Publication Date:
2013-01-05
Description:
Microtubule-stabilizing agents (MSAs) are efficacious chemotherapeutic drugs widely used for the treatment of cancer. Despite the importance of MSAs for medical applications and basic research, their molecular mechanisms of action on tubulin and microtubules remain elusive. We determined high-resolution crystal structures of alphabeta-tubulin in complex with two unrelated MSAs, zampanolide and epothilone A. Both compounds were bound to the taxane pocket of beta-tubulin and used their respective side chains to induce structuring of the M-loop into a short helix. Because the M-loop establishes lateral tubulin contacts in microtubules, these findings explain how taxane-site MSAs promote microtubule assembly and stability. Further, our results offer fundamental structural insights into the control mechanisms of microtubule dynamics.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Prota, Andrea E -- Bargsten, Katja -- Zurwerra, Didier -- Field, Jessica J -- Diaz, Jose Fernando -- Altmann, Karl-Heinz -- Steinmetz, Michel O -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2013 Feb 1;339(6119):587-90. doi: 10.1126/science.1230582. Epub 2013 Jan 3.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Biomolecular Research, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, Switzerland.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23287720" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Antineoplastic Agents/*chemistry/pharmacology
;
Binding Sites
;
Bridged Compounds/chemistry/pharmacology
;
Cattle
;
Chickens
;
Crystallography, X-Ray
;
Epothilones/*chemistry/pharmacology
;
Macrolides/*chemistry/pharmacology
;
Microtubules/*drug effects
;
Protein Structure, Secondary
;
Taxoids/chemistry/pharmacology
;
Tubulin/*chemistry
;
Tubulin Modulators/*chemistry/pharmacology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
