1
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Barletta GP, Tandiana R, Soler M, Fortuna S, Rocchia W. Locuaz: an in silico platform for protein binders optimization. Bioinformatics 2024; 40:btae492. [PMID: 39107888 PMCID: PMC11324344 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae492] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2024] [Revised: 07/28/2024] [Accepted: 08/03/2024] [Indexed: 08/16/2024] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Engineering high-affinity binders targeting specific antigenic determinants remains a challenging and often daunting task, requiring extensive experimental screening. Computational methods have the potential to accelerate this process, reducing costs and time, but only if they demonstrate broad applicability and efficiency in exploring mutations, evaluating affinity, and pruning unproductive mutation paths. RESULTS In response to these challenges, we introduce a new computational platform for optimizing protein binders towards their targets. The platform is organized as a series of modules, performing mutation selection and application, molecular dynamics simulations to sample conformations around interaction poses, and mutation prioritization using suitable scoring functions. Notably, the platform supports parallel exploration of different mutation streams, enabling in silico high-throughput screening on High Performance Computing (HPC) systems. Furthermore, the platform is highly customizable, allowing users to implement their own protocols. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION The source code is available at https://github.com/pgbarletta/locuaz and documentation is at https://locuaz.readthedocs.io/. The data underlying this article are available at https://github.com/pgbarletta/suppl_info_locuaz.
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Affiliation(s)
- German P Barletta
- CONCEPT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Enrico Melen, 83 Genova Liguria 16152, Italy
- The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Str. Costiera, 11, Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 34151, Italy
| | - Rika Tandiana
- CONCEPT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Enrico Melen, 83 Genova Liguria 16152, Italy
| | - Miguel Soler
- CONCEPT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Enrico Melen, 83 Genova Liguria 16152, Italy
- Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche, Informatiche e Fisiche (DMIF), University of Udine, Via delle Scienze, 206, Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 33100, Italy
| | - Sara Fortuna
- CONCEPT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Enrico Melen, 83 Genova Liguria 16152, Italy
- Cresset, New Cambridge House, Litlington, Royston, SG8-0SS, United Kingdom
| | - Walter Rocchia
- CONCEPT, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Enrico Melen, 83 Genova Liguria 16152, Italy
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2
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Rauch S, Costacurta F, Schöppe H, Peng JY, Bante D, Erisoez EE, Sprenger B, He X, Moghadasi SA, Krismer L, Sauerwein A, Heberle A, Rabensteiner T, Wang D, Naschberger A, Dunzendorfer-Matt T, Kaserer T, von Laer D, Heilmann E. Highly specific SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M pro) mutations against the clinical antiviral ensitrelvir selected in a safe, VSV-based system. Antiviral Res 2024:105969. [PMID: 39053514 DOI: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2024.105969] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2023] [Revised: 07/04/2024] [Accepted: 07/22/2024] [Indexed: 07/27/2024]
Abstract
In the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the so far two most effective approved antivirals are the protease inhibitors nirmatrelvir, in combination with ritonavir (Paxlovid) and ensitrelvir (Xocova). However, antivirals and indeed all antimicrobial drugs are sooner or later challenged by resistance mutations. Studying such mutations is essential for treatment decisions and pandemic preparedness. At the same time, generating resistant viruses to assess mutants is controversial, especially with pathogens of pandemic potential like SARS-CoV-2. To circumvent gain-of-function research with non-attenuated SARS-CoV-2, a previously developed safe system based on a chimeric vesicular stomatitis virus dependent on the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (VSV-Mpro) was used to select mutations against ensitrelvir. Ensitrelvir is clinically especially relevant due to its single-substance formulation, avoiding drug-drug interactions by the co-formulated CYP3A4 inhibitor ritonavir in Paxlovid. By treating VSV-Mpro with ensitrelvir, several highly-specific resistant mutants against this inhibitor were selected, while being still fully or largely susceptible to nirmatrelvir. We then confirmed several ensitrelvir-specific mutants in gold standard enzymatic assays and SARS-CoV-2 replicons. These findings indicate that the two inhibitors can have distinct viral resistance profiles, which could determine treatment decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefanie Rauch
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Francesco Costacurta
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Helge Schöppe
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Ju-Yi Peng
- Department of Infectious Disease and Vaccines Research, Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA
| | - David Bante
- Institute of Molecular Biochemistry, Biocentre, Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Ela Emilie Erisoez
- Institute of Molecular Biochemistry, Biocentre, Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Bernhard Sprenger
- Institute of Biochemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria
| | - Xi He
- Department of Infectious Disease and Vaccines Research, Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA
| | - Seyed Arad Moghadasi
- Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Laura Krismer
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Anna Sauerwein
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Anne Heberle
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Toni Rabensteiner
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Dai Wang
- Department of Infectious Disease and Vaccines Research, Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA
| | - Andreas Naschberger
- Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955, Saudi Arabia
| | | | - Teresa Kaserer
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Dorothee von Laer
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Emmanuel Heilmann
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria; Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955, Saudi Arabia.
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3
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Karvelis E, Swanson C, Tidor B. Substrate Turnover Dynamics Guide Ketol-Acid Reductoisomerase Redesign for Increased Specific Activity. ACS Catal 2024; 14:10491-10509. [PMID: 39050899 PMCID: PMC11264209 DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.4c01446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2024] [Revised: 05/16/2024] [Accepted: 06/12/2024] [Indexed: 07/27/2024]
Abstract
The task of adapting enzymes for specific applications is often hampered by our incomplete ability to tune and tailor catalytic functions, particularly when seeking increased activity. Here, we develop and demonstrate a rational approach to address this challenge, applied to ketol-acid reductoisomerase (KARI), which has uses in industrial-scale isobutanol production. While traditional structure-based computational enzyme redesign strategies typically focus on the enzyme-bound ground state (GS) and transition state (TS), we postulated that additionally treating the underlying dynamics of complete turnover events that connect and pass through both states could further elucidate the structural properties affecting catalysis and help identify mutations that lead to increased catalytic activity. To examine the dynamics of substrate conversion with atomistic detail, we adapted and applied computational methods based on path sampling techniques to gather thousands of QM/MM simulations of attempted substrate turnover events by KARI: both productive (reactive) and unproductive (nonreactive) attempts. From these data, machine learning models were constructed and used to identify specific conformational features (interatomic distances, angles, and torsions) associated with successful, productive catalysis. Multistate protein redesign techniques were then used to select mutations that stabilized reactive-like structures over nonreactive-like ones while also meeting additional criteria consistent with enhanced specific activity. This procedure resulted in eight high-confidence enzyme mutants with a significant improvement in calculated specific activity relative to wild type (WT), with the fastest variant's increase in calculated k cat being (2 ± 1) × 104-fold. Collectively, these results suggest that introducing mutations designed to increase the population of reaction-promoting conformations of the enzyme-substrate complex before it reaches the barrier can provide an effective approach to engineering improved enzyme catalysts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elijah Karvelis
- Department
of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
- Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Chloe Swanson
- Department
of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
- Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Bruce Tidor
- Department
of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
- Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
- Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
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4
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Krismer L, Schöppe H, Rauch S, Bante D, Sprenger B, Naschberger A, Costacurta F, Fürst A, Sauerwein A, Rupp B, Kaserer T, von Laer D, Heilmann E. Study of key residues in MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 main proteases for resistance against clinically applied inhibitors nirmatrelvir and ensitrelvir. NPJ VIRUSES 2024; 2:23. [PMID: 38933182 PMCID: PMC11196219 DOI: 10.1038/s44298-024-00028-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2024] [Accepted: 03/14/2024] [Indexed: 06/28/2024]
Abstract
The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is an epidemic, zoonotically emerging pathogen initially reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. MERS-CoV has the potential to mutate or recombine with other coronaviruses, thus acquiring the ability to efficiently spread among humans and become pandemic. Its high mortality rate of up to 35% and the absence of effective targeted therapies call for the development of antiviral drugs for this pathogen. Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, extensive research has focused on identifying protease inhibitors for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2. Our intention was therefore to assess whether these protease inhibitors are viable options for combating MERS-CoV. To that end, we used previously established protease assays to quantify inhibition of SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV and other main proteases. Nirmatrelvir inhibited several of these proteases, whereas ensitrelvir was less broadly active. To simulate nirmatrelvir's clinical use against MERS-CoV and subsequent resistance development, we applied a safe, surrogate virus-based system. Using the surrogate virus, we previously selected hallmark mutations of SARS-CoV-2-Mpro, such as T21I, M49L, S144A, E166A/K/V and L167F. In the current study, we selected a pool of MERS-CoV-Mpro mutants, characterized the resistance and modelled the steric effect of catalytic site mutants S142G, S142R, S147Y and A171S.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Krismer
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Helge Schöppe
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Stefanie Rauch
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - David Bante
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Bernhard Sprenger
- Institute of Biochemistry, University of Innsbruck, CMBI – Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Andreas Naschberger
- Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology KAUST, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
| | | | - Anna Fürst
- Institute of Molecular Immunology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, 81675 Germany
| | - Anna Sauerwein
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Bernhard Rupp
- Division of Genetic Epidemiology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Teresa Kaserer
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Dorothee von Laer
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
| | - Emmanuel Heilmann
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Austria
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5
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Taghizadeh MS, Taherishirazi M, Niazi A, Afsharifar A, Moghadam A. Structure-guided design and cloning of peptide inhibitors targeting CDK9/cyclin T1 protein-protein interaction. Front Pharmacol 2024; 15:1327820. [PMID: 38808256 PMCID: PMC11130503 DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1327820] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2023] [Accepted: 01/18/2024] [Indexed: 05/30/2024] Open
Abstract
CDK9 (cyclin-dependent kinase 9) plays a significant role in numerous pathological conditions, such as HIV-1 infection and cancer. The interaction between CDK9 and cyclin T1 is crucial for maintaining the kinase's active state. Therefore, targeting this protein-protein interaction offers a promising strategy for inhibiting CDK9. In this study, we aimed to design and characterize a library of mutant peptides based on the binding region of cyclin T1 to CDK9. Using Osprey software, a total of 7,776 mutant peptides were generated. After conducting a comprehensive analysis, three peptides, namely, mp3 (RAADVEGQRKRRE), mp20 (RAATVEGQRKRRE), and mp29 (RAADVEGQDKRRE), were identified as promising inhibitors that possess the ability to bind to CDK9 with high affinity and exhibit low free binding energy. These peptides exhibited favorable safety profiles and displayed promising dynamic behaviors. Notably, our findings revealed that the mp3 and mp29 peptides interacted with a conserved sequence in CDK9 (residues 60-66). In addition, by designing the structure of potential peptides in the plasmid vector pET28a (+), we have been able to pave the way for facilitating the process of their recombinant production in an Escherichia coli expression system in future studies. Predictions indicated good solubility upon overexpression, further supporting their potential for downstream applications. While these results demonstrate the promise of the designed peptides as blockers of CDK9 with high affinity, additional experimental studies are required to validate their biological activity and assess their selectivity. Such investigations will provide valuable insights into their therapeutic potential and pave the way for the future development of peptide-based inhibitors targeting the CDK9-cyclin T1 complex.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Ali Niazi
- Institute of Biotechnology, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
| | - Alireza Afsharifar
- Plant Virology Research Center, School of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
| | - Ali Moghadam
- Institute of Biotechnology, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
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6
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Guerin N, Childs H, Zhou P, Donald BR. DexDesign: A new OSPREY-based algorithm for designing de novo D-peptide inhibitors. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.02.12.579944. [PMID: 38405797 PMCID: PMC10888900 DOI: 10.1101/2024.02.12.579944] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
With over 270 unique occurrences in the human genome, peptide-recognizing PDZ domains play a central role in modulating polarization, signaling, and trafficking pathways. Mutations in PDZ domains lead to diseases such as cancer and cystic fibrosis, making PDZ domains attractive targets for therapeutic intervention. D-peptide inhibitors offer unique advantages as therapeutics, including increased metabolic stability and low immunogenicity. Here, we introduce DexDesign, a novel OSPREY-based algorithm for computationally designing de novo D-peptide inhibitors. DexDesign leverages three novel techniques that are broadly applicable to computational protein design: the Minimum Flexible Set, K*-based Mutational Scan, and Inverse Alanine Scan, which enable exponential reductions in the size of the peptide sequence search space. We apply these techniques and DexDesign to generate novel D-peptide inhibitors of two biomedically important PDZ domain targets: CAL and MAST2. We introduce a new framework for analyzing de novo peptides-evaluation along a replication/restitution axis-and apply it to the DexDesign-generated D-peptides. Notably, the peptides we generated are predicted to bind their targets tighter than their targets' endogenous ligands, validating the peptides' potential as lead therapeutic candidates. We provide an implementation of DexDesign in the free and open source computational protein design software OSPREY.
