time needed for recording linearly sampled spectra.