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12 Publications

Showing 1-10 of 12 results
03/16/22 | Small molecule inhibitors of mammalian glycosylation.
Almahayni K, Spiekermann M, Fiore A, Yu G, Pedram K, Möckl L
Matrix Biology Plus. 2022 Mar 16;16:100108. doi: 10.1016/j.mbplus.2022.100108

Glycans are one of the fundamental biopolymers encountered in living systems. Compared to polynucleotide and polypeptide biosynthesis, polysaccharide biosynthesis is a uniquely combinatorial process to which interdependent enzymes with seemingly broad specificities contribute. The resulting intracellular cell surface, and secreted glycans play key roles in health and disease, from embryogenesis to cancer progression. The study and modulation of glycans in cell and organismal biology is aided by small molecule inhibitors of the enzymes involved in glycan biosynthesis. In this review, we survey the arsenal of currently available inhibitors, focusing on agents which have been independently validated in diverse systems. We highlight the utility of these inhibitors and drawbacks to their use, emphasizing the need for innovation for basic research as well as for therapeutic applications.

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01/01/21 | An Acquired and Endogenous Glycocalyx Forms a Bidirectional “Don’t Eat” and “Don’t Eat Me” Barrier to Phagocytosis
Imbert PR, Saric A, Pedram K, Bertozzi CR, Grinstein S, Freeman SA
Current Biology. Jan-01-2021;31(1):77 - 89.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.082

Macrophages continuously survey their environment in search of pathogens or apoptotic corpses or debris. Targets intended for clearance expose ligands that initiate their phagocytosis ("eat me" signals), while others avoid phagocytosis by displaying inhibitory ligands ("don't eat me" signals). We report that such ligands can be obscured by the glycosaminoglycans and glycoproteins that coat pathogenic as well as malignant phagocytic targets. In addition, a reciprocal barrier of self-synthesized or acquired glycocalyx components on the macrophage surface shrouds phagocytic receptors, curtailing their ability to engage particles. The coating layers of macrophages and their targets hinder phagocytosis by both steric and electrostatic means. Their removal by enzymatic means is shown to markedly enhance phagocytic efficiency. In particular, we show that the removal of mucins, which are overexpressed in cancer cells, facilitates their clearance. These results shed light on the physical barriers that modulate phagocytosis, which have been heretofore underappreciated.

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08/17/20 | An enzymatic toolkit for selective proteolysis, detection, and visualization of mucin-domain glycoproteins
Shon DJ, Malaker SA, Pedram K, Yang E, Krishnan V, Dorigo O, Bertozzi CR
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jan-09-2020;117(35):21299 - 21307. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2012196117

Densely O-glycosylated mucin domains are found in a broad range of cell surface and secreted proteins, where they play key physiological roles. In addition, alterations in mucin expression and glycosylation are common in a variety of human diseases, such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, and inflammatory bowel diseases. These correlations have been challenging to uncover and establish because tools that specifically probe mucin domains are lacking. Here, we present a panel of bacterial proteases that cleave mucin domains via distinct peptide- and glycan-based motifs, generating a diverse enzymatic toolkit for mucin-selective proteolysis. By mutating catalytic residues of two such enzymes, we engineered mucin-selective binding agents with retained glycoform preferences. StcEE447D is a pan-mucin stain derived from enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli that is tolerant to a wide range of glycoforms. BT4244E575A derived from Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron is selective for truncated, asialylated core 1 structures commonly associated with malignant and premalignant tissues. We demonstrated that these catalytically inactive point mutants enable robust detection and visualization of mucin-domain glycoproteins by flow cytometry, Western blot, and immunohistochemistry. Application of our enzymatic toolkit to ascites fluid and tissue slices from patients with ovarian cancer facilitated characterization of patients based on differences in mucin cleavage and expression patterns.

 

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07/29/20 | Lysosome-targeting chimaeras for degradation of extracellular proteins
Banik SM, Pedram K, Wisnovsky S, Ahn G, Riley NM, Bertozzi CR
Nature. Jan-08-2021;584(7820):291 - 297. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2545-9