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7
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Sabzian-Molaei F, Ahmadi MA, Nikfarjam Z, Sabzian-Molaei M. Inactivation of cell-free HIV-1 by designing potent peptides based on mutations in the CD4 binding site. Med Biol Eng Comput 2024; 62:423-436. [PMID: 37889430 DOI: 10.1007/s11517-023-02950-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2023] [Accepted: 10/15/2023] [Indexed: 10/28/2023]
Abstract
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is a major global health problem, with over 38 million people infected worldwide. Current anti-HIV-1 drugs are limited in their ability to prevent the virus from replicating inside host cells, making them less effective as preventive measures. In contrast, viral inhibitors that inactivate the virus before it can bind to a host cell have great potential as drugs. In this study, we aimed to design mutant peptides that could block the interaction between gp120 and the CD4 receptor on host cells, thus preventing HIV-1 infection. We designed a 20-amino-acid peptide that mimicked the amino acids of the CD4 binding site and docked it to gp120. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to calculate the energy of MMPBSA (Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area) for each residue of the peptide, and unfavorable energy residues were identified as potential mutation points. Using MAESTRO (Multi AgEnt STability pRedictiOn), we measured ΔΔG (change in the change in Gibbs free energy) for mutations and generated a library of 240 mutated peptides using OSPREY software. The peptides were then screened for allergenicity and binding affinity. Finally, molecular dynamics simulations (via GROMACS 2020.2) and control docking (via HADDOCK 2.4) were used to evaluate the ability of four selected peptides to inhibit HIV-1 infection. Three peptides, P3 (AHRQIRQWFLTRGPNRSLWQ), P4 (VHRQIRQWFLTRGPNRSLWQ), and P9 (AHRQIRQMFLTRGPNRSLWQ), showed practical and potential as HIV inhibitors, based on their binding affinity and ability to inhibit infection. These peptides have the ability to inactivate the virus before it can bind to a host cell, thus representing a promising approach to HIV-1 prevention. Our findings suggest that mutant peptides designed to block the interaction between gp120 and the CD4 receptor have potential as HIV-1 inhibitors. These peptides could be used as preventive measures against HIV-1 transmission, and further research is needed to evaluate their safety and efficacy in clinical settings.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mohammad Amin Ahmadi
- Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran
| | - Zahra Nikfarjam
- Department of Biology, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, 44074, USA
| | - Mohammad Sabzian-Molaei
- Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran
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8
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Guerin N, Childs H, Zhou P, Donald BR. DexDesign: an OSPREY-based algorithm for designing de novo D-peptide inhibitors. Protein Eng Des Sel 2024; 37:gzae007. [PMID: 38757573 PMCID: PMC11099876 DOI: 10.1093/protein/gzae007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2023] [Revised: 04/17/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024] Open
Abstract
With over 270 unique occurrences in the human genome, peptide-recognizing PDZ domains play a central role in modulating polarization, signaling, and trafficking pathways. Mutations in PDZ domains lead to diseases such as cancer and cystic fibrosis, making PDZ domains attractive targets for therapeutic intervention. D-peptide inhibitors offer unique advantages as therapeutics, including increased metabolic stability and low immunogenicity. Here, we introduce DexDesign, a novel OSPREY-based algorithm for computationally designing de novo D-peptide inhibitors. DexDesign leverages three novel techniques that are broadly applicable to computational protein design: the Minimum Flexible Set, K*-based Mutational Scan, and Inverse Alanine Scan. We apply these techniques and DexDesign to generate novel D-peptide inhibitors of two biomedically important PDZ domain targets: CAL and MAST2. We introduce a framework for analyzing de novo peptides-evaluation along a replication/restitution axis-and apply it to the DexDesign-generated D-peptides. Notably, the peptides we generated are predicted to bind their targets tighter than their targets' endogenous ligands, validating the peptides' potential as lead inhibitors. We also provide an implementation of DexDesign in the free and open source computational protein design software OSPREY.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathan Guerin
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, 308 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27708, United States
| | - Henry Childs
- Department of Chemistry, Duke University, 124 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708, United States
| | - Pei Zhou
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, 307 Research Drive, Durham, NC 22710, United States
| | - Bruce R Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, 308 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27708, United States
- Department of Chemistry, Duke University, 124 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708, United States
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, 307 Research Drive, Durham, NC 22710, United States
- Department of Mathematics, Duke University, 120 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708, United States
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9
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Huynh K, Kibrom A, Donald BR, Zhou P. Discovery, characterization, and redesign of potent antimicrobial thanatin orthologs from Chinavia ubica and Murgantia histrionica targeting E. coli LptA. J Struct Biol X 2023; 8:100091. [PMID: 37416832 PMCID: PMC10320583 DOI: 10.1016/j.yjsbx.2023.100091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2023] [Revised: 06/07/2023] [Accepted: 06/08/2023] [Indexed: 07/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Podisus maculiventris thanatin has been reported as a potent antimicrobial peptide with antibacterial and antifungal activity. Its antibiotic activity has been most thoroughly characterized against E. coli and shown to interfere with multiple pathways, such as the lipopolysaccharide transport (LPT) pathway comprised of seven different Lpt proteins. Thanatin binds to E. coli LptA and LptD, thus disrupting the LPT complex formation and inhibiting cell wall synthesis and microbial growth. Here, we performed a genomic database search to uncover novel thanatin orthologs, characterized their binding to E. coli LptA using bio-layer interferometry, and assessed their antimicrobial activity against E. coli. We found that thanatins from Chinavia ubica and Murgantia histrionica bound tighter (by 3.6- and 2.2-fold respectively) to LptA and exhibited more potent antibiotic activity (by 2.1- and 2.8-fold respectively) than the canonical thanatin from P. maculiventris. We crystallized and determined the LptA-bound complex structures of thanatins from C. ubica (1.90 Å resolution), M. histrionica (1.80 Å resolution), and P. maculiventris (2.43 Å resolution) to better understand their mechanism of action. Our structural analysis revealed that residues A10 and I21 in C. ubica and M. histrionica thanatin are important for improving the binding interface with LptA, thus overall improving the potency of thanatin against E. coli. We also designed a stapled variant of thanatin that removes the need for a disulfide bond but retains the ability to bind LptA and antibiotic activity. Our discovery presents a library of novel thanatin sequences to serve as starting scaffolds for designing more potent antimicrobial therapeutics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelly Huynh
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, United States
| | - Amanuel Kibrom
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, United States
| | - Bruce R. Donald
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, United States
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
| | - Pei Zhou
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, United States
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10
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Long Y, Donald BR. Predicting Affinity Through Homology (PATH): Interpretable Binding Affinity Prediction with Persistent Homology. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.11.16.567384. [PMID: 38014181 PMCID: PMC10680814 DOI: 10.1101/2023.11.16.567384] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2023]
Abstract
Accurate binding affinity prediction is crucial to structure-based drug design. Recent work used computational topology to obtain an effective representation of protein-ligand interactions. Although persistent homology encodes geometric features, previous works on binding affinity prediction using persistent homology employed uninterpretable machine learning models and failed to explain the underlying geometric and topological features that drive accurate binding affinity prediction. In this work, we propose a novel, interpretable algorithm for protein-ligand binding affinity prediction. Our algorithm achieves interpretability through an effective embedding of distances across bipartite matchings of the protein and ligand atoms into real-valued functions by summing Gaussians centered at features constructed by persistent homology. We name these functions internuclear persistent contours (IPCs) . Next, we introduce persistence fingerprints , a vector with 10 components that sketches the distances of different bipartite matching between protein and ligand atoms, refined from IPCs. Let the number of protein atoms in the protein-ligand complex be n , number of ligand atoms be m , and ω ≈ 2.4 be the matrix multiplication exponent. We show that for any 0 < ε < 1, after an 𝒪 ( mn log( mn )) preprocessing procedure, we can compute an ε -accurate approximation to the persistence fingerprint in 𝒪 ( m log 6 ω ( m/" )) time, independent of protein size. This is an improvement in time complexity by a factor of 𝒪 (( m + n ) 3 ) over any previous binding affinity prediction that uses persistent homology. We show that the representational power of persistence fingerprint generalizes to protein-ligand binding datasets beyond the training dataset. Then, we introduce PATH , Predicting Affinity Through Homology, an interpretable, small ensemble of shallow regression trees for binding affinity prediction from persistence fingerprints. We show that despite using 1,400-fold fewer features, PATH has comparable performance to a previous state-of-the-art binding affinity prediction algorithm that uses persistent homology features. Moreover, PATH has the advantage of being interpretable. Finally, we visualize the features captured by persistence fingerprint for variant HIV-1 protease complexes and show that persistence fingerprint captures binding-relevant structural mutations. The source code for PATH is released open-source as part of the osprey protein design software package.
