Browsing by Subject "Serine protease"
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(2019)Changes in prolyl oligopeptidase (PREP) expression levels, protein distribution, and activity correlate with aging and are reported in many neurodegenerative conditions. Together with decreased neuropeptide levels observed in aging and neurodegeneration, and PREP's ability to cleave only small peptides, PREP was identified as a druggable target. Known PREP non-enzymatic functions were disregarded or attributed to PREP enzymatic activity, and several potent small molecule PREP inhibitors were developed during early stages of PREP research. These showed a lot of potential but with variable results in experimental memory models, however, the initial excitement was short-lived and all of the clinical trials were discontinued in either Phase I or II clinical trials for unknown reasons. Recently, PREP's ability to form protein-protein interactions, alter cell proliferation and autophagy has gained more attention than earlier recognized catalytical activity. Of new findings, particularly the aggregation of alpha-synuclein (aSyn) that is seen in the presence of PREP is especially interesting because PREP inhibitors are capable of altering aSyn-PREP interaction in a manner that reduces the aSyn dimerization process. Therefore, it is possible that PREP inhibitors that are altering interactions could have different characteristics than those aimed for strong inhibition of catalytic activity. Moreover, PREP co-localization with aSyn, tau, and amyloid-beta hints to PREP's possible role not only in the synucleinopathies but in other neurodegenerative diseases as well. This commentary will focus on less well-acknowledged non-enzymatic functions of PREP that may provide a better approach for the development of PREP inhibitors for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.
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(2020)Prolyl oligopeptidase (PREP) is a serine protease that has been studied particularly in the context of neurode-generative diseases for decades but its physiological function has remained unclear. We have previously found that PREP negatively regulates beclinl-mediated macroautophagy (autophagy), and that PREP inhibition by a small-molecule inhibitor induces clearance of protein aggregates in Parkinson's disease models. Since autophagy induction has been suggested as a potential therapy for several diseases, we wanted to further characterize how PREP regulates autophagy. We measured the levels of various kinases and proteins regulating beclin1-autophagy in HEK-293 and SH-SY5Y cell cultures after PREP inhibition, PREP deletion, and PREP overexpression and restoration, and verified the results in vivo by using PREP knock-out and wild-type mouse tissue where PREP was restored or overexpressed, respectively. We found that PREP regulates autophagy by interacting with protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) and its endogenous inhibitor, protein phosphatase methylesterase 1 (PME1), and activator (protein phosphatase 2 phosphatase activator, PTPA), thus adjusting its activity and the levels of PP2A in the intracellular pool. PREP inhibition and deletion increased PP2A activity, leading to activation of deathassociated protein kinase 1 (DAPK1), beclin1 phosphorylation and induced autophagy while PREP overexpression reduced this. Lowered activity of PP2A is connected to several neurodegenerative disorders and cancers, and PP2A activators would have enormous potential as drug therapy but development of such compounds has been a challenge. The concept of PREP inhibition has been proved safe, and therefore, our study supports the further development of PREP inhibitors as PP2A activators.
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(2017)Lewy bodies, the histopathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD), contain insoluble and aggregated alpha-synuclein (aSyn) and many other proteins, proposing a role for failure in protein degradation system in the PD pathogenesis. Proteasomal dysfunction has indeed been linked to PD and aSyn oligomers have been shown to inhibit proteasomes and autophagy. Our recent studies have shown that inhibitors of prolyl oligopeptidase (PREP) can prevent the aggregation and enhance the clearance of accumulated aSyn, and therefore, we wanted to study if PREP inhibition can overcome the aSyn aggregation and toxicity induced by lactacystin, a proteasomal inhibitor. The cells overexpressing human A30P or A53T mutated aSyn were incubated with lactacystin and a PREP inhibitor, KYP-2047, for 48 h. Theafter, the cells were fractioned, and the effects of lactacystin with/without 1 mu M KYP-2047 on aSyn aggregation and ubiquitin accumulation, cell viability and on autophagic markers (p62, Beclin1 and LC3BII) were studied. We found that KYP-2047 attenuated lactacystin-induced cell death in mutant aSyn overexpressing cells but not in non-overexpressing control cells. KYP-2047 reduced significantly SDS-insoluble high-molecular-weight aSyn oligomers that were in line with the cell viability results. In addition, significant reduction in protein accumulation marker, p62, was seen in SDS fraction while LC3BII, a marker for autophagosome formation, was increased, indicating to enhanced autophagy. Our results further streghten the possibilities for PREP inhibitors as a potential drug therapy against synucleinopathies and other protein aggregating diseases. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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(2020)Previous studies have shown that prolyl oligopeptidase (PREP) negatively regulates autophagy and increases the aggregation of alpha-synuclein (alpha Syn), linking it to the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease. Our earlier results have revealed that the potent small molecular PREP inhibitor KYP-2047 is able to increase autophagy and decrease dimerization of alpha Syn but other PREP inhibitors have not been systematically studied for these two protein-protein interaction mediated biological functions of PREP. In this study, we characterized these effects for 12 known PREP inhibitors with IC50-values ranging from 0.2 nM to 1010 nM. We used protein-fragment complementation assay (PCA) to assess alpha Syn dimerization and Western Blot of microtubule-associated protein light chain 3B II (LC3B-II) and a GFP-LC3-RFP expressing cell line to study autophagy. In addition, we tested selected compounds in a cell-free alpha Syn aggregation assay, native gel electrophoresis, and determined the compound concentration inside the cell by LC-MS. We found that inhibition of the proteolytic activity of PREP did not predict decreased alpha Syn dimerization or increased autophagy, and we also confirmed that this result did not simply reflect concentration differences of the compounds inside the cell. Thus, PREP ligands regulate the effect of PREP on autophagy and alpha Syn aggregation through a conformational stabilization of the enzyme that is not equivalent to inhibiting its proteolytic activity.
