Discovery of Ligands for Nurr1 by Combined Use of NMR Screening with Different Isotopic and Spin-Labeling Strategies

Abstract

A comprehensive approach to target screening, hit validation, and binding site determination by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is presented. NMR ¹⁹F signal perturbation was used to screen a small compound library and identify candidate ligands to the target of interest. Ligand dissociation constants were measured using a pegylated form of the protein, which resulted in a 2-fold increase in the strength of the saturation transfer difference signal. The initial small-molecule hits were further optimized by combining a residue-specific labeling strategy, to identify the specific sites of interaction with the protein, with a second site screening approach based on relaxation enhancement using a paramagnetic probe. The advantages of this combination strategy in the identification and optimization of weak binding chemical entities early in a program are illustrated with the discovery of a low micromolar ligand (K_d = 20 µM) for Nurr1 and identification of the binding site location through residue-specific ¹⁵N isotope labeling and derivatization of Cys residues with 2-mercaptoethanol-1-¹³C. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2007:301-311)

Keywords

Nurr1 ligands NMR screening fragment-based approach isotope labeling spin labeling

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