The overall direction of the Molecular Mechanisms of Tumor Promotion Section is to understand the regulation of the signaling pathways downstream from the lipophilic second messenger diacylglycerol, to elucidate the basis for heterogeneity of response to different ligands which function through this pathway, and to exploit this understanding for developing novel ligands with unique behavior that function through this pathway. A complementary direction is to understand the regulation and structure activity relations for the vanilloid receptor. The vanilloid receptor is a downstream target of the diacylglycerol signaling pathway, shares partial homology in its ligands to this pathway, and shares with the diacylglycerol signaling pathway an important role in inflammation. Both directions impact both our understanding of biological regulation and the potential development of therapeutic agents. Protein kinase C, the best studied downstream target for diacylglycerol, represents the classic system for tumor promotion and is a therapeutic target for cancer chemotherapy. The vanilloid receptor represents a promising therapeutic target for cancer pain, among other indications, and thus represents an important direction in palliative care for cancer patients. DAG-lactones represent a synthetically accessible platform for probing the structure activity relations of protein kinase C and the other targets downstream of the second messenger diacylglycerol. We have continued to evaluate DAG-lactones designed to have selectivity for the RasGRP subclass of diacylglycerol targets. This class is of particular importance because it functions as an activator of Ras, which is many tumors shows enhanced activity without being mutated. We have evaluated the role of aliphatic side chains on the DAG lactone for providing selectivity for protein kinase C epsilon, a pro-tumorigenic protein kinase C isoform. Bryostatin is an agent in clinical trials with a unique mechanism of action. It binds to protein kinase C with high affinity and activates the enzyme but paradoxically antagonizes many protein kinase C mediated responses. We find, using microarray analysis of gene expression along with detailed examination of the time and dose dependence of genes representative of the differences in expression revealed by the microarray analysis, that transient duration is the predominant difference in the mode of action of bryostatin as compared to typical protein kinase C activators such as the phorbol esters. In collaboration with the groups of Gary Keck and Michael Krische, we seek to define the critical structural elements in bryostatin conferring its unique pattern of activity, with the goal of developing the next generation of bryostatin analogues. An important recent advance was to show that the upper portion of the bryostatin molecule is not only necessary but also sufficient for conferring the unique pattern of biological response to the bryostatin. In other studies, we have begun to analyze hybrid ligands that contain an upper region with similarities to that of the upper portion of bryostatin together with a bottom half comprising a DAG-lactone to confer binding acitivity. Protein kinase C is subject to post-translational modification, in particular phosphorylation. In collaboration with the CCR Collaborative Protein Technology Resource, we have shown that the extent of protein kinase C modification is much more extensive than had been recognized. Moreover, the pattern of modification was different for different ligands such as phorbol ester or bryostatin. We suggest that such modification signatures may be of particular value for the structure activity evaluation of ligands with complex effects where, as in the case of protein kinase C, ligand binding causes both activation and change in subcellular localization. Comparing the various cell lines of the NCI60 cell line panel, we have shown that the patterns of PKC delta modification show marked differences between the various cell lines. Modification of DAG signaling in these various cell lines causes changes in the patterns of modification, but the changes are much smaller than those associated with phorbol ester, emphasizing that phorbol ester treatment in not a good surrogate for physiological levels of DAG. On our TRPV1 project, we have made considerable progress in defining the optimal structures for binding of antagonists to human TRPV1, as part of our effort which seeks to advance the development of drug candidates for this target. We further are continuing our efforts to use photoaffinity labeling to confirm directly the ligand binding site on TRPV1 as well as to use mutational analysis to refine computer modeling of the putative binding site.
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