Muratspahić, E, Aslanoglou, D, White, AM 
ORCID: 0000-0002-9481-1079, Draxler, C, Kozisek, X, Farooq, Z, Craik, DJ ORCID: 0000-0003-0007-6796, McCormick, PJ ORCID: 0000-0002-2225-5181, Durek, T and Gruber, CW ORCID: 0000-0001-6060-7048
(2023)
Development of Melanocortin 4 Receptor Agonists by Exploiting Animal-Derived Macrocyclic, Disulfide-Rich Peptide Scaffolds
ACS Pharmacology and Translational Science, 6 (10).
pp. 1373-1381.
ISSN 2575-9108, 2575-9108
Abstract
G protein-coupled receptors are among the most widely studied classes of drug targets. A major challenge in this field is to develop ligands that will selectively modulate a single receptor subtype to overcome the disadvantages of undesired “off target” effects caused by lack of target and thus signaling specificity. In the current study, we explored ligand design for the melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) since it is an attractive target for developing antiobesity drugs. Endogenously, the receptor is activated by peptide ligands, i.e., three melanocyte-stimulating hormones (α-MSH, β-MSH, and γ-MSH) and by adrenocorticotropic hormone. Therefore, we utilized a peptide drug design approach, utilizing “molecular grafting” of pharmacophore peptide sequence motifs onto a stable nature-derived peptide scaffold. Specifically, protegrin-4-like-peptide-1 (Pr4LP1) and arenicin-1-like-peptide-1 (Ar3LP1) fully activated MC4R in a functional cAMP assay with potencies of 3.7 and 1.0 nM, respectively. In a nanoluciferase complementation assay with less signal amplification, the designed peptides fully recruited mini-Gs with subnanomolar and nanomolar potencies. Interestingly, these novel peptide MC4R ligands recruited β-arrestin-2 with ∼2-fold greater efficacies and ∼20-fold increased potencies as compared to the endogenous α-MSH. The peptides were inactive at related MC1R and MC3R in a cAMP accumulation assay. These findings highlight the applicability of animal-derived disulfide-rich scaffolds to design pathway and subtype selective MC4R pharmacological probes. In the future, this approach could be exploited to develop functionally selective ligands that could offer safer and more effective obesity drugs.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | melanocortin 4 receptor, nature-derived peptide, disulfide-rich, molecular grafting |
| Depositing User: | Symplectic Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Aug 2024 13:33 |
| Last Modified: | 28 Feb 2026 14:29 |
| DOI: | 10.1021/acsptsci.3c00090 |
| Open Access URL: | https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acsptsci.3c0... |
| Related Websites: | |
| URI: | https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3183984 |
| Disclaimer: | The University of Liverpool is not responsible for content contained on other websites from links within repository metadata. Please contact us if you notice anything that appears incorrect or inappropriate. |
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