Back

Chemoproteomics identifies a pyrimidopyrimidine analogue as a tubulin-tyrosine ligase binder

Abanti, R. R.; Georgiou, E. A.; Makarov, D.; Lechner, S.; Tsigara, A.; Küster, B.; Medard, G.; Kielkowski, P.; Persoons, L.; De Jonghe, S.; Kostakis, I. K.

2026-08-07 biochemistry
10.64898/2026.08.06.743276 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Small-molecule drug discovery relies on identifying compounds that modulate specific protein targets, a process often hindered by cellular complexity. Through phenotypic screening of a kinase-focused diazaquinazoline library, we serendipitously identified CEM198 as the first high-affinity ligand of tubulin-tyrosine ligase (TTL). Functional assays combining live-cell TTL inhibition, microtubule polymerization, cell cycle analysis, and proteomics revealed that CEM198 acts through a dual mechanism: directly binding to TTL and altering /{beta}-tubulin conformation. This interaction restricts -tubulin tyrosination and disrupts tubulin polymerization, leading to microtubule destabilization. The differential effects observed between SH-SY5Y and HEK293T cells indicate that effective TTL inhibition depends on both direct binding and structural modulation of the tubulin heterodimer. These findings introduce CEM198 as a chemical probe for investigating the tubulin tyrosination-detyrosination and demonstrate the potential of chemoproteomics to uncover novel modulators of microtubule dynamics.

Matching journals

The top 3 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.