The majority of therapies that target individual proteins rely on specific activity-modulating interactions with the target protein—for example, enzyme inhibition or ligand blocking. However, several major classes of therapeutically relevant proteins have unknown or inaccessible activity profiles and so cannot be targeted by such strategies. Protein-degradation platforms such as proteolysis-targeting chimaeras (PROTACs)1,2 and others (for example, dTAGs3, Trim-Away4, chaperone-mediated autophagy targeting5 and SNIPERs6) have been developed for proteins that are typically difficult to target; however, these methods involve the manipulation of intracellular protein degradation machinery and are therefore fundamentally limited to proteins that contain cytosolic domains to which ligands can bind and recruit the requisite cellular components. Extracellular and membrane-associated proteins—the products of 40% of all protein-encoding genes7—are key agents in cancer, ageing-related diseases and autoimmune disorders8, and so a general strategy to selectively degrade these proteins has the potential to improve human health. Here we establish the targeted degradation of extracellular and membrane-associated proteins using conjugates that bind both a cell-surface lysosome-shuttling receptor and the extracellular domain of a target protein. These initial lysosome-targeting chimaeras, which we term LYTACs, consist of a small molecule or antibody fused to chemically synthesized glycopeptide ligands that are agonists of the cation-independent mannose-6-phosphate receptor (CI-M6PR). We use LYTACs to develop a CRISPR interference screen that reveals the biochemical pathway for CI-M6PR-mediated cargo internalization in cell lines, and uncover the exocyst complex as a previously unidentified—but essential—component of this pathway. We demonstrate the scope of this platform through the degradation of therapeutically relevant proteins, including apolipoprotein E4, epidermal growth factor receptor, CD71 and programmed death-ligand 1. Our results establish a modular strategy for directing secreted and membrane proteins for lysosomal degradation, with broad implications for biochemical research and for therapeutics.

 
 

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01/06/20 | Bump-and-Hole Engineering Identifies Specific Substrates of Glycosyltransferases in Living Cells
Schumann B, Malaker SA, Wisnovsky SP, Debets MF, Agbay AJ, Fernandez D, Wagner LJ, Lin L, Li Z, Choi J, Fox DM, Peh J, Gray MA, Pedram K, Kohler JJ, Mrksich M, Bertozzi CR
Molecular Cell. Jan-06-2020;78(5):824 - 834.e15. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2020.03.030

Studying posttranslational modifications classically relies on experimental strategies that oversimplify the complex biosynthetic machineries of living cells. Protein glycosylation contributes to essential biological processes, but correlating glycan structure, underlying protein, and disease-relevant biosynthetic regulation is currently elusive. Here, we engineer living cells to tag glycans with editable chemical functionalities while providing information on biosynthesis, physiological context, and glycan fine structure. We introduce a non-natural substrate biosynthetic pathway and use engineered glycosyltransferases to incorporate chemically tagged sugars into the cell surface glycome of the living cell. We apply the strategy to a particularly redundant yet disease-relevant human glycosyltransferase family, the polypeptide N-acetylgalactosaminyl transferases. This approach bestows a gain-of-chemical-functionality modification on cells, where the products of individual glycosyltransferases can be selectively characterized or manipulated to understand glycan contribution to major physiological processes.

 
 

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03/25/19 | The mucin-selective protease StcE enables molecular and functional analysis of human cancer-associated mucins
Malaker SA, Pedram K, Ferracane MJ, Bensing BA, Krishnan V, Pett C, Yu J, Woods EC, Kramer JR, Westerlind U, Dorigo O, Bertozzi CR
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sep-04-2019;116(15):7278 - 7287. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1813020116

Mucin domains are densely O-glycosylated modular protein domains that are found in a wide variety of cell surface and secreted proteins. Mucin-domain glycoproteins are known to be key players in a host of human diseases, especially cancer, wherein mucin expression and glycosylation patterns are altered. Mucin biology has been difficult to study at the molecular level, in part, because methods to manipulate and structurally characterize mucin domains are lacking. Here, we demonstrate that secreted protease of C1 esterase inhibitor (StcE), a bacterial protease from Escherichia coli, cleaves mucin domains by recognizing a discrete peptide- and glycan-based motif. We exploited StcE's unique properties to improve sequence coverage, glycosite mapping, and glycoform analysis of recombinant human mucins by mass spectrometry. We also found that StcE digests cancer-associated mucins from cultured cells and from ascites fluid derived from patients with ovarian cancer. Finally, using StcE, we discovered that sialic acid-binding Ig-type lectin-7 (Siglec-7), a glycoimmune checkpoint receptor, selectively binds sialomucins as biological ligands, whereas the related receptor Siglec-9 does not. Mucin-selective proteolysis, as exemplified by StcE, is therefore a powerful tool for the study of mucin domain structure and function.

