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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 280, Issue 25, 23771-23777, June 24, 2005
Backbone-methylated Analogues of the Principle Receptor Binding Region of Human Parathyroid Hormone
EVIDENCE FOR BINDING TO BOTH THE N-TERMINAL EXTRACELLULAR DOMAIN AND EXTRACELLULAR LOOP REGION*
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| ABSTRACT |
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-helix of PTH (131) in binding to and activating the PTH receptor (P1R). The circular dichroism (CD) spectra indicated the structure of the C-terminal
-helix was locally disrupted around the methylation site. The CD spectra differences were explained by assuming a helix disruption for four residues on each side of the site of methylation and taking into account the known dependence of CD on the length of an
-helix. Binding and adenylyl cyclase-stimulating data showed that outside of the
-helix, methylation of residues Asp30 and Val31 had little effect on structure or activities. Within the
-helix, disruption of the structure was associated with increased loss of activity, but for specific residues Val21, Leu24, Arg25, and Leu28 there was a dramatic loss of activities, thus suggesting a more direct role of these NH groups in correct P1R binding and activation. Activity analyses with P1R-delNT, a mutant with its long N-terminal region deleted, gave a different pattern of effects and implicated Ser17, Trp23, and Lys26 as important for its PTH activation. These two groups of residues are located on opposite sides of the helix. These results are compatible with the C-terminal helix binding to both the N-terminal segment and also to the looped-out extracellular region. These data thus provide direct evidence for important roles of the C-terminal domain of PTH in determining high affinity binding and activation of the P1R receptor. | INTRODUCTION |
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The principal receptor-binding domain of PTH-(134) (12) and PTH-(131)NH2 is a C terminus
-helix bounded by residues 1729 (13); this domain (14) interacts with the long extracellular N terminus sequence of P1R (8, 15). A deletion analogue of the P1R (P1R-delNT) that lacks the N-terminal domain (Ref. 16 and citations, therein) can activate the AC and PLC signaling pathways on stimulation with PTH-(134) (17), although with much reduced potency, whereas N-terminal PTH analogues as short as PTH-(111) exhibit equivalent potencies on P1R-delNt and the intact P1R (16, 17). The presence of PLC-independent protein kinase C activity determinants in the C-terminal region of PTH-(134) implies that this region also binds to the extracellular loop/transmembrane domain region of the receptor, but only one report directly supports such an interaction (18).
The osteogenic activity of a C terminus-truncated PTH analogue, hPTH-(131)NH2 (19), is similar to that of the well studied PTH-(134) (20). This analogue has a helix-bend-helix structure in aqueous media at near-physiological pH and ionic strength (14), similar to that found in previous studies of PTH-(134) (13). A C-terminal amphiphilic
-helix, extending from Ser17 to Gln29, is the major structure within this receptor-binding region, and this structure is thought to bind via its hydrophobic face to the receptor (2123). Thus, binding and AC-stimulating activities are very sensitive to replacement of residues on the nonpolar face of this helix, including Leu24, Leu28, and to a lesser extent Val31, whereas residues on the polar face are less sensitive to substitution (22, 24).
In general, the specificity of hormone binding to and activation of the receptor is likely determined not only by side-chain interactions between the two molecules but also by specific H-bonding of backbone CO and NH groups (25, 26). Thus a complex pattern of H-bonding involving side-chain and backbone groups is expected to be important for the strength and specificity of the overall interaction (27). Backbone methylation has been used to probe the role of backbone amide nitrogens in receptor binding and activation (28). These methylations have been used successfully to modulate binding specificity of an agonist for the C5A anaphylatoxin receptors (29), and to create subtype-specific somatostatin receptor agonists and antagonists (30, 31). Methylation of a backbone NH not only prevents formation of a H-bond at that point, but it also has an effect on secondary structures, such as
-helices or
-turns, that may have existed in the region of the modification.
