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An elevated intracellular NADH:NAD+ ratio, or 'reductive stress', has been associated with multiple diseases, including disorders of the mitochondrial electron transport chain. As the intracellular NADH:NAD+ ratio can be in near equilibrium with the circulating lactate:pyruvate ratio, we hypothesized that reductive stress could be alleviated by oxidizing extracellular lactate to pyruvate. We engineered LOXCAT, a fusion of bacterial lactate oxidase (LOX) and catalase (CAT), which irreversibly converts lactate and oxygen to pyruvate and water. Addition of purified LOXCAT to the medium of cultured human cells with a defective electron transport chain decreased the extracellular lactate:pyruvate ratio, normalized the intracellular NADH:NAD+ ratio, upregulated glycolytic ATP production and restored cellular proliferation. In mice, tail-vein-injected LOXCAT lowered the circulating lactate:pyruvate ratio, blunted a metformin-induced rise in blood lactate:pyruvate ratio and improved NADH:NAD+ balance in the heart and brain. Our study lays the groundwork for a class of injectable therapeutic enzymes that alleviates intracellular redox imbalances by directly targeting circulating redox-coupled metabolites.

The cellular NADH/NAD+ ratio is fundamental to biochemistry, but the extent to which it reflects versus drives metabolic physiology in vivo is poorly understood. Here we report the in vivo application of Lactobacillus brevis (Lb)NOX1, a bacterial water-forming NADH oxidase, to assess the metabolic consequences of directly lowering the hepatic cytosolic NADH/NAD+ ratio in mice. By combining this genetic tool with metabolomics, we identify circulating α-hydroxybutyrate levels as a robust marker of an elevated hepatic cytosolic NADH/NAD+ ratio, also known as reductive stress. In humans, elevations in circulating α-hydroxybutyrate levels have previously been associated with impaired glucose tolerance2, insulin resistance3 and mitochondrial disease4, and are associated with a common genetic variant in GCKR5, which has previously been associated with many seemingly disparate metabolic traits. Using LbNOX, we demonstrate that NADH reductive stress mediates the effects of GCKR variation on many metabolic traits, including circulating triglyceride levels, glucose tolerance and FGF21 levels. Our work identifies an elevated hepatic NADH/NAD+ ratio as a latent metabolic parameter that is shaped by human genetic variation and contributes causally to key metabolic traits and diseases. Moreover, it underscores the utility of genetic tools such as LbNOX to empower studies of ‘causal metabolism’. The authors identify an increased hepatic NADH/NAD+ ratio as an underlying metabolic parameter that is shaped by human genetic variation and contributes causally to key metabolic traits and diseases.

Oligomers composed of β(3)-amino acid residues and a mixture of α- and β(3)-residues have emerged as proteolytically stable structural mimics of α-helices. An attractive feature of these oligomers is that they adopt defined conformations in short sequences. In this manuscript, we evaluate the impact of β(3)-residues as compared to their α-amino acid analogs in prenucleated helices. Our hydrogen-deuterium exchange results suggest that heterogeneous sequences composed of "αααβ" repeats are conformationally more rigid than the corresponding homogeneous α-peptide helices, with the macrocycle templating the helical conformation having a significant influence.

Mimics of α-helices on protein surfaces have emerged as powerful reagents for antagonizing protein-protein interactions, which are difficult to target with small molecules. Here we describe the design of a cell-permeable synthetic α-helix, based on the guanine nucleotide exchange factor Sos, that interferes with Ras-Sos interaction and downregulates Ras signaling in response to receptor tyrosine kinase activation.

Stabilized α-helices and nonpeptidic helix mimetics have emerged as powerful molecular scaffolds for the discovery of protein-protein interaction inhibitors. Protein-protein interactions often involve large contact areas, which are often difficult for small molecules to target with high specificity. The hypothesis behind the design of stabilized helices and helix mimetics is that these medium-sized molecules may pursue their targets with higher specificity because of a larger number of contacts. This protocol describes an optimized synthetic strategy for the preparation of stabilized α-helices that feature a carbon-carbon linkage in place of the characteristic N-terminal main-chain hydrogen bond of canonical helices. Formation of the carbon-carbon bond is enabled by a microwave-assisted ring-closing metathesis reaction between two terminal olefins on the peptide chain. The outlined strategy allows the synthesis and purification of a hydrogen bond surrogate (HBS) α-helix in ∼ 1 week.

We report the design, synthesis, and characterization of a short peptide trapped in a pi-helix configuration. This high-energy conformation was nucleated by a preorganized pi-turn, which was obtained by replacing an N-terminal intramolecular main chain i and i + 5 hydrogen bond with a carbon-carbon bond. Our studies highlight the nucleation parameter as a key factor contributing to the relative instability of the pi-helix and allow us to estimate fundamental helix-coil transition parameters for this conformation.