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11
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Rahmati S, Bagherzadeh K, Arab SS, Torkashvand F, Amanlou M, Vaziri B. Computational designing of the ligands of Protein L affinity chromatography based on molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2023:1-11. [PMID: 37855377 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2023.2268219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/29/2023] [Indexed: 10/20/2023]
Abstract
Protein L is a multidomain protein from Peptostreptococcus magnus with binding affinity to kappa light chain of human immunoglobulin (Ig) which is used for the purification of antibody fragments by affinity chromatography. The advances in protein engineering and computational biology approaches lead to the development of engineered affinity ligands with improved properties including binding affinity. In this study, molecular dynamics simulations (MDs) and Osprey software were used to design single B domains of the Protein L with higher affinity to antibody fragments. The modified B domains were then polymerized to ligand with six B domains by homology modeling methods. The results showed that single B domain mutants of MB1 (Thr865Trp) and MB2 (Thr847Met-Thr865Trp) had higher binding affinity to Fab compared to the wild single B domain. Also, MDs and molecular docking results showed that the polymerized Proteins L including the wild and mutated six B domains (6B0, 6B1, and 6B2) were stable during MDs and the two mutants of 6B1 and 6B2 showed higher binding affinity to Fab relative to the wild type.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saman Rahmati
- Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Kowsar Bagherzadeh
- Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
- Eye Research Center, The Five Senses Health Institute, Rassoul Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Seyed Shahriar Arab
- Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
| | | | - Massoud Amanlou
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Behrouz Vaziri
- Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
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12
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Costacurta F, Dodaro A, Bante D, Schöppe H, Sprenger B, Moghadasi SA, Fleischmann J, Pavan M, Bassani D, Menin S, Rauch S, Krismer L, Sauerwein A, Heberle A, Rabensteiner T, Ho J, Harris RS, Stefan E, Schneider R, Kaserer T, Moro S, von Laer D, Heilmann E. A comprehensive study of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M pro) inhibitor-resistant mutants selected in a VSV-based system. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.09.22.558628. [PMID: 37808638 PMCID: PMC10557589 DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.22.558628] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/10/2023]
Abstract
Nirmatrelvir was the first protease inhibitor (PI) specifically developed against the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CLpro/Mpro) and licensed for clinical use. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread, variants resistant to nirmatrelvir and other currently available treatments are likely to arise. This study aimed to identify and characterize mutations that confer resistance to nirmatrelvir. To safely generate Mpro resistance mutations, we passaged a previously developed, chimeric vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-Mpro) with increasing, yet suboptimal concentrations of nirmatrelvir. Using Wuhan-1 and Omicron Mpro variants, we selected a large set of mutants. Some mutations are frequently present in GISAID, suggesting their relevance in SARS-CoV-2. The resistance phenotype of a subset of mutations was characterized against clinically available PIs (nirmatrelvir and ensitrelvir) with cell-based and biochemical assays. Moreover, we showed the putative molecular mechanism of resistance based on in silico molecular modelling. These findings have implications on the development of future generation Mpro inhibitors, will help to understand SARS-CoV-2 protease-inhibitor-resistance mechanisms and show the relevance of specific mutations in the clinic, thereby informing treatment decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesco Costacurta
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Andrea Dodaro
- Molecular Modeling Section (MMS), Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Padua, Via F. Marzolo 5, 35131, Padova, Italy
| | - David Bante
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Helge Schöppe
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Bernhard Sprenger
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria
| | - Seyed Arad Moghadasi
- Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, Institute for Molecular Virology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States
| | - Jakob Fleischmann
- Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
- Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute (TKFI), Innrain 66, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Matteo Pavan
- Molecular Modeling Section (MMS), Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Padua, Via F. Marzolo 5, 35131, Padova, Italy
| | - Davide Bassani
- Molecular Modeling Section (MMS), Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Padua, Via F. Marzolo 5, 35131, Padova, Italy
| | - Silvia Menin
- Molecular Modeling Section (MMS), Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Padua, Via F. Marzolo 5, 35131, Padova, Italy
| | - Stefanie Rauch
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Laura Krismer
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Anna Sauerwein
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Anne Heberle
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Toni Rabensteiner
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Joses Ho
- Bioinformatics Institute, Agency for Science Technology and Research, Singapore
| | - Reuben S. Harris
- Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology, University of Texas Health San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78229, United States
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Texas Health San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78229, United States
| | - Eduard Stefan
- Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
- Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute (TKFI), Innrain 66, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Rainer Schneider
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria
| | - Teresa Kaserer
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Stefano Moro
- Molecular Modeling Section (MMS), Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Padua, Via F. Marzolo 5, 35131, Padova, Italy
| | - Dorothee von Laer
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
| | - Emmanuel Heilmann
- Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020, Tyrol, Austria
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13
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Gholami S, Mafakher L, Fotouhi F, Bambai B, Cohan RA, Mehrbod P, Shokouhi H, Farahmand B. Computational peptide engineering approach for selection of the new C05 antibody-driven peptide with potency to blocking influenza a virus attachment; from in silico to in vivo. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2023:1-17. [PMID: 37553776 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2023.2241554] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Accepted: 07/21/2023] [Indexed: 08/10/2023]
Abstract
Antiviral drugs are currently used to prevent or treat viral infections like influenza A Virus (IAV). Nonetheless, annual genetic mutations of influenza viruses make them resistant to efficient treatment by current medications. Antiviral peptides have recently attracted researchers' attention and can potentially supplant the current medications. This study aimed to design peptides against IAV propagation. For this purpose, P2 and P3 peptides were computationally designed based on the HCDR3 region of the C05 antibody (a monoclonal antibody that neutralizes influenza HA protein and inhibits the virus attachment). The synthesized peptides were tested against the influenza A virus (A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (H1N1)) in vitro, and the most efficient peptide was selected for in vivo experiments. It was shown that the designed peptide shows much more prophylactic and therapeutic effects against the virus. These findings demonstrated that the designed peptide can control the virus infection without any cytotoxicity effect. Antiviral peptide design is acknowledged as a critical tactic to manage viral infections by preventing viral binding to the host cells.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shima Gholami
- Department of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Ladan Mafakher
- Thalassemia & Hemoglobinopathy Research Center, Health Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
| | - Fatemeh Fotouhi
- Department of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Bijan Bambai
- Department of Systems Biotechnology, National Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (NIGEB), Tehran, Iran
| | - Reza Ahangari Cohan
- Department of Nanobiotechnology, New Technologies Research Group, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Parvaneh Mehrbod
- Department of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Hadiseh Shokouhi
- Department of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Behrokh Farahmand
- Department of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
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14
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Holt GT, Gorman J, Wang S, Lowegard AU, Zhang B, Liu T, Lin BC, Louder MK, Frenkel MS, McKee K, O'Dell S, Rawi R, Shen CH, Doria-Rose NA, Kwong PD, Donald BR. Improved HIV-1 neutralization breadth and potency of V2-apex antibodies by in silico design. Cell Rep 2023; 42:112711. [PMID: 37436900 PMCID: PMC10528384 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112711] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2023] [Revised: 05/05/2023] [Accepted: 06/12/2023] [Indexed: 07/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) against HIV can reduce viral transmission in humans, but an effective therapeutic will require unusually high breadth and potency of neutralization. We employ the OSPREY computational protein design software to engineer variants of two apex-directed bNAbs, PGT145 and PG9RSH, resulting in increases in potency of over 100-fold against some viruses. The top designed variants improve neutralization breadth from 39% to 54% at clinically relevant concentrations (IC80 < 1 μg/mL) and improve median potency (IC80) by up to 4-fold over a cross-clade panel of 208 strains. To investigate the mechanisms of improvement, we determine cryoelectron microscopy structures of each variant in complex with the HIV envelope trimer. Surprisingly, we find the largest increases in breadth to be a result of optimizing side-chain interactions with highly variable epitope residues. These results provide insight into mechanisms of neutralization breadth and inform strategies for antibody design and improvement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Graham T Holt
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Program in Computational Biology & Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Jason Gorman
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Siyu Wang
- Program in Computational Biology & Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Anna U Lowegard
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Program in Computational Biology & Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Baoshan Zhang
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Tracy Liu
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Bob C Lin
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Mark K Louder
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | | | - Krisha McKee
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Sijy O'Dell
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Reda Rawi
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Chen-Hsiang Shen
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Nicole A Doria-Rose
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Peter D Kwong
- Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
| | - Bruce R Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
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15
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Kugler V, Lieb A, Guerin N, Donald BR, Stefan E, Kaserer T. Disruptor: Computational identification of oncogenic mutants disrupting protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions. Commun Biol 2023; 6:720. [PMID: 37443295 PMCID: PMC10344873 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-05089-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2023] [Accepted: 06/29/2023] [Indexed: 07/15/2023] Open
Abstract
We report an Osprey-based computational protocol to prospectively identify oncogenic mutations that act via disruption of molecular interactions. It is applicable to analyse both protein-protein and protein-DNA interfaces and it is validated on a dataset of clinically relevant mutations. In addition, it is used to predict previously uncharacterised patient mutations in CDK6 and p16 genes, which are experimentally confirmed to impair complex formation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Kugler
- Institute of Biochemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Andreas Lieb
- Institute of Pharmacology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Nathan Guerin
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Bruce R Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
- Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
- Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Eduard Stefan
- Institute of Biochemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
- Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute (TKFI), Innrain 66, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
- Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Teresa Kaserer
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
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16
