Structure-based rational design of peptide hydroxamic acid inhibitors to target tumor necrosis factor-α converting enzyme as potential therapeutics for hepatitis

The human tumor necrosis factor-alpha converting enzyme (TACE) has recently been raised as a new and promising therapeutic target of hepatitis and other inflammatory diseases. Here, we reported a successful application of the solved crystal structure of TACE complex with a peptide-like ligand INN for rational design of novel peptide hydroxamic acid inhibitors with high potency and selectivity to target and inhibit TACE. First, the intermolecular interactions between TACE catalytic domain and INN were characterized through an integrated bioinformatics approach, with which the key substructures of INN that dominate ligand binding were identified. Subsequently, the INN molecular structure was simplified to a chemical sketch of peptide hydroxamic acid compound, which can be regarded as a linear tripeptide capped by a N-terminal carboxybenzyl group (chemically protective group) and a C-terminal hydroxamate moiety (coordinated to the Zn2+ at TACE active site). Based on the sketch, a virtual combinatorial library containing 180 peptide hydroxamic acids was generated, from which seven samples were identified as promising candidates by using a knowledge-based protein-peptide affinity predictor and were then tested in vitro with a standard TACE activity assay protocol. Consequently, three designed peptide hydroxamic acids, i.e. Cbz-Pro-Ile-Gln-hydroxamic acid, Cbz-Leu-Ile-Val-hydroxamic acid and Cbz-Phe-Val-Met-hydroxamic acid, exhibited moderate or high inhibitory activity against TACE, with inhibition constants K-i of 36 +/- 5, 510 +/- 46 and 320 +/- 26 nM, respectively. We also examined the structural basis and non-bonded profile of TACE interaction with a designed peptide hydroxamic acid inhibitor, and found that the inhibitor ligand is tightly buried in the active pocket of TACE, forming a number of hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic forces and van der Waals contacts at the interaction interface, conferring both stability and specificity for TACE-inhibitor complex architecture.