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Record W4416943588 · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-65558-6

A BRET biosensor for measuring uncompetitive engagement of PRMT5 complexes in cells

2025· article· en· W4416943588 on OpenAlexafffund
Elisabeth M. Rothweiler, Ani Michaud, Jakub Stefaniak, Usha Singh, Brynwood B. Mikulsky, James D. Vasta, Michael Beck, Jennifer Wilkinson, Jennifer Ward, Catherine Rogers, Esra Balıkçı, Jeppe Tranberg-Jensen, Jesper S. Hansen, P. Loppnau, Adrian Whitty, Paul E. Brennan, Peter J. Tonge, Matthew B. Robers, K. Huber

Bibliographic record

VenueNature Communications · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicCancer-related gene regulation
Canadian institutionsStructural Genomics ConsortiumUniversity of TorontoDiscovery Centre
FundersEngineering and Physical Sciences Research CouncilNational Institutes of HealthInnovative Medicines InitiativeEuropean CommissionNational Institute of General Medical SciencesMedical Research CouncilEuropean Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and AssociationsDiamond Light SourceMcGill UniversityBayer
KeywordsUncompetitive inhibitorBiosensorIntracellularSmall moleculeEnzymeGlutathioneDrug discoveryDrug developmentPurine nucleoside phosphorylase

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Protein arginine methyl transferase 5 (PRMT5) plays a global role in cell physiology and is an established therapeutic target in cancer. In approximately 10-15% of human cancers, deletion of the methylthioadenosine phosphorylase (MTAP) gene results in accumulation of methylthioadenosine (MTA), exposing a synthetic lethality and opportunity for precision medicine by selective targeting of PRMT5 in this context. Reported small molecule PRMT5 inhibitors engage either cosubstrate S-adenosyl methionine (SAM) or peptide-substrate pockets through diverse mechanisms. A subset of chemotypes demonstrate uncompetitive engagement with SAM or its inhibitory metabolic precursor, MTA. Although uncompetitive engagement can be evaluated in cell-free systems, no methods exist to directly assess this in cells. Here, we describe the development of a fluorescent probe that acts as a dynamic BRET biosensor of the intracellular SAM/MTA pool that overcomes the current limitations of competitive binding analyses. Using this biosensor, we evaluate a range of diverse PRMT5 inhibitors to mechanistically characterize and quantify uncompetitive target engagement as well as ternary complex formation at PRMT5-SAM and PRMT5-MTA complexes in live cells, enabling direct insights into drug mechanism-of-action and metabolite-dependent responses of inhibitors.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.002
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.002
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Bench or experimental · Consensus signal: Bench or experimental
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.003
Threshold uncertainty score0.011

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0020.002
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0010.001
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0030.001
Research integrity0.0030.003
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0020.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.022
GPT teacher head0.313
Teacher spread0.291 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designBench or experimental
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations4
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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