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Guerin N, Kaserer T, Donald BR. Protocol for predicting drug-resistant protein mutations to an ERK2 inhibitor using RESISTOR. STAR Protoc 2023; 4:102170. [PMID: 37115667 PMCID: PMC10173857 DOI: 10.1016/j.xpro.2023.102170] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/26/2022] [Revised: 01/11/2023] [Accepted: 02/21/2023] [Indexed: 04/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Prospective predictions of drug-resistant protein mutants could improve the design of therapeutics less prone to resistance. Here, we describe RESISTOR, an algorithm that uses structure- and sequence-based criteria to predict resistance mutations. We demonstrate the process of using RESISTOR to predict ERK2 mutants likely to arise in melanoma ablating the efficacy of the ERK1/2 inhibitor SCH779284. RESISTOR is included in the free and open-source computational protein design software OSPREY. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Guerin et al..1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathan Guerin
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
| | - Teresa Kaserer
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck Austria
| | - Bruce R Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 22710, USA; Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
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17
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Gomari MM, Tarighi P, Choupani E, Abkhiz S, Mohamadzadeh M, Rostami N, Sadroddiny E, Baammi S, Uversky VN, Dokholyan NV. Structural evolution of Delta lineage of SARS-CoV-2. Int J Biol Macromol 2023; 226:1116-1140. [PMID: 36435470 PMCID: PMC9683856 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.11.227] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2022] [Revised: 11/19/2022] [Accepted: 11/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
One of the main obstacles in prevention and treatment of COVID-19 is the rapid evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein. Given that Spike is the main target of common treatments of COVID-19, mutations occurring at this virulent factor can affect the effectiveness of treatments. The B.1.617.2 lineage of SARS-CoV-2, being characterized by many Spike mutations inside and outside of its receptor-binding domain (RBD), shows high infectivity and relative resistance to existing cures. Here, utilizing a wide range of computational biology approaches, such as immunoinformatics, molecular dynamics (MD), analysis of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), protein-protein interaction analyses, residue scanning, and free energy calculations, we examine the structural and biological attributes of the B.1.617.2 Spike protein. Furthermore, the antibody design protocol of Rosetta was implemented for evaluation the stability and affinity improvement of the Bamlanivimab (LY-CoV55) antibody, which is not capable of interactions with the B.1.617.2 Spike. We observed that the detected mutations in the Spike of the B1.617.2 variant of concern can cause extensive structural changes compatible with the described variation in immunogenicity, secondary and tertiary structure, oligomerization potency, Furin cleavability, and drug targetability. Compared to the Spike of Wuhan lineage, the B.1.617.2 Spike is more stable and binds to the Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) with higher affinity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Mahmoudi Gomari
- Student Research Committee, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1449614535, Iran,Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1449614535, Iran
| | - Parastoo Tarighi
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1449614535, Iran
| | - Edris Choupani
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1449614535, Iran
| | - Shadi Abkhiz
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1449614535, Iran
| | - Masoud Mohamadzadeh
- Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas 7916193145, Iran
| | - Neda Rostami
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak 3848177584, Iran
| | - Esmaeil Sadroddiny
- Medical Biotechnology Department, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1417613151, Iran
| | - Soukayna Baammi
- African Genome Centre (AGC), Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Benguerir 43150, Morocco
| | - Vladimir N. Uversky
- Department of Molecular Medicine and USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Research Institute, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA,Research Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-Related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 141700 Dolgoprudny, Russia,Correspondence to: V.N. Uversky, Department of Molecular Medicine and USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Research Institute, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
| | - Nikolay V. Dokholyan
- Department of Pharmacology, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA 16802, USA,Corresponding author
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18
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Noske J, Kynast JP, Lemm D, Schmidt S, Höcker B. PocketOptimizer 2.0: A modular framework for computer-aided ligand-binding design. Protein Sci 2023; 32:e4516. [PMID: 36403089 PMCID: PMC9793973 DOI: 10.1002/pro.4516] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2022] [Revised: 11/12/2022] [Accepted: 11/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
The ability to design customized proteins to perform specific tasks is of great interest. We are particularly interested in the design of sensitive and specific small molecule ligand-binding proteins for biotechnological or biomedical applications. Computational methods can narrow down the immense combinatorial space to find the best solution and thus provide starting points for experimental procedures. However, success rates strongly depend on accurate modeling and energetic evaluation. Not only intra- but also intermolecular interactions have to be considered. To address this problem, we developed PocketOptimizer, a modular computational protein design pipeline, that predicts mutations in the binding pockets of proteins to increase affinity for a specific ligand. Its modularity enables users to compare different combinations of force fields, rotamer libraries, and scoring functions. Here, we present a much-improved version--PocketOptimizer 2.0. We implemented a cleaner user interface, an extended architecture with more supported tools, such as force fields and scoring functions, a backbone-dependent rotamer library, as well as different improvements in the underlying algorithms. Version 2.0 was tested against a benchmark of design cases and assessed in comparison to the first version. Our results show how newly implemented features such as the new rotamer library can lead to improved prediction accuracy. Therefore, we believe that PocketOptimizer 2.0, with its many new and improved functionalities, provides a robust and versatile environment for the design of small molecule-binding pockets in proteins. It is widely applicable and extendible due to its modular framework. PocketOptimizer 2.0 can be downloaded at https://github.com/Hoecker-Lab/pocketoptimizer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jakob Noske
- Department of BiochemistryUniversity of BayreuthBayreuthGermany
| | | | - Dominik Lemm
- Department of BiochemistryUniversity of BayreuthBayreuthGermany,Present address:
Department of PhysicsUniversity of ViennaViennaAustria
| | - Steffen Schmidt
- Computational BiochemistryUniversity of BayreuthBayreuthGermany
| | - Birte Höcker
- Department of BiochemistryUniversity of BayreuthBayreuthGermany
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19
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Zareh-Khoshchehreh R, Bamdad T, Arab SS, Behdani M, Biglar M. In Silico Analysis of Neutralizing Antibody Epitopes on The Hepatitis C Virus Surface Glycoproteins. CELL JOURNAL 2023; 25:62-72. [PMID: 36680485 PMCID: PMC9868435 DOI: 10.22074/cellj.2022.253363] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/05/2022] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Despite of antiviral drugs and successful treatment, an effective vaccine against hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is still required. Recently, bioinformatic methods same as prediction algorithms, have greatly contributed to the use of peptides in the design of immunogenic vaccines. Therefore, finding more conserved sites on the surface glycoproteins (E1 and E2) of HCV, as major targets to design an effective vaccine against genetically different viruses in each genotype was the goal of the study. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this experimental study, 100 entire sequences of E1 and E2 were retrieved from the NCBI website and analyzed in terms of mutations and critical sites by Bioedit 7.7.9, MEGA X software. Furthermore, HCV-1a samples were obtained from some infected people in Iran, and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) assay was optimized to amplify their E1 and E2 genes. Moreover, all three-dimensional structures of E1 and E2 downloaded from the PDB database were analyzed by YASARA. In the next step, three interest areas of humoral immunity in the E2 glycoprotein were evaluated. OSPREY3.0 protein design software was performed to increase the affinity to neutralizing antibodies in these areas. RESULTS We found the effective in silico binding affinity of residues in three broadly neutralizing epitopes of E2 glycoprotein. First, positions that have substitution capacity were detected in these epitopes. Furthermore, residues that have high stability for substitution in these situations were indicated. Then, the mutants with the strongest affinity to neutralize antibodies were predicted. I414M, T416S, I422V, I414M-T416S, and Q412N-I414M-T416S substitutions theoretically were exhibited as mutants with the best affinity binding. CONCLUSION Using an innovative filtration strategy, the residues of E2 epitopes which have the best in silico binding affinity to neutralizing antibodies were exhibited and a distinct peptide library platform was designed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Taravat Bamdad
- Department of Virology, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran,P.O.Box: 14155-4838Department of VirologySchool of Medical SciencesTarbiat Modares UniversityTehranIranP.O.Box: 14155-6559Department of PharmacyDrug Design and Development Research CenterTehran University of Medical
SciencesTehranIran
Emails:,
| | - Seyed Shahriar Arab
- Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University-TMU, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mahdi Behdani
- Department of Biotechnology, Biotechnology Research Center, Venom and Biotherapeutics Molecules Lab, Pasteur
Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mahmoud Biglar
- Department of Pharmacy, Drug Design and Development Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ,P.O.Box: 14155-4838Department of VirologySchool of Medical SciencesTarbiat Modares UniversityTehranIranP.O.Box: 14155-6559Department of PharmacyDrug Design and Development Research CenterTehran University of Medical
SciencesTehranIran
Emails:,
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20
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Bai Z, Wang J, Li J, Yuan H, Wang P, Zhang M, Feng Y, Cao X, Cao X, Kang G, de Marco A, Huang H. Design of nanobody-based bispecific constructs by in silico affinity maturation and umbrella sampling simulations. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2022; 21:601-613. [PMID: 36659922 PMCID: PMC9822835 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2022.12.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2022] [Revised: 12/14/2022] [Accepted: 12/14/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Random mutagenesis is the natural opportunity for proteins to evolve and biotechnologically it has been exploited to create diversity and identify variants with improved characteristics in the mutant pools. Rational mutagenesis based on biophysical assumptions and supported by computational power has been proposed as a faster and more predictable strategy to reach the same aim. In this work we confirm that substantial improvements in terms of both affinity and stability of nanobodies can be obtained by using combinations of algorithms, even for binders with already high affinity and elevated thermal stability. Furthermore, in silico approaches allowed the development of an optimized bispecific construct able to bind simultaneously the two clinically relevant antigens TNF-α and IL-23 and, by means of its enhanced avidity, to inhibit effectively the apoptosis of TNF-α-sensitive L929 cells. The results revealed that salt bridges, hydrogen bonds, aromatic-aromatic and cation-pi interactions had a critical role in increasing affinity. We provided a platform for the construction of high-affinity bispecific constructs based on nanobodies that can have relevant applications for the control of all those biological mechanisms in which more than a single antigen must be targeted to increase the treatment effectiveness and avoid resistance mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zixuan Bai
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
| | - Jiewen Wang
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China,Institute of Shaoxing, Tianjin University, Zhejiang 312300, China
| | - Jiaqi Li
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China,Institute of Shaoxing, Tianjin University, Zhejiang 312300, China
| | - Haibin Yuan
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
| | - Ping Wang
- Tianjin Modern Innovative TCM Technology Co. Ltd., Tianjin, China
| | - Miao Zhang
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China,China Resources Biopharmaceutical Company Limited, Beijing, China
| | - Yuanhang Feng
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
| | - Xiangtong Cao
- Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
| | - Xiangan Cao
- Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
| | - Guangbo Kang
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China,Institute of Shaoxing, Tianjin University, Zhejiang 312300, China,Corresponding authors at: Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China.
| | - Ario de Marco
- Laboratory for Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Nova Gorica, Nova Gorica, Slovenia,Corresponding author.
| | - He Huang
- Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China,Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China,Institute of Shaoxing, Tianjin University, Zhejiang 312300, China,Corresponding authors at: Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China.
