Engineered Allosteric Regulation of Protein Kinases by Light by MARK SHAAYA B.Sc. Biochemistry, Lebanese University, 2008 THESIS
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Engineered Allosteric Regulation of Protein Kinases by Light By MARK SHAAYA B.Sc. Biochemistry, Lebanese University, 2008 THESIS Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2021 Chicago, Illinois Defense Committee: Dr. Andrei Karginov, Advisor and Chair Dr. Viswanathan Natarjan, Co-advisor Dr. Yulia Komarova Dr. Richard Minshall Dr. Andrius Kazlauskas, Physiology and Biophysics DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my grade-school mathematics teacher, Mr. Jamal Maatouk, and my high-school Physics teacher, Mrs. Janet Eid. Their hard work and continuous strive to provide us with the best education possible greatly contributed to my interest in science at a young age and academic advancement. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to my advisor, Dr. Andrei Karginov for his excellent mentorship. His constant guidance sharpened my critical thinking skills and was indispensable for the completion of this work. I would also wish to thank my co-advisor, Dr. Viswanathan Natarajan, for his continuous support throughout my training years, and during the two years under his direct supervision. In his lab, I was trained to study the endothelial barrier function and wrote my first grant proposal under his mentorship. I would also wish to extend my gratitude to my research committee members, Dr. Yulia Komarova, Dr. Richard Minshall, and Dr. Andrius Kazlauskas for their insights and constructive criticism that helped improve the quality of this work. A number of people whom we collaborated with were extremely helpful, namely Dr. Pradeep Kota from UNC, Anastasia Zhurikhina and Dr. Denis Tsygankov from Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Dr. Jason E-Conage-Pough, Dr. Cameron T. Flower, and Dr. Forest M. White, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr. Jalees Rehman and Dr. Young-Mee Kim from UIC. I am also grateful for the past and current lab members from whom I have learned a lot during our productive lab meetings and casual daily chats. They have made the lab environment a happy place to be in every day during all my time in the program. Finally, this work could not have been possible without the endless support and trust of my partner Felisha Gonzalez, my parents, and two sisters. iii CONTRIBUTION OF AUTHORS Chapter I introduces my dissertation question. Chapter II is adapted from a literature review (Mark Shaaya, Jordan Fauser, & Andrei V. Karginov, 2020; Optogenetics, the art of Illuminating complex signaling pathways, accepted in the Physiology journal), that is a result of a teamwork between me, my colleague Jordan Fauser, and my advisor Dr. Andrei Karginov. In this chapter, I introduce optogenetics in the field of cell biology and go over recent approaches based on a thorough literature search. I describe the rationale behind their development and highlight their major advantages and limitations. Chapter III, IV, and V includes a manuscript that is currently in revisions (Shaaya M, et al. 2020; Light-Regulated Allosteric Switch Enables Temporal and Subcellular Control of Enzyme Activity. eLife). These three chapters describe the bulk of my work in the Karginov lab, of which I was its major driver. This work could not have been made possible without the contributions of my lab mates and collaborators, whom I was delighted to work with. Vincent Huyot was the person to initiate the project before I join the Karginov lab. Jordan Fauser in collaboration with Dr. Pradeep Kota from UNC performed the molecular dynamics modeling studies presented here. Martin Brennan, Jacob Matsche, and Shahzeb Khan contributed to the molecular biology and biochemical assays. Anastasia Zhurikhina and Dr. Denis Tsygankov, from Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, performed the analysis of cell-edge velocity. Dr. Jason E-Conage-Pough, Dr. Cameron T. Flower, and Dr. Forest M. White, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, performed the mass spectrometry experiments and analysis. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 A. Statement of Hypothesis ..................................................................................................... 3 B. Significance of Study .......................................................................................................... 4 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................... 5 A. Optogenetics .............................................................................................................................. 5 1. Photoreceptors ............................................................................................................................... 5 a. Blue-light Photoreceptors........................................................................................... 6 b. Red-light Photoreceptors ................................................................................................... 6 B. Optogenetic Approaches ............................................................................................................ 7 1. Utilization of Photoreceptor Dimerization .......................................................................... 8 a. Subcellular Localization .................................................................................................... 8 i. Targeting a Protein to Specific Region .............................................................. 9 ii. Targeting a Protein to Different Subcellular Compartments .......................... 11 iii. Light-Induced Asymmetric Signaling ............................................................. 13 2. Protein-Protein Interaction ................................................................................................. 15 i. Protein Interaction with Downstream Effectors............................................... 15 ii. Protein Dimerization .......................................................................................... 17 iii. Split-protein Reassembly .................................................................................. 19 3. Allosteric Regulation .......................................................................................................... 22 4. Regulation by Steric Interference ...................................................................................... 25 III. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES ........................................................................................... 29 A. Molecular Dynamics Modeling ................................................................................................ 29 B. Amino Acid Sequence of LightR ............................................................................................. 29 C. Molecular Biology ................................................................................................................... 30 D. Antibodies, Chemical Reagents and Cell Lines ...................................................................... 30 E. Expression of Engineered Constructs ...................................................................................... 31 F. In vitro Kinase Assay ................................................................................................................ 31 G. Biochemical Characterization of LightR kinases .................................................................... 32 H. Characterization of LightRCre ................................................................................................. 33 I. Production of LightR-Src HeLa Stable Cell Line ................................................................... 33 J. Mass Spectrometry .................................................................................................................... 34 1. Sample Preparation ............................................................................................................. 34 2. Phospho-tyrosine Enrichment and Mass Spectrometry Analysis ................................... 34 K. Cell Imaging and Image Analysis ............................................................................................ 37 1. Sample Preparation and Imaging Hardware ...................................................................... 37 2. Cell Spreading and Protrusive Activity Analysis ............................................................. 37 v TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) CHAPTER PAGE 3. Local Blue Light Stimulation ............................................................................................. 38 4. Polarity Index Calculation .................................................................................................. 38 5. Centroid Shift ...................................................................................................................... 38 6. Quantification of Cell Edge Dynamics .............................................................................. 40 IV. RESULTS ..................................................................................................................................... 43 A. Design of LightR Domain......................................................................................................... 43 B. Molecular Dynamic Studies suggests LightR is an Allosteric Switch .................................