SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors That Leverage Unique Interactions with the Solvent Exposed S3 Site of the Enzyme
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The Savannah River Site (SRS) has relied on 51 underground storage tanks, many dating back to the 1950s, to store radioactive liquid waste generated from nuclear processing and radionuclide production. These tanks use carbon steel cooling coils, cooled by soft, acidic water, to dissipate the decayed heat produced by radioactive waste. For decades, following historical industry practices, chromate has been added to the cooling water (~450 ppm at pH 9-11) to effectively inhibit corrosion, ensuring cooling coil longevity. Inspections of failed coils reveal that chromate-treated surfaces are generally well-preserved.
Gastric cancer is a heterogeneous group of diseases with only a fraction of patients responding to immunotherapy. The relationships between tumor DNA damage response, patient immune system and immunotherapy have recently attracted attention. Accumulating evidence suggests that DNA repair landscape is a significant factor in driving response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy. In this study, to explore new prognostic and predictive biomarkers for gastric cancer patients who are sensitive and responsive to immunotherapies, we developed a novel 15-DNA repair gene signature (DRGS) and its related scoring system and evaluated the efficiency of the DRGS in discriminating different molecular and immune characteristics and therapeutic outcomes of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, using publicly available datasets. The results demonstrated that DRGS high score patients showed significantly better therapeutic outcomes for ICB compared to DRGS low score patients (p < 0.001). Integrated analysis of multi-omics data demonstrated that the patients with high DRGS score were characteristic of high levels of anti-tumor lymphocyte infiltration, tumor mutation burden (TMB) and PD-L1 expression, and these patients exhibited a longer overall survival, as compared to the low-score patients. Results obtained from HPA and IHC supported significant dysregulation of the genes in DRGS in gastric cancer tissues, and a positive correlation in protein expression between DRGS and PD-L1. Therefore, the DRGS scoring system may have implications in tailoring immunotherapy in gastric cancers. A preprint has previously been published (Yuan et al., 2021).
Dormant, disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) are thought to be the source of breast cancer metastases several years or even decades after initial treatment. To date, a selective therapy that leads to their elimination has not been discovered. While dormant DTCs resist chemotherapy, evidence suggests that this resistance is driven not by their lack of proliferation, but by their engagement of the surrounding microenvironment, via integrin-β1-mediated interactions. Because integrin-β1-targeted agents have not been translated readily to the clinic, signaling nodes downstream of integrin-β1 could serve as attractive therapeutic targets in order to sensitize dormant DTCs to therapy. By probing a number of kinases downstream of integrin-β1, we determined that PI3K inhibition with either a tool compounds or a compound (PF-05212384; aka Gedatolisib) in clinical trials robustly sensitizes quiescent breast tumor cells seeded in organotypic bone marrow cultures to chemotherapy. These results motivated the preclinical study of whether Gedatolisib—with or without genotoxic therapy—would reduce DTC burden and prevent metastases. Despite promising results in organotypic culture, Gedatolisib failed to reduce DTC burden or delay, reduce or prevent metastasis in murine models of either triple-negative or estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer dissemination and metastasis. This result held true whether analyzing Gedatolisib on its own (vs. vehicle-treated animals) or in combination with dose-dense doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (vs. animals treated only with dose-dense chemotherapies). These data suggest that PI3K is not the node downstream of integrin-β1 that confers chemotherapeutic resistance to DTCs. More broadly, they cast doubt on the strategy to target PI3K in order to eliminate DTCs and prevent breast cancer metastasis.
Most virus infection assays have indirect readout such as virus number following entry (e.g., PCR, cell lysis). While effective, these technologies are labor‐intensive, require specialized environments (e.g., sterile or RNA‐free), and detect later‐stage viral events like lysis or cell death, lacking sensitivity to early fusion events. To address these limitations, we present biologically relevant 2D membrane materials, host‐cell‐derived supported lipid bilayers (hcd‐SLBs), integrated with organic microelectrode arrays (OMEAs) for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) fusion. By overexpressing angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors on the native membranes, the platform functions as a viral sensor capable of detecting virus pseudo particles (VPPs) through the late pathway. Additionally, hcd‐SLBs extracted from human lung epithelium expressing native ACE2 detect fusion events through the early pathway. The platform's utility as a drug‐screening tool is demonstrated by testing antibodies targeting either the ACE2 on the host membrane or the viral spike (S) proteins. To enhance the throughput, microfluidics are integrated for automation and OMEAs are incorporated within each channel, miniaturizing the testing units. This system supports high‐throughput data generation, automation, and scalability, providing an efficient platform for viral fusion detection that advances the study of pathogen‐host interactions and accelerates antiviral drug discovery.
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Genetic toxicology data have traditionally been utilized for hazard identification to provide a binary call for a compound's risk. Recent advances in the scientific field, especially with the development of high‐throughput methods to quantify DNA damage, have influenced a change of approach in genotoxicity assessment. The in vitro MultiFlow® DNA Damage Assay is one such method which multiplexes γH2AX, p53, phospho‐histone H3 biomarkers into a single‐flow cytometric analysis (Bryce et al., [2016]: Environ Mol Mutagen 57:546–558). This assay was used to study human TK6 cells exposed to each of eight topoisomerase II poisons for 4 and 24 hr. Using PROAST v65.5, the Benchmark Dose approach was applied to the resulting flow cytometric datasets. With “compound” serving as covariate, all eight compounds were combined into a single analysis, per time point and endpoint. The resulting 90% confidence intervals, plotted in Log scale, were considered as the potency rank for the eight compounds. The in vitro MultiFlow data showed a maximum confidence interval span of 1Log, which indicates data of good quality. Patterns observed in the compound potency rank were scrutinized by using the expert rule‐based software program Derek Nexus, developed by Lhasa Limited. Compound sub‐classification and structural alerts were considered contributory to the potencies observed for the topoisomerase II poisons studied herein. The Topo II poison Adverse Outcome Pathway was evaluated with MultiFlow endpoints serving as Key Events. The step‐wise approach described herein can be considered as a foundation for risk assessment of compounds within a specific mode of action of interest. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 2020. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Sclerostin antibody (romosozumab) was recently approved for clinical use in the United States to treat osteoporosis. We and others have explored Wnt-based combination therapy to disproportionately improve the anabolic effects of sclerostin inhibition, including cotreatment with sclerostin antibody (Scl-mAb) and Dkk1 antibody (Dkk1-mAb). To determine the optimal ratio of Scl-mAb and Dkk1-mAb for producing maximal anabolic action, the proportion of Scl-mAb and Dkk1-mAb were systematically varied while holding the total antibody dose constant. A 3:1 mixture of Scl-mAb to Dkk1-mAb produced two to three times as much cancellous bone mass as an equivalent dose of Scl-mAb alone. Further, a 75% reduction in the dose of the 3:1 mixture was equally efficacious to a full dose of Scl-mAb in the distal femur metaphysis. The Scl-mAb/Dkk1-mAb combination approach was highly efficacious in the cancellous bone mass, but the cortical compartment was much more subtly affected. The osteoanabolic effects of Wnt pathway targeting can be made more efficient if multiple antagonists are simultaneously targeted.
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