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21
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Abstract
Computational, in silico prediction of resistance-conferring escape mutations could accelerate the design of therapeutics less prone to resistance. This article describes how to use the Resistor algorithm to predict escape mutations. Resistor employs Pareto optimization on four resistance-conferring criteria-positive and negative design, mutational probability, and hotspot cardinality-to assign a Pareto rank to each prospective mutant. It also predicts the mechanism of resistance, that is, whether a mutant ablates binding to a drug, strengthens binding to the endogenous ligand, or a combination of these two factors, and provides structural models of the mutants. Resistor is part of the free and open-source computational protein design software OSPREY.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathan Guerin
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
| | - Teresa Kaserer
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Bruce R. Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA
- Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
- Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
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22
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Zareei S, Pourmand S, Amanlou M. Design of novel disturbing peptides against ACE2 SARS-CoV-2 spike-binding region by computational approaches. Front Pharmacol 2022; 13:996005. [PMID: 36438825 PMCID: PMC9692113 DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2022.996005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2022] [Accepted: 10/24/2022] [Indexed: 10/12/2023] Open
Abstract
The SARS-CoV-2, the virus which is responsible for COVID-19 disease, employs its spike protein to recognize its receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), and subsequently enters the host cell. In this process, the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike has an interface with the α1-helix of the peptidase domain (PD) of ACE2. This study focuses on the disruption of the protein-protein interaction (PPI) of RBD-ACE2. Among the residues in the template (which was extracted from the ACE2), those with unfavorable energies were selected for substitution by mutagenesis. As a result, a library of 140 peptide candidates was constructed and the binding affinity of each candidate was evaluated by molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations against the α1-helix of ACE2. Finally, the most potent peptides P23 (GFNNYFPHQSYGFMPTNGVGY), P28 (GFNQYFPHQSYGFPPTNGVGY), and P31 (GFNRYFPHQSYGFCPTNGVGY) were selected and their dynamic behaviors were studied. The results showed peptide inhibitors increased the radius, surface accessible area, and overall mobility of residues of the protein. However, no significant alteration was seen in the key residues in the active site. Meanwhile, they can be proposed as promising agents against COVID-19 by suppressing the viral attachment and curbing the infection at its early stage. The designed peptides showed potency against beta, gamma, delta, and omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sara Zareei
- Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
| | - Saeed Pourmand
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
| | - Massoud Amanlou
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
- Experimental Medicine Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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23
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Guerin N, Feichtner A, Stefan E, Kaserer T, Donald BR. Resistor: An algorithm for predicting resistance mutations via Pareto optimization over multistate protein design and mutational signatures. Cell Syst 2022; 13:830-843.e3. [PMID: 36265469 PMCID: PMC9589925 DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2022.09.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2022] [Revised: 06/29/2022] [Accepted: 09/13/2022] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Resistance to pharmacological treatments is a major public health challenge. Here, we introduce Resistor-a structure- and sequence-based algorithm that prospectively predicts resistance mutations for drug design. Resistor computes the Pareto frontier of four resistance-causing criteria: the change in binding affinity (ΔKa) of the (1) drug and (2) endogenous ligand upon a protein's mutation; (3) the probability a mutation will occur based on empirically derived mutational signatures; and (4) the cardinality of mutations comprising a hotspot. For validation, we applied Resistor to EGFR and BRAF kinase inhibitors treating lung adenocarcinoma and melanoma. Resistor correctly identified eight clinically significant EGFR resistance mutations, including the erlotinib and gefitinib "gatekeeper" T790M mutation and five known osimertinib resistance mutations. Furthermore, Resistor predictions are consistent with BRAF inhibitor sensitivity data from both retrospective and prospective experiments using KinCon biosensors. Resistor is available in the open-source protein design software OSPREY.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathan Guerin
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
| | - Andreas Feichtner
- Institute of Biochemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Tyrol, Austria
| | - Eduard Stefan
- Institute of Biochemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Tyrol, Austria; Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute, Innsbruck, 6020 Tyrol, Austria
| | - Teresa Kaserer
- Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 6020 Tyrol, Austria.
| | - Bruce R Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA; Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
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24
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Pourmand S, Zareei S, Shahlaei M, Moradi S. Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis by potent peptides designed by the mutation of ACE2 binding region. Comput Biol Med 2022; 146:105625. [PMID: 35688710 PMCID: PMC9110306 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2022.105625] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/27/2021] [Revised: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 04/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in millions of deaths. Despite all attempts that have been made to combat the pandemic, the re-emergence of new variants complicated SARS-CoV-2 eradication. The ongoing global spread of COVID-19 demands the incessant development of novel agents in vaccination, diagnosis, and therapeutics. Targeting receptor-binding domain (RBD) of spike protein by which the virus identifies host receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE2), is a promising strategy for curbing viral infection. This study aims to discover novel peptide inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 entry using computational approaches. The RBD binding domain of ACE2 was extracted and docked against the RBD. MMPBSA calculations revealed the binding energies of each residue in the template. The residues with unfavorable binding energies were considered as mutation spots by OSPREY. Binding energies of the residues in RBD-ACE2 interface was determined by molecular docking. Peptide inhibitors were designed by the mutation of RBD residues in the virus-receptors complex which had unfavorable energies. Peptide tendency for RBD binding, safety, and allergenicity were the criteria based on which the final hits were screened among the initial library. Molecular dynamics simulations also provided information on the mechanisms of inhibitory action in peptides. The results were finally validated by molecular docking simulations to make sure the peptides are capable of hindering virus-host interaction. Our results introduce three peptides P7 (RAWTFLDKFNHEAEDLRYQSSLASWN), P13 (RASTFLDKFNHEAEDLRYQSSLASWN), and P19 (RADTFLDKFNHEAEDLRYQSSLASWN) as potential effective inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 entry which could be considered in drug development for COVID-19 treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saeed Pourmand
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
| | - Sara Zareei
- Department of Cell & Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran; Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mohsen Shahlaei
- Nano Drug Delivery Research Center, Health Technology Institute, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran.
| | - Sajad Moradi
- Nano Drug Delivery Research Center, Health Technology Institute, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran.
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25
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Wang S, Reeve SM, Holt GT, Ojewole AA, Frenkel MS, Gainza P, Keshipeddy S, Fowler VG, Wright DL, Donald BR. Chiral evasion and stereospecific antifolate resistance in Staphylococcus aureus. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1009855. [PMID: 35143481 PMCID: PMC8865654 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009855] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2021] [Revised: 02/23/2022] [Accepted: 01/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance presents a significant health care crisis. The mutation F98Y in Staphylococcus aureus dihydrofolate reductase (SaDHFR) confers resistance to the clinically important antifolate trimethoprim (TMP). Propargyl-linked antifolates (PLAs), next generation DHFR inhibitors, are much more resilient than TMP against this F98Y variant, yet this F98Y substitution still reduces efficacy of these agents. Surprisingly, differences in the enantiomeric configuration at the stereogenic center of PLAs influence the isomeric state of the NADPH cofactor. To understand the molecular basis of F98Y-mediated resistance and how PLAs' inhibition drives NADPH isomeric states, we used protein design algorithms in the osprey protein design software suite to analyze a comprehensive suite of structural, biophysical, biochemical, and computational data. Here, we present a model showing how F98Y SaDHFR exploits a different anomeric configuration of NADPH to evade certain PLAs' inhibition, while other PLAs remain unaffected by this resistance mechanism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Siyu Wang
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Stephanie M. Reeve
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Graham T. Holt
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Adegoke A. Ojewole
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Marcel S. Frenkel
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Pablo Gainza
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Santosh Keshipeddy
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Vance G. Fowler
- Division of Infections Diseases, Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Dennis L. Wright
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America
- Department of Chemistry, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Bruce R. Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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26
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Rostami N, Choupani E, Hernandez Y, Arab SS, Jazayeri SM, Gomari MM. SARS-CoV-2 spike evolutionary behaviors; simulation of N501Y mutation outcomes in terms of immunogenicity and structural characteristic. J Cell Biochem 2021; 123:417-430. [PMID: 34783057 PMCID: PMC8657535 DOI: 10.1002/jcb.30181] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2021] [Revised: 11/02/2021] [Accepted: 11/05/2021] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), a large number of mutations in its genome have been reported. Some of the mutations occur in noncoding regions without affecting the pathobiology of the virus, while mutations in coding regions are significant. One of the regions where a mutation can occur, affecting the function of the virus is at the receptor‐binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein. RBD interacts with angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and facilitates the entry of the virus into the host cells. There is a lot of focus on RBD mutations, especially the displacement of N501Y which is observed in the UK/Kent, South Africa, and Brazilian lineages of SARS‐CoV‐2. Our group utilizes computational biology approaches such as immunoinformatics, protein–protein interaction analysis, molecular dynamics, free energy computation, and tertiary structure analysis to disclose the consequences of N501Y mutation at the molecular level. Surprisingly, we discovered that this mutation reduces the immunogenicity of the spike protein; also, displacement of Asn with Tyr reduces protein compactness and significantly increases the stability of the spike protein and its affinity to ACE2. Moreover, following the N501Y mutation secondary structure and folding of the spike protein changed dramatically.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neda Rostami
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak, Iran
| | - Edris Choupani
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Yaeren Hernandez
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
| | - Seyed S Arab
- Department of Biophysics, School of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
| | - Seyed M Jazayeri
- Department of Virology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mohammad M Gomari
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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27
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Defresne M, Barbe S, Schiex T. Protein Design with Deep Learning. Int J Mol Sci 2021; 22:11741. [PMID: 34769173 PMCID: PMC8584038 DOI: 10.3390/ijms222111741] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2021] [Revised: 10/23/2021] [Accepted: 10/26/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Computational Protein Design (CPD) has produced impressive results for engineering new proteins, resulting in a wide variety of applications. In the past few years, various efforts have aimed at replacing or improving existing design methods using Deep Learning technology to leverage the amount of publicly available protein data. Deep Learning (DL) is a very powerful tool to extract patterns from raw data, provided that data are formatted as mathematical objects and the architecture processing them is well suited to the targeted problem. In the case of protein data, specific representations are needed for both the amino acid sequence and the protein structure in order to capture respectively 1D and 3D information. As no consensus has been reached about the most suitable representations, this review describes the representations used so far, discusses their strengths and weaknesses, and details their associated DL architecture for design and related tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marianne Defresne
- Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, INRAE, INSA, ANITI, 31077 Toulouse, France; (M.D.); (S.B.)