In this study, we have methylated each backbone NH, in turn, of the C-terminal helix-containing region of PTH (131), residues Ser17 to Val31, to delineate the role of these groups in receptor binding and activation. We measured the effect of N-methylation on the helix using CD spectroscopy and measured the AC-stimulating and binding activities of each analogue using P1R-expressing cells. Strong effects were seen with several of the methylations. We also measured the AC-stimulating activities of each analogue in COS-7 cells expressing P1R-delNT (17) and showed that the pattern of activity against this receptor is not the same as that observed with the intact P1R. This suggests that the C-terminal region of hPTH binds to the extracellular loops of P1R as well as to the N-terminal extracellular sequence, which is consistent with the membrane-bound protein kinase C-stimulating activity reported for the C-terminal 2834 region of PTH-(134) (11).
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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-methyl-Leu and Fmoc-
-methyl-Asp were purchased from Chem-Impex and Fmoc-
-methyl-Val from Novabiochem (La Jolla, CA). The remaining chemicals were purchased from Aldrich. The remaining methylations were done during synthesis by slight modification of the method of Miller and Scanlan (33). Briefly, after addition of the amino acid to be methylated and removal of the Fmoc, synthesis was stopped and the
-amino group was then protected with o-nitrobenzenesulfonamide by treatment with the corresponding sulfonyl chloride in CH2Cl2 containing collidine for 3 h. This was followed by deprotonation of the secondary amine with 1,3,4,6,7,8-hexahydro-1-methyl-2H-pyrimido[1,2-a]pyrimidine and methylation with methyl p-nitrobenzenesulfonate for 3 h. The o-nitrobenzenesulfonyl protection was selectively removed by treatment with
-mercaptoethanol and 1,8-diazabicyclo(5.4.0)undec-7-ene in N,N-dimethylformamide for 3 h. Completion of methylation was monitored by the Kaiser test for free amine. If methylation was incomplete, as indicated by a positive Kaiser test, the o-nitrobenzenesulfonamide was added again and methylation repeated. For coupling of the next amino acid, HATU was used in place of 2-(1H-benzotriazol-yl)-1,1,3,3-tetramethyluronium tetrafluoroborate. The main problems observed occurred at this step and were especially serious for the coupling of Fmoc-Glu(tBu) after methylation of the Arg20 residue.
The synthesis of [N-
-Me-Leu24]c(Glu22-Lys26)hPTH-(131)NH2 was performed as described earlier for [Leu27]c(Glu22-Lys26)hPTH-(131)NH2 (21), instead using N-
-Me-Leu at residue 24. Coupling of the next amino acid, Fmoc-Trp(Boc), was done using HATU at 48 °C until a negative Kaiser test was obtained. Removal of allyl- and alloc-protecting groups and cyclization were performed after the addition of the final Boc-Ser(tBu).
Peptides were purified by elution from a semipreparative C18-silica column (Vydac, 10 µ, 1 x 25 cm), using gradients of 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid/acetonitrile in 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid/water. Peptide purities were verified by analytical high pressure liquid chromatography (Vydac C18, 10 µ, 4 x 238 mm) using two different trifluoroacetic acid/water/acetonitrile elution systems (for details, see supplemental data). Masses were confirmed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Voyager-DE STR, Perseptive/Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). Purities were 9499% for all peptides except the methylated Ser17 (78%) and Val31 (75%).
Circular DichroismSpectra were obtained on a JASCO J-600 spectropolarimeter at 20 °C. Four spectra were averaged and the data smoothed by the JASCO software. The instrument was calibrated with ammonium (+)-10-camphorsulfonate. Peptide concentrations were calculated from the absorption at 280 nm, using an extinction coefficient of 5700 M1 for the single tryptophan.
Data Are Expressed per Peptide BondThe ellipticities at 222 nm for
-helices of different lengths were extrapolated from the data of Chin et al. (34) for short fixed Ala
-helices, using a quadratic equation to fit their data as follows: [
]222 = 6448 - 5844Np + 252N 2p, where Np = number of helical peptide bonds. This is compared with evaluation of the mean residue ellipticity of a helix of Np peptide units from the empirical formulation of Yang et al. (35) as follows: [
H]Np = [
H](
)(1-x/Np), where x is a wavelength-dependent constant that has the value 4 at 222 nm and [
H](
) = 43,000 degrees cm2 dmol1 (36).
In the Chin et al. (34) formulation, the x is effectively dependent on Np and results in ellipticities for helical regions with as little as two residues.
