AID	Name	Type	Comment
2101	qHTS Assay for Inhibitors and Activators of N370S glucocerebrosidase as a Potential Chaperone Treatment of Gaucher Disease	confirmatory
2671	qHTS Assay for Inhibitors and Activators of N370S glucocerebrosidase as a Potential Chaperone Treatment of Gaucher Disease: Hit Validation	confirmatory
2593	qHTS Assay for Inhibitors and Activators of N370S glucocerebrosidase as a Potential Chaperone Treatment of Gaucher Disease: Summary	summary

NIH Chemical Genomics Center [NCGC]
NIH Molecular Libraries Probe Production Centers Network [MLPCN]

MLPCN Grant: MH086442-01
Assay Submitter (PI): Wei Zheng

Glucocerebrosidase (GC) catalyzes the hydrolysis of beta-glucocerebroside to glucose and ceramide in lysosomes. Mutations in the glucocerebrosidase gene result in Gaucher disease, an autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disorder. Many of the mutations encountered in patients with Gaucher disease are missense alterations that may cause misfolding, decreased stability and/or mistrafficking of this lysosomal protein. Some GC inhibitors have been shown to act as chemical chaperones, stabilizing the conformation of mutant proteins and thus restoring their function. These inhibitors include iminosugar analogs and three non-iminosugar inhibitors identified from a previous HTS of 62,000 compounds with the wild type recombinant enzyme. However, the enhancement of enzyme activity by the chaperone action of an enzyme inhibitor must be balanced against the direct inhibition of the enzyme. An enzyme activator could also function as a chaperone by binding to the enzyme and helping to correct its misfolding and mistrafficking. While activators for GC have not yet been identified, they may have better therapeutic potential than inhibitors. Therefore the discovery and development of chemical activators may provide a new strategy for the chaperone therapy.

To characterize compound selectivity, selected hits from the primary screen were screened against purified alpha-glucosidase, a related sugar hydrolase. Alpha-glucosidase is responsible for hydrolysis of terminal, non-reducing 1,4-linked alpha-D-glucose residues with release of alpha-D-glucose.

NCGC Assay Protocol Summary:

This is a fluorogenic enzyme assay with 4-methylumbelliferyl-alpha-D-pyranoside as the substrate and human alpha-glucosidase as the enzyme preparation. Upon the hydrolysis of this fluorogenic substrate, the resulting product, 1. 4-methyllumbelliferone, can be excited at 365 nm and emits at 440 nm which can be detected by a standard fluorescence plate reader. Data were normalized to the controls for basal activity (without enzyme) and 100% activity (with enzyme). The AC50 values were determined from concentration-response data modeled with the standard Hill equation.

Assay buffer: 50 mM citric acid (titrated with potassium phosphate to pH 5.0), 0.005% Tween-20, pH 5.0. (pH 5.0 is an optimal condition for this enzyme assay)


1536-well assay protocol for the human alpha-glucosidase:
(1) Add 2 ul/well of enzyme (4 nM final)
(2) Add 23 nL compounds in DMSO solution. The final titration was 0.7 nM to 77 uM.
(3) Add 1 ul of substrate (400 uM final)
(4) Incubate at room temperature for 20 min.
(5) Add 2 ul stop solution (1M NaOH and 1M Glycine mixture, pH 10)
(6) Detect the assay plate in a ViewLux plate reader (PerkinElmer) with Ex=365 nm and Em=440nm.

Keywords: Alpha-glucosidase, Pompe Disease, pharmacological chaperone, chaperone therapy, high throughput screening, alpha-glucosidase inhibitor, MLSMR, MLSCN, NIH Roadmap, qHTS and NCGC

Compound Ranking:

1. Compounds are first classified as having full titration curves, partial modulation, partial curve (weaker actives), single point activity (at highest concentration only), or inactive. See data field "Curve Description". For this assay, apparent inhibitors are ranked higher than compounds that showed apparent activation.
2. For all inactive compounds, PUBCHEM_ACTIVITY_SCORE is 0. For all active compounds, a score range was given for each curve class type given above. Active compounds have PUBCHEM_ACTIVITY_SCORE between 40 and 100. Inconclusive compounds have PUBCHEM_ACTIVITY_SCORE between 1 and 39. Fit_LogAC50 was used for determining relative score and was scaled to each curve class' score range.

Grant Number: MH086442-01