- Université Fédérale de Toulouse, ANITI, INRAE, UR 875, 31326 Toulouse, France
| | - Sophie Barbe
- Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, INRAE, INSA, ANITI, 31077 Toulouse, France; (M.D.); (S.B.)
| | - Thomas Schiex
- Université Fédérale de Toulouse, ANITI, INRAE, UR 875, 31326 Toulouse, France
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28
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Pal A, Mulumudy R, Mitra P. Modularity-based parallel protein design algorithm with an implementation using shared memory programming. Proteins 2021; 90:658-669. [PMID: 34651333 DOI: 10.1002/prot.26263] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2021] [Revised: 09/23/2021] [Accepted: 10/01/2021] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Given a target protein structure, the prime objective of protein design is to find amino acid sequences that will fold/acquire to the given three-dimensional structure. The protein design problem belongs to the non-deterministic polynomial-time-hard class as sequence search space increases exponentially with protein length. To ensure better search space exploration and faster convergence, we propose a protein modularity-based parallel protein design algorithm. The modular architecture of the protein structure is exploited by considering an intermediate structural organization between secondary structure and domain defined as protein unit (PU). Here, we have incorporated a divide-and-conquer approach where a protein is split into PUs and each PU region is explored in a parallel fashion. It has been further analyzed that our shared memory implementation of modularity-based parallel sequence search leads to better search space exploration compared to the case of traditional full protein design. Sequence-based analysis on design sequences depicts an average of 39.7% sequence similarity on the benchmark data set. Structure-based comparison of the modeled structures of the design protein with the target structure exhibited an average root-mean-square deviation of 1.17 Å and an average template modeling score of 0.89. The selected modeled structures of the design protein sequences are validated using 100 ns molecular dynamics simulations where 80% of the proteins have shown better or similar stability to the respective target proteins. Our study informs that our modularity-based protein design algorithm can be extended to protein interaction design as well.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abantika Pal
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India
| | - Rohith Mulumudy
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India
| | - Pralay Mitra
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India
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29
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Michael E, Simonson T. How much can physics do for protein design? Curr Opin Struct Biol 2021; 72:46-54. [PMID: 34461593 DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2021.07.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2021] [Revised: 07/22/2021] [Accepted: 07/25/2021] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
Physics and physical chemistry are an important thread in computational protein design, complementary to knowledge-based tools. They provide molecular mechanics scoring functions that need little or no ad hoc parameter readjustment, methods to thoroughly sample equilibrium ensembles, and different levels of approximation for conformational flexibility. They led recently to the successful redesign of a small protein using a physics-based folded state energy. Adaptive Monte Carlo or molecular dynamics schemes were discovered where protein variants are populated as per their ligand-binding free energy or catalytic efficiency. Molecular dynamics have been used for backbone flexibility. Implicit solvent models have been refined, polarizable force fields applied, and many physical insights obtained.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eleni Michael
- Laboratoire de Biologie Structurale de la Cellule (CNRS UMR7654), Ecole Polytechnique, 91128, Palaiseau, France
| | - Thomas Simonson
- Laboratoire de Biologie Structurale de la Cellule (CNRS UMR7654), Ecole Polytechnique, 91128, Palaiseau, France.
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30
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Liu X, Luo Y, Li P, Song S, Peng J. Deep geometric representations for modeling effects of mutations on protein-protein binding affinity. PLoS Comput Biol 2021; 17:e1009284. [PMID: 34347784 PMCID: PMC8366979 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009284] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2020] [Revised: 08/16/2021] [Accepted: 07/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Modeling the impact of amino acid mutations on protein-protein interaction plays a crucial role in protein engineering and drug design. In this study, we develop GeoPPI, a novel structure-based deep-learning framework to predict the change of binding affinity upon mutations. Based on the three-dimensional structure of a protein, GeoPPI first learns a geometric representation that encodes topology features of the protein structure via a self-supervised learning scheme. These representations are then used as features for training gradient-boosting trees to predict the changes of protein-protein binding affinity upon mutations. We find that GeoPPI is able to learn meaningful features that characterize interactions between atoms in protein structures. In addition, through extensive experiments, we show that GeoPPI achieves new state-of-the-art performance in predicting the binding affinity changes upon both single- and multi-point mutations on six benchmark datasets. Moreover, we show that GeoPPI can accurately estimate the difference of binding affinities between a few recently identified SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the S protein. These results demonstrate the potential of GeoPPI as a powerful and useful computational tool in protein design and engineering. Our code and datasets are available at: https://github.com/Liuxg16/GeoPPI. Estimating the binding affinities of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) is crucial to understand protein function and design new functional proteins. Since the experimental measurement in wet-labs is labor-intensive and time-consuming, fast and accurate in silico approaches have received much attention. Although considerable efforts have been made in this direction, predicting the effects of mutations on the protein-protein binding affinity is still a challenging research problem. In this work, we introduce GeoPPI, a novel computational approach that uses deep geometric representations of protein complexes to predict the effects of mutations on the binding affinity. The geometric representations are first learned via a self-supervised learning scheme and then integrated with gradient-boosting trees to accomplish the prediction. We find that the learned representations encode meaningful patterns underlying the interactions between atoms in protein structures. Also, extensive tests on major benchmark datasets show that GeoPPI has made an important improvement over the existing methods in predicting the effects of mutations on the binding affinity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xianggen Liu
- Laboratory for Brain and Intelligence and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China
- Beijing Innovation Center for Future Chip, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Yunan Luo
- Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Pengyong Li
- Laboratory for Brain and Intelligence and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- Beijing Innovation Center for Future Chip, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Sen Song
- Laboratory for Brain and Intelligence and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- Beijing Innovation Center for Future Chip, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- * E-mail: (JP); (SS)
| | - Jian Peng
- Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America
- * E-mail: (JP); (SS)
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31
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Woolfson DN. A Brief History of De Novo Protein Design: Minimal, Rational, and Computational. J Mol Biol 2021; 433:167160. [PMID: 34298061 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2021.167160] [Citation(s) in RCA: 69] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2021] [Revised: 07/07/2021] [Accepted: 07/12/2021] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
Protein design has come of age, but how will it mature? In the 1980s and the 1990s, the primary motivation for de novo protein design was to test our understanding of the informational aspect of the protein-folding problem; i.e., how does protein sequence determine protein structure and function? This necessitated minimal and rational design approaches whereby the placement of each residue in a design was reasoned using chemical principles and/or biochemical knowledge. At that time, though with some notable exceptions, the use of computers to aid design was not widespread. Over the past two decades, the tables have turned and computational protein design is firmly established. Here, I illustrate this progress through a timeline of de novo protein structures that have been solved to atomic resolution and deposited in the Protein Data Bank. From this, it is clear that the impact of rational and computational design has been considerable: More-complex and more-sophisticated designs are being targeted with many being resolved to atomic resolution. Furthermore, our ability to generate and manipulate synthetic proteins has advanced to a point where they are providing realistic alternatives to natural protein functions for applications both in vitro and in cells. Also, and increasingly, computational protein design is becoming accessible to non-specialists. This all begs the questions: Is there still a place for minimal and rational design approaches? And, what challenges lie ahead for the burgeoning field of de novo protein design as a whole?
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Affiliation(s)
- Derek N Woolfson
- School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Cantock's Close, Bristol BS8 1TS, UK; School of Biochemistry, University of Bristol, Biomedical Sciences Building, University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TD, UK; Bristol BioDesign Institute, University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK.
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32
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Roda S, Robles-Martín A, Xiang R, Kazemi M, Guallar V. Structural-Based Modeling in Protein Engineering. A Must Do. J Phys Chem B 2021; 125:6491-6500. [PMID: 34106727 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c02545] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
Biotechnological solutions will be a key aspect in our immediate future society, where optimized enzymatic processes through enzyme engineering might be an important solution for waste transformation, clean energy production, biodegradable materials, and green chemistry, for example. Here we advocate the importance of structural-based bioinformatics and molecular modeling tools in such developments. We summarize our recent experiences indicating a great prediction/success ratio, and we suggest that an early in silico phase should be performed in enzyme engineering studies. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential of a new technique combining Rosetta and PELE, which could provide a faster and more automated procedure, an essential aspect for a broader use.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sergi Roda
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona 08034, Spain
| | | | - Ruite Xiang
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona 08034, Spain
| | - Masoud Kazemi
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona 08034, Spain
| | - Victor Guallar
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona 08034, Spain.,Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona 08010, Spain
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33
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Bouchiba Y, Cortés J, Schiex T, Barbe S. Molecular flexibility in computational protein design: an algorithmic perspective. Protein Eng Des Sel 2021; 34:6271252. [PMID: 33959778 DOI: 10.1093/protein/gzab011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2020] [Revised: 03/12/2021] [Accepted: 03/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Computational protein design (CPD) is a powerful technique for engineering new proteins, with both great fundamental implications and diverse practical interests. However, the approximations usually made for computational efficiency, using a single fixed backbone and a discrete set of side chain rotamers, tend to produce rigid and hyper-stable folds that may lack functionality. These approximations contrast with the demonstrated importance of molecular flexibility and motions in a wide range of protein functions. The integration of backbone flexibility and multiple conformational states in CPD, in order to relieve the inaccuracies resulting from these simplifications and to improve design reliability, are attracting increased attention. However, the greatly increased search space that needs to be explored in these extensions defines extremely challenging computational problems. In this review, we outline the principles of CPD and discuss recent effort in algorithmic developments for incorporating molecular flexibility in the design process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Younes Bouchiba
- Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, TBI, CNRS, INRAE, INSA, ANITI, Toulouse 31400, France.,Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systèmes, LAAS CNRS, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Toulouse 31400, France
| | - Juan Cortés
- Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systèmes, LAAS CNRS, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Toulouse 31400, France
| | - Thomas Schiex
- Université de Toulouse, ANITI, INRAE, UR MIAT, F-31320, Castanet-Tolosan, France
| | - Sophie Barbe
- Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, TBI, CNRS, INRAE, INSA, ANITI, Toulouse 31400, France
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34
