Single-Molecule Electronic Measurements of the Dynamic Flexibility of Histone Deacetylases

Due to their involvement in epigenetic regulation, histone deacetylases (HDACs) have gained considerable interest in designing drugs for treatment of a variety of human diseases including cancers. Recently, we applied a label-free, electronic single-molecule nano-circuit technique to gain insight into the contribution of the dynamic flexibility in HDACs structure during the course of substrates/ ligands binding and catalysis. We observed that HDAC8 has two major (dynamically interconvertible) conformational states, ``ground (catalytically unfavorable)'' and ``transition (catalytically favorable)''. In addition, we found that its cognate substrates/ligands reciprocally catalyze the transition of the ground to the transition state conformation of HDAC8. Thus, we propose that both enzymes and their substrates/ligands serve as ``catalysts'' in facilitating the structural changes of each other and promoting the overall chemical transformation reaction. Such new information provides the potential for designing a new class of mechanism-based inhibitors and activators of HDAC8 for treating human diseases.