BRISBANE, Calif., July 13, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nitrase Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company deploying its NITROME platform to build a pipeline of therapies targeting nitrases, a new class of enzymes discovered in-house that are involved in a broad variety of diseases, today announced that the Journal of Biological Chemistry published a review article titled “Unveiling The Human Nitroproteome: Protein Tyrosine Nitration in Cell Signaling and Cancer.” The paper describes the curation and analysis of a database of literature-described human nitrated proteins (908) which found that -- in addition to previously characterized associations with neurodegenerative, cardiovascular, and metabolic disorders -- a significant subset of nitrated proteins is associated with cancer. Nitrated proteins implicated in cancer pathology include those involved in intracellular signaling, immune surveillance, cytokine pathway stimulation, Damage Associated Molecular Pattern (DAMP) expression and resistance to chemotherapeutics. Nitration and phosphorylation overlapped in 879 tyrosine residues in 460 proteins. The data reveals that many of the sites that are hyperphosphorylated, and serve as drivers in cancer, overlap sites of nitration suggesting that the enzymatic processes that regulate tyrosine nitration could provide prominent new therapeutic targets.
“We continue to identify new mechanisms by which nitrases are implicated in diseases, and these recent nitro-protein data analyses support the use of nitrase-based targets as a truly novel therapeutic approach to cancer treatment,” said Irene Griswold-Prenner, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Nitrase Therapeutics. “The data have elucidated numerous, specific, actionable targets for possible therapeutic intervention. We look forward to continued evaluation of protein nitration and its enzymatic regulation as a new path to drug discovery for cancer and other diseases areas.”
New analyses highlight and reinforce the role of nitration in cancer pathology.
- Tyrosine nitration impacts functional protein networks. The analysis revealed three major cellular networks that could be impacted by tyrosine nitration, resulting in altered protein function, localization, turnover, and protein-protein interactions.
- Known sites of tyrosine nitration are also sites of phosphorylation, suggesting an extensive role for nitration in cell signaling, such that tyrosine nitration could profoundly interfere or alternatively complement tyrosine phosphorylation.
- Tyrosine nitration is associated with different types of cancer by altering metabolic reprogramming and signaling.
Nitration has been shown to impact many known oncogenic targets and pathways, including: signal transducer and activator of transcription 1-alpha/beta (STAT1), lymphocyte-specific protein tyrosine kinase (LCK), janus kinase 2 (JAK2), B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL2), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), C-C motif chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2), C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12), SH2-containing protein tyrosine phosphatase 2 (SHP2), SH2-domain-containing inositol-phosphatase-2 (SHIP-2), heat shock proteins (HSPs), histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2), sirtuin 2 (SIRT2), and sirtuin 6 (SIRT6).
About Nitrase Therapeutics, Inc.
Nitrase Therapeutics is a pioneering biopharmaceutical company deploying its unique NITROME platform to unlock the therapeutic potential of nitrases, a new class of enzymes that it discovered, to develop a pipeline of therapies against a broad range of diseases. The medicines that Nitrase Therapeutics is developing will target these enzymes and potentially help slow or halt the progression of numerous diseases in which nitrases and nitro-substrates play a role, including Parkinson’s, cancer, immunological and fibrotic diseases. Nitrase Therapeutics (under the former name Nitrome Biosciences) has been widely recognized and has won multiple awards including the prestigious Target Advancement grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF). Nitrase Therapeutics is located in Brisbane, CA, and its investors include Sofinnova Partners, AbbVie Ventures, Dementia Discovery Fund, Bristol Myers Squibb, Mission Bay Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.nitrasetx.com.
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