Identification of two new hydrophobic residues on basic fibroblast growth factor important for fibroblast growth factor receptor binding

Abstract

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is implicated in the pathogenesis of several types of vascular and connective diseases. A key step in the discovery of bFGF receptor antagonists to mitigate these actions is to define the functional epitopes required for receptor binding of the growth factor. Using structure-based site-directed mutagenesis, two critical areas on the bFGF surface for the high affinity receptor binding have already been identified. According to these studies, one receptor binding site includes two polar residues Glu96 and Asn104 on bFGF whereas the other includes four hydrophobic residues Tyr24, Tyr103, Leu140 and Met142. Using a protein modelling technique, we report here the identification of a new hydrophobic patch on bFGF which includes residues Tyr73, Val88 and Phe93. The role of this area on receptor binding affinity was evaluated by mutating each of these residues individually and determining the mutated protein's (mutein's) receptor binding affinity. In addition, we examined the role of two other hydrophobic residues, Phe30 and Leu138, on bFGF for high-affinity receptor binding. These two residues are the neighbors of the hydrophobic residues Tyr24 and Tyr103, respectively. Replacement of Val88 and Phe93 with alanine reduced the receptor binding affinity about 10- and 80-fold, respectively, compared with wild-type bFGF. In contrast, substitution of Phe30 and Leu138 with alanine has no effect on the receptor binding affinities. We conclude that the newly identified hydrophobic residues, Val88 and Phe93, are crucial for the receptor binding. The present data, together with the previous identification of four hydrophobic residues (Tyr24, Tyr103, Leu140 and Met142), suggests that there are two hydrophobic receptor binding sites on the bFGF surface. Our findings can be employed in the discovery and design of potent bFGF antagonists using computational methods.