• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Saturday, October 4, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Shining some light on the obscure proteome

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
June 29, 2022
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Group Leader in Chemical Proteomics, Dr. Guillaume Médard, and his research group in the lab.
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are a class of drugs used in oncology. An international research team involving scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Cornell University in Ithaca (USA), the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg has now investigated the effects of some HDAC drugs in more detail. The scientists researched whether those epidrugs affect proteins other than the HDACs which they are designed to inhibit.

Group Leader in Chemical Proteomics, Dr. Guillaume Médard, and his research group in the lab.

Credit: U. Benz / TUM

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are a class of drugs used in oncology. An international research team involving scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Cornell University in Ithaca (USA), the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg has now investigated the effects of some HDAC drugs in more detail. The scientists researched whether those epidrugs affect proteins other than the HDACs which they are designed to inhibit.

“To do so, target deconvolution by chemical proteomics is the method of choice. Hence, we first made new chemical tools – the so called affinity matrices – that would allow us to systematically profile the HDACs,” explains Dr. Guillaume Médard, group leader for chemical proteomics at the TUM chair of Proteomics and Bioanalytics led by Prof. Bernhard Küster.

Profiling HDAC drugs by chemical proteomics

“I profiled 53 drugs and most of them, but not all, hit their intended HDAC target,” stated Severin Lechner, a doctoral candidate at the TUM School of Life Sciences. “There were, however, some surprises. Drugs used in hundreds of scientific studies were not as selective as it had been assumed. Many had additional targets that were not previously known.

These results highlight the power of proteomic approaches, as they can probe the binding to thousands of proteins at once. Finally, the team identified several molecules with outstanding selectivity, making them the inhibitors of choice for future scientific studies.

The target landscape of HDAC drugs

“The most unexpected finding was that MBLAC2 is off-target for half of the profiled molecules,” Lechner continues. This protein is not well characterized. Coincidentally, the team of Prof. Maurine Linder in Cornell researched on it at the same time. The two groups collaborated and confirmed that the protein is indeed hindered in performing its function in presence of the drugs.

Working with the group of Prof. Michael Pfaffl at TUM, Lechner examined the hinted unexplained phenotypic effects of some drugs and proved that MBLAC2 inhibition or knock-down leads to an accumulation of extracellular vesicles in the extracellular space. Extracellular vesicles are small membrane-bounded particles secreted by cells and transported through the whole body to transmit biomolecules and information between cells and tissues.

Fundamental research to make tomorrow’s epidrugs

“We are excited because we have uncovered a new player in this field of biology that notably encompasses exosomes, which play crucial roles in neurology, immunology and oncology,” explains Médard. “We are now designing molecules that only hit MBLAC2 so that we can probe this obscure protein in a range of model systems.”

This study will be useful to those who want to use HDAC inhibitors for probing biology or for therapeutic use. It helps in choosing the right chemical tool. It is also a valuable set of data for medicinal chemists who need to understand how chemical structures relate to potency and selectivity to make tomorrow’s epidrugs.



Journal

Nature Chemical Biology

DOI

10.1038/s41589-022-01015-5

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Target deconvolution of HDAC pharmacopoeia reveals MBLAC2 as common off-target

Article Publication Date

28-Apr-2022

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Building Larger Hydrocarbons for Optical Cycling

Building Larger Hydrocarbons for Optical Cycling

October 4, 2025
blank

Scientists Discover How Enzymes “Dance” During Their Work—and Why It Matters

October 4, 2025

Electron Donor–Acceptor Complexes Enable Asymmetric Photocatalysis

October 4, 2025

AI Advances Enhance Sustainable Recycling of Livestock Waste

October 3, 2025

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    93 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    90 shares
    Share 36 Tweet 23
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    69 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 17

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Gut Microbiome and Hormones in Postmenopausal Breast Cancer

Herbal Remedies for Hypertension: Insights from Trinidad

Revolutionary Graph Network Enhances Protein Interaction Prediction

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Success! An email was just sent to confirm your subscription. Please find the email now and click 'Confirm' to start subscribing.

Join 62 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.