Chemical Proteomic Discovery of Isotype-Selective Covalent Inhibitors of the RNA Methyltransferase NSUN2

Abstract

5-Methylcytosine (m5C) is an RNA modification prevalent on tRNAs, where it can protect tRNAs from endonucleolytic cleavage to maintain protein synthesis. The NSUN family (NSUN1-7 in humans) of RNA methyltransferases are capable of installing the methyl group onto the C5 position of cytosines in RNA. NSUNs are implicated in a wide range of (patho)physiological processes, but selective and cell-active inhibitors of these enzymes are lacking. Here, we use cysteine-directed activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) to discover azetidine acrylamides that act as stereoselective covalent inhibitors of human NSUN2. Despite targeting a conserved catalytic cysteine in the NSUN family, the NSUN2 inhibitors show negligible cross-reactivity with other human NSUNs and exhibit good proteome-wide selectivity. We verify that the azetidine acrylamides inhibit the catalytic activity of recombinant NSUN2, but not NSUN6, and demonstrate that these compounds stereoselectively disrupt NSUN2-tRNA interactions in cancer cells, leading to a global reduction in tRNA m5C content. Our findings thus highlight the potential to create isotype-selective and cell-active inhibitors of NSUN2 with covalent chemistry targeting a conserved catalytic cysteine.