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Corrigan RA, Qi G, Thiel AC, Lynn JR, Walker BD, Casavant TL, Lagardere L, Piquemal JP, Ponder JW, Ren P, Schnieders MJ. Implicit Solvents for the Polarizable Atomic Multipole AMOEBA Force Field. J Chem Theory Comput 2021; 17:2323-2341. [PMID: 33769814 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.0c01286] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Computational protein design, ab initio protein/RNA folding, and protein-ligand screening can be too computationally demanding for explicit treatment of solvent. For these applications, implicit solvent offers a compelling alternative, which we describe here for the polarizable atomic multipole AMOEBA force field based on three treatments of continuum electrostatics: numerical solutions to the nonlinear and linearized versions of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation (PBE), the domain-decomposition conductor-like screening model (ddCOSMO) approximation to the PBE, and the analytic generalized Kirkwood (GK) approximation. The continuum electrostatics models are combined with a nonpolar estimator based on novel cavitation and dispersion terms. Electrostatic model parameters are numerically optimized using a least-squares style target function based on a library of 103 small-molecule solvation free energy differences. Mean signed errors for the adaptive Poisson-Boltzmann solver (APBS), ddCOSMO, and GK models are 0.05, 0.00, and 0.00 kcal/mol, respectively, while the mean unsigned errors are 0.70, 0.63, and 0.58 kcal/mol, respectively. Validation of the electrostatic response of the resulting implicit solvents, which are available in the Tinker (or Tinker-HP), OpenMM, and Force Field X software packages, is based on comparisons to explicit solvent simulations for a series of proteins and nucleic acids. Overall, the emergence of performative implicit solvent models for polarizable force fields opens the door to their use for folding and design applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rae A Corrigan
- Roy J Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States
| | - Guowei Qi
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States
| | - Andrew C Thiel
- Roy J Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States
| | - Jack R Lynn
- Roy J Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States
| | - Brandon D Walker
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas in Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, United States
| | - Thomas L Casavant
- Roy J Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States
| | - Louis Lagardere
- Department of Chemistry, Sorbonne Université, F-75005 Paris, France
| | | | - Jay W Ponder
- Department of Chemistry, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, United States
| | - Pengyu Ren
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas in Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, United States
| | - Michael J Schnieders
- Roy J Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States.,Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States
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35
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Malik G, Agarwal T, Raj U, Sundararajan VS, Bandapalli OR, Suravajhala P. Hypothetical Proteins as Predecessors of Long Non-coding RNAs. Curr Genomics 2020; 21:531-535. [PMID: 33214769 PMCID: PMC7604745 DOI: 10.2174/1389202921999200611155418] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2020] [Revised: 04/28/2020] [Accepted: 05/16/2020] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Hypothetical Proteins [HP] are the transcripts predicted to be expressed in an organism, but no evidence of it exists in gene banks. On the other hand, long non-coding RNAs [lncRNAs] are the transcripts that might be present in the 5’ UTR or intergenic regions of the genes whose lengths are above 200 bases. With the known unknown [KU] regions in the genomes rapidly existing in gene banks, there is a need to understand the role of open reading frames in the context of annotation. In this commentary, we emphasize that HPs could indeed be the predecessors of lncRNAs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Girik Malik
- 1Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA02115, USA; 2Bioclues.org, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, 500072, India; 3Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 4NIIT University, NH8, Delhi- Jaipur Highway, District Alwar, Neemrana, Rajasthan 301705, India; 5Hopp Children's Cancer Center [KiTZ], Heidelberg, Germany; 6Division of Pediatric Neuro Oncology, German Cancer Research Center [DKFZ], German Cancer Consortium [DKTK], Heidelberg, Germany; 7Heidelberg University, Medical Faculty, Heidelberg, Germany; 8Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Statue Circle, Jaipur302021, RJ, India
| | - Tanu Agarwal
- 1Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA02115, USA; 2Bioclues.org, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, 500072, India; 3Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 4NIIT University, NH8, Delhi- Jaipur Highway, District Alwar, Neemrana, Rajasthan 301705, India; 5Hopp Children's Cancer Center [KiTZ], Heidelberg, Germany; 6Division of Pediatric Neuro Oncology, German Cancer Research Center [DKFZ], German Cancer Consortium [DKTK], Heidelberg, Germany; 7Heidelberg University, Medical Faculty, Heidelberg, Germany; 8Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Statue Circle, Jaipur302021, RJ, India
| | - Utkarsh Raj
- 1Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA02115, USA; 2Bioclues.org, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, 500072, India; 3Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 4NIIT University, NH8, Delhi- Jaipur Highway, District Alwar, Neemrana, Rajasthan 301705, India; 5Hopp Children's Cancer Center [KiTZ], Heidelberg, Germany; 6Division of Pediatric Neuro Oncology, German Cancer Research Center [DKFZ], German Cancer Consortium [DKTK], Heidelberg, Germany; 7Heidelberg University, Medical Faculty, Heidelberg, Germany; 8Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Statue Circle, Jaipur302021, RJ, India
| | - Vijayaraghava Seshadri Sundararajan
- 1Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA02115, USA; 2Bioclues.org, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, 500072, India; 3Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 4NIIT University, NH8, Delhi- Jaipur Highway, District Alwar, Neemrana, Rajasthan 301705, India; 5Hopp Children's Cancer Center [KiTZ], Heidelberg, Germany; 6Division of Pediatric Neuro Oncology, German Cancer Research Center [DKFZ], German Cancer Consortium [DKTK], Heidelberg, Germany; 7Heidelberg University, Medical Faculty, Heidelberg, Germany; 8Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Statue Circle, Jaipur302021, RJ, India
| | - Obul Reddy Bandapalli
- 1Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA02115, USA; 2Bioclues.org, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, 500072, India; 3Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 4NIIT University, NH8, Delhi- Jaipur Highway, District Alwar, Neemrana, Rajasthan 301705, India; 5Hopp Children's Cancer Center [KiTZ], Heidelberg, Germany; 6Division of Pediatric Neuro Oncology, German Cancer Research Center [DKFZ], German Cancer Consortium [DKTK], Heidelberg, Germany; 7Heidelberg University, Medical Faculty, Heidelberg, Germany; 8Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Statue Circle, Jaipur302021, RJ, India
| | - Prashanth Suravajhala
- 1Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA02115, USA; 2Bioclues.org, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, 500072, India; 3Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 4NIIT University, NH8, Delhi- Jaipur Highway, District Alwar, Neemrana, Rajasthan 301705, India; 5Hopp Children's Cancer Center [KiTZ], Heidelberg, Germany; 6Division of Pediatric Neuro Oncology, German Cancer Research Center [DKFZ], German Cancer Consortium [DKTK], Heidelberg, Germany; 7Heidelberg University, Medical Faculty, Heidelberg, Germany; 8Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Statue Circle, Jaipur302021, RJ, India
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Mafakher L, Rismani E, Rahimi H, Enayatkhani M, Azadmanesh K, Teimoori-Toolabi L. Computational design of antagonist peptides based on the structure of secreted frizzled-related protein-1 (SFRP1) aiming to inhibit Wnt signaling pathway. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2020; 40:2169-2188. [DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2020.1835718] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Ladan Mafakher
- Molecular Medicine Department, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Elham Rismani
- Molecular Medicine Department, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Hamzeh Rahimi
- Molecular Medicine Department, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Maryam Enayatkhani
- Molecular Medicine Department, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | | | - Ladan Teimoori-Toolabi
- Molecular Medicine Department, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
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Lucas JE, Kortemme T. New computational protein design methods for de novo small molecule binding sites. PLoS Comput Biol 2020; 16:e1008178. [PMID: 33017412 PMCID: PMC7575090 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008178] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2020] [Revised: 10/20/2020] [Accepted: 07/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Protein binding to small molecules is fundamental to many biological processes, yet it remains challenging to predictively design this functionality de novo. Current state-of-the-art computational design methods typically rely on existing small molecule binding sites or protein scaffolds with existing shape complementarity for a target ligand. Here we introduce new methods that utilize pools of discrete contacts between protein side chains and defined small molecule ligand substructures (ligand fragments) observed in the Protein Data Bank. We use the Rosetta Molecular Modeling Suite to recombine protein side chains in these contact pools to generate hundreds of thousands of energetically favorable binding sites for a target ligand. These composite binding sites are built into existing scaffold proteins matching the intended binding site geometry with high accuracy. In addition, we apply pools of side chain rotamers interacting with the target ligand to augment Rosetta's conventional design machinery and improve key metrics known to be predictive of design success. We demonstrate that our method reliably builds diverse binding sites into different scaffold proteins for a variety of target molecules. Our generalizable de novo ligand binding site design method provides a foundation for versatile design of protein to interface previously unattainable molecules for applications in medical diagnostics and synthetic biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- James E. Lucas
- UC Berkeley–UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America
| | - Tanja Kortemme
- UC Berkeley–UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America
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38
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Lowegard AU, Frenkel MS, Holt GT, Jou JD, Ojewole AA, Donald BR. Novel, provable algorithms for efficient ensemble-based computational protein design and their application to the redesign of the c-Raf-RBD:KRas protein-protein interface. PLoS Comput Biol 2020; 16:e1007447. [PMID: 32511232 PMCID: PMC7329130 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007447] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2019] [Revised: 07/01/2020] [Accepted: 05/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The K* algorithm provably approximates partition functions for a set of states (e.g., protein, ligand, and protein-ligand complex) to a user-specified accuracy ε. Often, reaching an ε-approximation for a particular set of partition functions takes a prohibitive amount of time and space. To alleviate some of this cost, we introduce two new algorithms into the osprey suite for protein design: fries, a Fast Removal of Inadequately Energied Sequences, and EWAK*, an Energy Window Approximation to K*. fries pre-processes the sequence space to limit a design to only the most stable, energetically favorable sequence possibilities. EWAK* then takes this pruned sequence space as input and, using a user-specified energy window, calculates K* scores using the lowest energy conformations. We expect fries/EWAK* to be most useful in cases where there are many unstable sequences in the design sequence space and when users are satisfied with enumerating the low-energy ensemble of conformations. In combination, these algorithms provably retain calculational accuracy while limiting the input sequence space and the conformations included in each partition function calculation to only the most energetically favorable, effectively reducing runtime while still enriching for desirable sequences. This combined approach led to significant speed-ups compared to the previous state-of-the-art multi-sequence algorithm, BBK*, while maintaining its efficiency and accuracy, which we show across 40 different protein systems and a total of 2,826 protein design problems. Additionally, as a proof of concept, we used these new algorithms to redesign the protein-protein interface (PPI) of the c-Raf-RBD:KRas complex. The Ras-binding domain of the protein kinase c-Raf (c-Raf-RBD) is the tightest known binder of KRas, a protein implicated in difficult-to-treat cancers. fries/EWAK* accurately retrospectively predicted the effect of 41 different sets of mutations in the PPI of the c-Raf-RBD:KRas complex. Notably, these mutations include mutations whose effect had previously been incorrectly predicted using other computational methods. Next, we used fries/EWAK* for prospective design and discovered a novel point mutation that improves binding of c-Raf-RBD to KRas in its active, GTP-bound state (KRasGTP). We combined this new mutation with two previously reported mutations (which were highly-ranked by osprey) to create a new variant of c-Raf-RBD, c-Raf-RBD(RKY). fries/EWAK* in osprey computationally predicted that this new variant binds even more tightly than the previous best-binding variant, c-Raf-RBD(RK). We measured the binding affinity of c-Raf-RBD(RKY) using a bio-layer interferometry (BLI) assay, and found that this new variant exhibits single-digit nanomolar affinity for KRasGTP, confirming the computational predictions made with fries/EWAK*. This new variant binds roughly five times more tightly than the previous best known binder and roughly 36 times more tightly than the design starting point (wild-type c-Raf-RBD). This study steps through the advancement and development of computational protein design by presenting theory, new algorithms, accurate retrospective designs, new prospective designs, and biochemical validation. Computational structure-based protein design is an innovative tool for redesigning proteins to introduce a particular or novel function. One such function is improving the binding of one protein to another, which can increase our understanding of important protein systems. Herein we introduce two novel, provable algorithms, fries and EWAK*, for more efficient computational structure-based protein design as well as their application to the redesign of the c-Raf-RBD:KRas protein-protein interface. These new algorithms speed-up computational structure-based protein design while maintaining accurate calculations, allowing for larger, previously infeasible protein designs. Additionally, using fries and EWAK* within the osprey suite, we designed the tightest known binder of KRas, a heavily studied cancer target that interacts with a number of different proteins. This previously undiscovered variant of a KRas-binding domain, c-Raf-RBD, has potential to serve as a tool to further probe the protein-protein interface of KRas with its effectors and its discovery alone emphasizes the potential for more successful applications of computational structure-based protein design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna U. Lowegard
