Positive versus negative modulation of different endogenous chemokines for CC-chemokine receptor 1 by small molecule agonists through allosteric versus orthosteric binding

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

7 transmembrane-spanning (7TM) chemokine receptors having multiple endogenous ligands offer special opportunities to understand the molecular basis for allosteric mechanisms. Thus, CC-chemokine receptor 1 (CCR1) binds CC-chemokine 3 and 5 (CCL3 and CCL5) with K(d) values of 7.3 and 0.16 nm, respectively, as determined in homologous competition binding assays. However, CCL5 appears to have a >10,000-fold lower affinity in competition against (125)I-CCL3. Mutational mapping revealed that CCL3 and CCL5 both are strongly affected by systematic truncations of the N-terminal extension, whereas only CCL5 and not CCL3 activation is affected by substitutions in the main ligand binding pocket including the conserved GluVII:06 anchor point. A series of metal ion chelator complexes were found to act as full agonists on CCR1 and to be critically affected by the same substitutions in the main ligand binding pocket as CCL5 but not by mutations in the extracellular domain. In agreement with the overlapping binding sites, the small non-peptide agonists displaced radiolabeled CCL5 with high affinity. Interestingly, the same compounds acted as allosteric enhancers of the binding of CCL3, with which they did not overlap in binding site, leading to an increased B(max) and affinity of this chemokine mainly due to an increased association rate. It is concluded that a small molecule agonist through binding deep in the main ligand binding pocket can act as an allosteric enhancer for one endogenous chemokine and at the same time as a competitive blocker of the binding of another endogenous chemokine.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Biological Chemistry
Volume283
Issue number34
Pages (from-to)23121-8
Number of pages7
ISSN0021-9258
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008

Bibliographical note

Keywords: Allosteric Site; Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; COS Cells; Cercopithecus aethiops; Chemokine CCL3; Chemokine CCL5; Gene Expression Regulation; Humans; Kinetics; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutation; Protein Binding; Protein Structure, Tertiary; Receptors, CCR1

ID: 9830861