A novel yeast-based high-throughput method for the identification of protein palmitoylation inhibitors

CORONEL ARRECHEA, CONSUELO; GIOLITO, MARÍA LUZ; GARCÍA, IRIS ALEJANDRA; SORIA, GASTÓN; VALDEZ TAUBAS, JAVIER

Open Biology

Royal Society Publishing

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2021 vol. 11

rotein S-acylation or palmitoylation is a widespread post-translational modification that consists of the addition of a lipid molecule to cysteine residues of proteins through a thioester bond. Palmitoylation and palmitoyltransferases (PATs) have been linked to several types of cancers, diseases of the central nervous system and many infectious diseases where pathogens use the host cell machinery to palmitoylate their effectors. Despite the central importance of palmitoylation in cell physiology and disease, progress in the field has been hampered by the lack of potent-specific inhibitors of palmitoylation in general, and of individual PATs in particular. Herein, we present a yeast-based method for the high-throughput identification of small molecules that inhibit protein palmitoylation. The system is based on a reporter gene that responds to the acylation status of a palmitoylation substrate fused to a transcription factor. The method can be applied to heterologous PATs such as human