Cell CulturesHKRK-B7 cell lines were derived from the porcine kidney cell line LLC-PK1 and were stably transformed to express full-length human P1R to
950,000 receptors/cell (37). P1R-DelNt, a human P1R construct with most (residues 24181) of the N-terminal extracellular domain deleted (38) was used to transiently transfect COS-7 cells and was used to assay interactions that occur specifically to the extracellular loop/transmembrane domain region of the receptor.
Adenylyl Cyclase ActivityAC activities were measured using a direct enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for cAMP (Amersham Biosciences) as described elsewhere (37). The cAMP experiments comparing the effect of methylation at Leu24 in the linear and lactam-containing (cyclic) PTH-(131) scaffold were performed using radioimmunoassay to quantify cAMP, as described earlier (38). Activities reported are each the average of three separate experiments.
Receptor BindingRadioligand binding assays were performed as previously described (38). In brief, a 125I-labeled radioligand (
100,000 cycles/min/well of a 24-well plate of 125I-[Nle8,21,Tyr34]PTH-(134)NH2) was incubated with whole cells expressing the wild-type P1R in the absence or presence of varying concentrations (3 x 109 -1 x 105 M) of unlabeled peptide. After incubation for 4 h at 15 °C, the binding mixture was removed by aspiration, the cells were rinsed three times with binding buffer, lysed in NaOH, and the entire lysate was counted for
-irradiation.
| RESULTS |
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-helix between residues 39 (14), and this short helix contributes little to the
-helix of hPTH-(131)NH2. Previous CD and NMR data has also shown no or weak contributions from the tertiary structure of PTH; thus the N- and C-terminal portions of the molecule behave independently (13, 14, 39). The resulting spectrum for hPTH-(1731)NH2 has the expected form of an
-helix, with a [
]222 of 13,400 degrees cm2·dmol1 (Fig. 1). This compares to a value of 28,000 degrees cm2·dmol1 for a fully populated
-helix of 12 residues (35).
The CD spectra suggested major losses of
-helix in some methylated analogues, particularly for those with a methylation near the center of the Ser17-Gln29
-helix. Fig. 2 shows three of the spectra obtained after subtraction of that of hPTH-(117)NH2, and these clearly show that the apparent
-helix, when methylation is near the center of the helix at Leu24, is much less than for Ser17 and Gln29 at the N- and C termini of the helix. Fig. 3 shows the helix parameter [
]222 for hPTH-(131)NH2 for each methylated residue position, after subtraction of the spectrum for hPTH-(117)NH2, expressed as the ratio to the [
]222 for the unmethylated form, 11,880 degrees cm2·dmol1. Minimum values are seen near the center of the helix, with up to 80% loss at Trp23 and progressively smaller effects when the methylation is at either end of the helix. When the methylation is external to the helix, at residues Gln29 and Val31, no loss of helix was observed, but
34% of the helix was lost when methylation was at Asp30. Similarly, when the methylation was at the N terminus of the helix, the apparent loss of helix was
15%, based on the [
]222 values.
Backbone methylation leads to disruption of the helix around the immediate point of methylation, although the exact extent is unknown (40). The loss of CD results from a combination of fewer residues in a helical conformation, the reduced mean residue ellipticities of shorter helices, and other conformational changes also known to affect the CD (41, 42). We first approximated the helix length effect using a constant dependence factor x of four residues (see "Materials and Methods") (Fig. 3) (35). This results in no CD signal for helices four residues long and shorter. To estimate the effect, we assumed disruption of the helix for four peptide bonds to the N and C termini on either side of the point of N-methylation. The results were expressed as ratios to the same calculation for the unmethylated 12-residue
-helix (Fig. 3). This model resulted in predicted ellipticities of zero for Val21 to Lys26, contrary to the observed presence of the helix after these residues were N-methylated. The more recent model of Chin et al. (34), using a dependence of x on helix length (34), resulted in a profile much more similar to the experimentally observed one. This suggests that, even in the presence of backbone N-methylation, short helical regions are present in the 12-residue-long helix in hPTH(131)NH2.
