The parasitic protists of the genus infect humans and domestic mammals, causing severe mortality and huge economic losses. The most threatening trypanosomiasis is Chagas disease, affecting up to 12 million people in the Americas. We report a way to selectively kill by blocking glycosomal/peroxisomal import that depends on the PEX14-PEX5 protein-protein interaction. We developed small molecules that efficiently disrupt the PEX14-PEX5 interaction. This results in mislocalization of glycosomal enzymes, causing metabolic catastrophe, and it kills the parasite. High-resolution x-ray structures and nuclear magnetic resonance data enabled the efficient design of inhibitors with trypanocidal activities comparable to approved medications. These results identify PEX14 as an "Achilles' heel" of the suitable for the development of new therapies against trypanosomiases and provide the structural basis for their development.

No abstract

The transport of peroxisomal membrane proteins (PMPs) requires the soluble PEX19 protein as chaperone and import receptor. Recognition of cargo PMPs by the C-terminal domain (CTD) of PEX19 is required for peroxisome biogenesis in vivo. Farnesylation at a C-terminal CaaX motif in PEX19 enhances the PMP interaction, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are unknown. Here, we report the NMR-derived structure of the farnesylated human PEX19 CTD, which reveals that the farnesyl moiety is buried in an internal hydrophobic cavity. This induces substantial conformational changes that allosterically reshape the PEX19 surface to form two hydrophobic pockets for the recognition of conserved aromatic/aliphatic side chains in PMPs. Mutations of PEX19 residues that either mediate farnesyl contacts or are directly involved in PMP recognition abolish cargo binding and cannot complement a ΔPEX19 phenotype in human Zellweger patient fibroblasts. Our results demonstrate an allosteric mechanism for the modulation of protein function by farnesylation.