Activation of Gcn2 by Pharmacological Agents Designed to be Inhibitors

Abstract

The integrated stress response (ISR) is an important mechanism by which cells confer protection against environmental stresses. Central to the ISR is a collection of related protein kinases that monitor stress conditions, such as Gcn2 (EIF2AK4) that recognizes nutrient limitations, inducing phosphorylation of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 (eIF2). Gcn2 phosphorylation of eIF2 lowers bulk protein synthesis, conserving energy and nutrients, coincident with preferential translation of stressadaptive gene transcripts, such as that encoding the Atf4 transcriptional regulator. While Gcn2 is central for cell protection to nutrient stress and its depletion in humans leads to pulmonary disorders, Gcn2 can also contribute to the progression of cancers and facilitate neurological disorders during chronic stress. Consequently, specific ATP-competitive inhibitors of Gcn2 protein kinase have been developed. This thesis reports that one such Gcn2 inhibitor, Gcn2iB, can activate Gcn2, probes the mechanism by which this activation occurs, and compares the mechanism of Gcn2 activation by Gcn2iB to that of uncharged tRNA. In this study, Gcn2 activation was measured in cultured human cells by immunoblot and luciferase reporter assays making use of a genetic complementation assay to assess the contribution of various Gcn2 residues to its activation. Low concentrations of Gcn2iB increase Gcn2 phosphorylation of eIF2 and enhance Atf4 expression and activity. Of importance, Gcn2iB can activate Gcn2 mutants devoid of functional regulatory domains or with certain kinase domain substitutions derived fromGcn2-deficient human patients. Other ATP-competitive inhibitors can also activate Gcn2, although there are differences in their mechanisms of activation. These results provide a cautionary note about the pharmacodynamics of eIF2 kinase inhibitors in therapeutic applications. However, compounds designed to be kinase inhibitors that instead directly activate Gcn2, even loss of function variants, may provide tools to alleviate deficiencies in Gcn2 and other regulators of the ISR.