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The high signaling activity of the N-methylated Arg20 analogue is particularly noteworthy, because the side chain of this arginine is critical for PTH bioactivity, tolerating very little modification (46). The essential loss of activities of analogues with methylations of Val21, Leu24, Arg25, Lys27, and Leu28 suggests that the
-amino groups of these residues are involved in critical contact with the receptor. The lack of effect of methylation of Val31, Asp30, and Gln29 is not surprising given that there is little difference between the AC-stimulating activities of hPTH-(128)NH2 and hPTH-(131)NH2 (47).
Adenylyl Cyclase Activities with P1R-delNTThis truncated receptor construct (17) lacks nearly all of the long, N-terminal sequence of the P1R that has been associated with binding to the C-terminal region of PTH (134) (48). The assumption that the C-terminal helix of hPTH-(131) binds only to the extracellular N-terminal domain of P1R implies that the effect of individual N-methylation of the residues in this region would have no effect on interaction with delNT-P1R. However, the results of Fig. 4 clearly show that some of the methylations diminished cAMP signaling responses induced by the analogues, tested at a single high concentration (1 µM) on this truncated receptor. Furthermore, although the absolute AC responses measured on this receptor cannot be directly compared with those determined on the intact receptor (ED50 values were not determined for the truncated receptor, and different cAMP assay formats were used in the two experiments, radioimmunoassay versus enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), clear differences in the patterns of effects that the methylations had on activity at the two receptors could nevertheless be discerned. Thus, three methylated analogues, Ser17, Trp23, and Lys26, show particularly low activity with P1R-delNT but have moderate to high activities with the intact P1R. This may indicate that the NH groups of these residues form H-bonds with the extracellular loops or transmembrane domains of the receptor (P1R and P1R-delNT). None of these residues is associated with critical H-bond formation when the intact P1R is used, because their relatively weak effect is masked by the much stronger interactions that occur in the presence of the N-terminal domain of the receptor. Thus, although the C terminus of PTH-(131) clearly interacts with the extracellular N-terminal domain of the receptor, it must also be interacting with one or more of the extracellular loops or transmembrane domains of the receptor.
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-helix in the C-terminal domain was the major factor leading to the severe loss of binding and AC-stimulating activity. The lactam bridge between the side chains of Glu22 and Lys26 in this analogue has been shown in other PTH-(131) peptides to stabilize local helicity and to increase binding affinity and potency by severalfold (21, 32). The CD spectrum of the analogue, compared with that of N-Me-Leu24-PTH-(131), showed that, although there was little increase of [
]222, the spectrum clearly had a more helical structure but not with the same intense helical minima of 209 and 222 nm and the classical helical shape seen with the unmethylated analogue c(Glu22-Lys26)hPTH-(131)NH2 (Fig. 5). It suggested a more classical helix but with a disruption at the point of methylation.
Comparison of the activities of the analogues in HKRK-B7 cells indicated that the lactam greatly increased the AC-stimulating activity of the N-Me-Leu24 analogue. This increase in signaling potency was accompanied by at least some increase in binding affinity, in that inhibition of radioligand binding could be detected (Table II). The data on these analogues thus suggest that a large portion of the loss of binding and AC-stimulating activity caused by the Leu24 methylation is directly related to the loss of
-helical structure.
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| DISCUSSION |
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We know that there is disruption of helical structure at the site of a specific backbone methylation and that this disruption affects neighboring peptide bonds (40, 49). These effects were incorporated into our analysis of the CD data. There is a paucity of data concerning the extent of helix disruption caused by a backbone NH methylation, but the effects on the hormone-receptor complex caused by some of our methylations appeared to be more severe than what would result from just the loss of one H-bond, and numerous other stabilizing interactions were expected to be lost. This is important, because the loss of only one H-bond would contribute, from the known free energy change, an approximate 10-fold loss of Ka (50), far less than what we observed for several of the methylations. Our CD analysis was also limited to the effects of chain length on the CD signal and could not take into account the known effect of distortion of the
-helix from the classical
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angles of 60°, 40° (42), and the relaxation of the trans conformation of the peptide bond at the point of methylation to a cis-trans equilibrium (28). We also cannot be certain that PTH binds to the receptor in a conformation very similar to that which occurs in solution, in particular for the C-terminal domain studied here. However, a transfer nuclear Overhauser effect study of pituitary adenylyl cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) provides evidence that this hormone binds to the receptor with a conformation very much like the average solution one in its C-terminal domain (51). The receptors for PACAP and PTH are related, and the hormones share similar structural features, thus suggesting that PTH would likely behave similarly.