 

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01/07/19 | Quantitative Super-Resolution Microscopy of the Mammalian Glycocalyx
Möckl L, Pedram K, Roy AR, Krishnan V, Gustavsson A, Dorigo O, Bertozzi CR, Moerner W
Developmental Cell. Jan-07-2019;50(1):57 - 72.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2019.04.035

The mammalian glycocalyx is a heavily glycosylated extramembrane compartment found on nearly every cell. Despite its relevance in both health and disease, studies of the glycocalyx remain hampered by a paucity of methods to spatially classify its components. We combine metabolic labeling, bioorthogonal chemistry, and super-resolution localization microscopy to image two constituents of cell-surface glycans, N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) and sialic acid, with 10–20 nm precision in 2D and 3D. This approach enables two measurements: glycocalyx height and the distribution of individual sugars distal from the membrane. These measurements show that the glycocalyx exhibits nanoscale organization on both cell lines and primary human tumor cells. Additionally, we observe enhanced glycocalyx height in response to epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and to oncogenic KRAS activation. In the latter case, we trace increased height to an effector gene, GALNT7. These data highlight the power of advanced imaging methods to provide molecular and functional insights into glycocalyx biology.

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01/06/19 | Physical Principles of Membrane Shape Regulation by the Glycocalyx
Shurer CR, Kuo JC, Roberts LM, Gandhi JG, Colville MJ, Enoki TA, Pan H, Su J, Noble JM, Hollander MJ, O’Donnell JP, Yin R, Pedram K, Möckl L, Kourkoutis LF, Moerner W, Bertozzi CR, Feigenson GW, Reesink HL, Paszek MJ
Cell. Jan-06-2019;177(7):1757 - 1770.e21. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.04.017

Cells bend their plasma membranes into highly curved forms to interact with the local environment, but how shape generation is regulated is not fully resolved. Here, we report a synergy between shape-generating processes in the cell interior and the external organization and composition of the cell-surface glycocalyxMucin biopolymers and long-chain polysaccharides within the glycocalyx can generate entropic forces that favor or disfavor the projection of spherical and finger-like extensions from the cell surface. A polymer brush model of the glycocalyx successfully predicts the effects of polymer size and cell-surface density on membrane morphologies. Specific glycocalyx compositions can also induce plasma membrane instabilities to generate more exotic undulating and pearled membrane structures and drive secretion of extracellular vesicles. Together, our results suggest a fundamental role for the glycocalyx in regulating curved membrane features that serve in communication between cells and with the extracellular matrix.

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09/12/18 | A bulky glycocalyx fosters metastasis formation by promoting G1 cell cycle progression
Woods EC, Kai F, Barnes JM, Pedram K, Pickup MW, Hollander MJ, Weaver VM, Bertozzi CR
eLife. Sep-12-2018;6:. doi: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.25752

Metastasis depends upon cancer cell growth and survival within the metastatic niche. Tumors which remodel their glycocalyces, by overexpressing bulky glycoproteins like mucins, exhibit a higher predisposition to metastasize, but the role of mucins in oncogenesis remains poorly understood. Here we report that a bulky glycocalyx promotes the expansion of disseminated tumor cells in vivo by fostering integrin adhesion assembly to permit G1 cell cycle progression. We engineered tumor cells to display glycocalyces of various thicknesses by coating them with synthetic mucin-mimetic glycopolymers. Cells adorned with longer glycopolymers showed increased metastatic potential, enhanced cell cycle progression, and greater levels of integrin-FAK mechanosignaling and Akt signaling in a syngeneic mouse model of metastasis. These effects were mirrored by expression of the ectodomain of cancer-associated mucin MUC1. These findings functionally link mucinous proteins with tumor aggression, and offer a new view of the cancer glycocalyx as a major driver of disease progression.

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01/12/17 | Antibodies to biotin enable large-scale detection of biotinylation sites on proteins
Udeshi ND, Pedram K, Svinkina T, Fereshetian S, Myers SA, Aygun O, Krug K, Clauser K, Ryan D, Ast T, Mootha VK, Ting AY, Carr SA
Nature Methods. Jan-12-2017;14(12):1167 - 1170. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.4465

Although purification of biotinylated molecules is highly efficient, identifying specific sites of biotinylation remains challenging. We show that anti-biotin antibodies enable unprecedented enrichment of biotinylated peptides from complex peptide mixtures. Live-cell proximity labeling using APEX peroxidase followed by anti-biotin enrichment and mass spectrometry yielded over 1,600 biotinylation sites on hundreds of proteins, an increase of more than 30-fold in the number of biotinylation sites identified compared to streptavidin-based enrichment of proteins.

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