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-helical domain of PTH-(131) in binding to the long, extracellular N terminus of P1R. Deletion of the P1R extracellular N-terminal sequence drastically limits PTH binding. Substitution of a photoactivatable group for Trp23 identifies a close proximity to the N-terminal P1R segment, residues 2340 (52). The dramatic (>150-fold) effects on P1R-binding affinity seen with NH methylations near Trp23 at Leu24 and Arg25 provide evidence to support an important role for this interaction in the overall stability of the complex. Relatively little evidence has implicated the same region of PTH in binding to the extracellular looped-out region of the receptor. Other photochemical cross-linking data implicate Lys27 of the hydrophobic face being proximal to Leu261 of EC-1 (18) and Glu19 as proximal to the extracellular end of transmembrane-2 (53). The data presented here with P1R-delNT, together with these chemical cross-linking studies (18, 52), strongly suggest that the C terminus of PTH-(134) does indeed interact with the extracellular looped-out region of the receptor. It is striking that the NH substitutions that most strongly affect interaction with P1R-delNT occur on the opposite face of the helix from those that most strongly affect interaction with the intact P1R (Fig. 6). This suggests that the polar face of the helix binds to the extracellular loops, whereas the nonpolar face binds to the N-terminal domain. It is also noteworthy that, of the 13 possible backbone H-bond donors in the 1729 helical segment, seven are implicated in binding to some part of the receptor. A recent Ala scan study has identified Arg20, Val21, Trp23, Leu24, and Arg25 as important residues in PTH-P1R recognition.2 Collectively, these results and those of other previous reports (22, 24, 46) identify a hot spot from Arg20 to Leu28 that is critical to PTH-P1R complex formation.
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16 Å. Although the structure of the P1R is largely unknown, residue pairs from different extracellular loops, using the Protein Data Bank crystal structure coordinates of rhodopsin, could be bridged by this distance. Thus, a possible scenario is that the C-terminal helix bridges two loops, thus facilitating changes in the relative orientations of the transmembrane segments that result in G-protein binding. On the hydrophobic face, the backbone NHs of Val21 and Leu28 are slightly closer together at 11 Å. We should emphasize that side-chain substitution and methylation at the site of a particular residue need not give similar effects on binding and activity. For example, there is a high degree of stringency for the Arg20 side chain (46), but methylation of the Arg20
-amino group has relatively little effect on binding and signaling activity in comparison to other residues, such as Glu22, which can be substituted more freely.
Combined with an earlier implication of extracellular loop binding to PTH (18), the data in this paper suggests that the principal binding domain C terminus of PTH binds in a cooperative manner to both the N terminus region of the receptor and one or more of the extracellular loops. Binding of PTH to either P1R-delNT (54) or the extracellular N terminus sequence alone of P1R (15) is very weak (
µM). The experiments reported here thus help to delineate the nature of the overall binding and activation process.
| FOOTNOTES |
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The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains supplemental Table I. ![]()
¶ To whom correspondence should be addressed: Institute for Biological Sciences, National Research Council, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0R6, Canada. Tel.: 613-990-0852; Fax: 613-952-9092; E-mail: gordon.willick{at}nrc.ca.
1 The abbreviations used are: PTH, parathyroid hormone; hPTH, human parathyroid hormone; CD, circular dichroism; AC, adenylyl cyclase; PLC, phospholipase-C; P1R, PTH receptor-1; P1R-delNT, P1R less N-terminal sequence; Fmoc, 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl; TBTU, 2-(1H-benzotriazol-yl)-1,1,3,3-tetramethyluronium tetrafluoroborate; HATU, N-[(dimethylamino)-1H-1,2,3-triazolo[4,5-b]pyridin-1-ylmethylene]-N-methylmethanaminium hexafluorophosphate N-oxide; N-Me, N-methylated. ![]()
2 T. Dean, A. Khatri, Z. Potetinova, G. Willick, and T. J. Gardella, manuscript in preparation. ![]()
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