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Marcel S. Frenkel
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Graham T. Holt
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Jonathan D. Jou
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Adegoke A. Ojewole
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Bruce R. Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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39
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Mulligan VK. The emerging role of computational design in peptide macrocycle drug discovery. Expert Opin Drug Discov 2020; 15:833-852. [PMID: 32345066 DOI: 10.1080/17460441.2020.1751117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Drug discovery is a laborious process with rising cost per new drug. Peptide macrocycles are promising therapeutics, though conformational flexibility can reduce target affinity and specificity. Recent computational advancements address this problem by enabling rational design of rigidly folded peptide macrocycles. AREAS COVERED This review summarizes currently approved peptide macrocycle therapeutics and discusses advantages of mesoscale drugs over small molecules or protein therapeutics. It describes the history, rationale, and state of the art of computational tools, such as Rosetta, that allow the design of rigidly structured peptide macrocycles. The emerging pipeline for designing peptide macrocycle drugs is described, including current challenges in designing permeable molecules that can emulate the chameleonic behavior of natural macrocycles. Prospects for reducing computational cost and improving accuracy with emerging computational technologies are also discussed. EXPERT OPINION To embrace computational design of peptide macrocycle drugs, we must shift current attitudes regarding the role of computation in drug discovery, and move beyond Lipinski's rules. This technology has the potential to shift failures to earlier in silico stages of the drug discovery process, improving success rates in costly clinical trials. Given the available tools, now is the time for drug developers to incorporate peptide macrocycle design into drug discovery pipelines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vikram K Mulligan
- Systems Biology, Center for Computational Biology, Flatiron Institute , New York, NY, USA
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40
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Surpeta B, Sequeiros-Borja CE, Brezovsky J. Dynamics, a Powerful Component of Current and Future in Silico Approaches for Protein Design and Engineering. Int J Mol Sci 2020; 21:E2713. [PMID: 32295283 PMCID: PMC7215530 DOI: 10.3390/ijms21082713] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2020] [Revised: 04/10/2020] [Accepted: 04/12/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Computational prediction has become an indispensable aid in the processes of engineering and designing proteins for various biotechnological applications. With the tremendous progress in more powerful computer hardware and more efficient algorithms, some of in silico tools and methods have started to apply the more realistic description of proteins as their conformational ensembles, making protein dynamics an integral part of their prediction workflows. To help protein engineers to harness benefits of considering dynamics in their designs, we surveyed new tools developed for analyses of conformational ensembles in order to select engineering hotspots and design mutations. Next, we discussed the collective evolution towards more flexible protein design methods, including ensemble-based approaches, knowledge-assisted methods, and provable algorithms. Finally, we highlighted apparent challenges that current approaches are facing and provided our perspectives on their further development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bartłomiej Surpeta
- Laboratory of Biomolecular Interactions and Transport, Department of Gene Expression, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Uniwersytetu Poznanskiego 6, 61-614 Poznan, Poland; (B.S.); (C.E.S.-B.)
- International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, Ks Trojdena 4, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Carlos Eduardo Sequeiros-Borja
- Laboratory of Biomolecular Interactions and Transport, Department of Gene Expression, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Uniwersytetu Poznanskiego 6, 61-614 Poznan, Poland; (B.S.); (C.E.S.-B.)
- International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, Ks Trojdena 4, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Jan Brezovsky
- Laboratory of Biomolecular Interactions and Transport, Department of Gene Expression, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Uniwersytetu Poznanskiego 6, 61-614 Poznan, Poland; (B.S.); (C.E.S.-B.)
- International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, Ks Trojdena 4, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
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Zhou J, Panaitiu AE, Grigoryan G. A general-purpose protein design framework based on mining sequence-structure relationships in known protein structures. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:1059-1068. [PMID: 31892539 PMCID: PMC6969538 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1908723117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Current state-of-the-art approaches to computational protein design (CPD) aim to capture the determinants of structure from physical principles. While this has led to many successful designs, it does have strong limitations associated with inaccuracies in physical modeling, such that a reliable general solution to CPD has yet to be found. Here, we propose a design framework-one based on identifying and applying patterns of sequence-structure compatibility found in known proteins, rather than approximating them from models of interatomic interactions. We carry out extensive computational analyses and an experimental validation for our method. Our results strongly argue that the Protein Data Bank is now sufficiently large to enable proteins to be designed by using only examples of structural motifs from unrelated proteins. Because our method is likely to have orthogonal strengths relative to existing techniques, it could represent an important step toward removing remaining barriers to robust CPD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianfu Zhou
- Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755
| | | | - Gevorg Grigoryan
- Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755;
- Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755
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42
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Deciphering interaction fingerprints from protein molecular surfaces using geometric deep learning. Nat Methods 2019; 17:184-192. [DOI: 10.1038/s41592-019-0666-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 172] [Impact Index Per Article: 34.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2019] [Accepted: 10/28/2019] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
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43
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Jou JD, Holt GT, Lowegard AU, Donald BR. Minimization-Aware Recursive K*: A Novel, Provable Algorithm that Accelerates Ensemble-Based Protein Design and Provably Approximates the Energy Landscape. J Comput Biol 2019; 27:550-564. [PMID: 31855059 DOI: 10.1089/cmb.2019.0315] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Protein design algorithms that model continuous sidechain flexibility and conformational ensembles better approximate the in vitro and in vivo behavior of proteins. The previous state of the art, iMinDEE-A*-K*, computes provable ɛ-approximations to partition functions of protein states (e.g., bound vs. unbound) by computing provable, admissible pairwise-minimized energy lower bounds on protein conformations, and using the A* enumeration algorithm to return a gap-free list of lowest-energy conformations. iMinDEE-A*-K* runs in time sublinear in the number of conformations, but can be trapped in loosely-bounded, low-energy conformational wells containing many conformations with highly similar energies. That is, iMinDEE-A*-K* is unable to exploit the correlation between protein conformation and energy: similar conformations often have similar energy. We introduce two new concepts that exploit this correlation: Minimization-Aware Enumeration and Recursive K*. We combine these two insights into a novel algorithm, Minimization-Aware Recursive K* (MARK*), which tightens bounds not on single conformations, but instead on distinct regions of the conformation space. We compare the performance of iMinDEE-A*-K* versus MARK* by running the Branch and Bound over K* (BBK*) algorithm, which provably returns sequences in order of decreasing K* score, using either iMinDEE-A*-K* or MARK* to approximate partition functions. We show on 200 design problems that MARK* not only enumerates and minimizes vastly fewer conformations than the previous state of the art, but also runs up to 2 orders of magnitude faster. Finally, we show that MARK* not only efficiently approximates the partition function, but also provably approximates the energy landscape. To our knowledge, MARK* is the first algorithm to do so. We use MARK* to analyze the change in energy landscape of the bound and unbound states of an HIV-1 capsid protein C-terminal domain in complex with a camelid VHH, and measure the change in conformational entropy induced by binding. Thus, MARK* both accelerates existing designs and offers new capabilities not possible with previous algorithms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan D Jou
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
| | - Graham T Holt
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.,Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Program, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
| | - Anna U Lowegard
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.,Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Program, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
| | - Bruce R Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.,Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina.,Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
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Holt GT, Jou JD, Gill NP, Lowegard AU, Martin JW, Madden DR, Donald BR. Computational Analysis of Energy Landscapes Reveals Dynamic Features That Contribute to Binding of Inhibitors to CFTR-Associated Ligand. J Phys Chem B 2019; 123:10441-10455. [PMID: 31697075 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b07278] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
The CFTR-associated ligand PDZ domain (CALP) binds to the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and mediates lysosomal degradation of mature CFTR. Inhibition of this interaction has been explored as a therapeutic avenue for cystic fibrosis. Previously, we reported the ensemble-based computational design of a novel peptide inhibitor of CALP, which resulted in the most binding-efficient inhibitor to date. This inhibitor, kCAL01, was designed using osprey and evinced significant biological activity in in vitro cell-based assays. Here, we report a crystal structure of kCAL01 bound to CALP and compare structural features against iCAL36, a previously developed inhibitor of CALP. We compute side-chain energy landscapes for each structure to not only enable approximation of binding thermodynamics but also reveal ensemble features that contribute to the comparatively efficient binding of kCAL01. Finally, we compare the previously reported design ensemble for kCAL01 vs the new crystal structure and show that, despite small differences between the design model and crystal structure, significant biophysical features that enhance inhibitor binding are captured in the design ensemble. This suggests not only that ensemble-based design captured thermodynamically significant features observed in vitro, but also that a design eschewing ensembles would miss the kCAL01 sequence entirely.
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Affiliation(s)
- Graham T Holt
- Department of Computer Science , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27708 , United States.,Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27708 , United States
| | - Jonathan D Jou
- Department of Computer Science , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27708 , United States
| | - Nicholas P Gill
- Department of Biochemistry & Cell Biology , Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth , Hanover , New Hampshire 03755 , United States
| | - Anna U Lowegard
- Department of Computer Science , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27708 , United States.,Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27708 , United States
| | - Jeffrey W Martin
- Department of Computer Science , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27708 , United States
| | - Dean R Madden
- Department of Biochemistry & Cell Biology , Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth , Hanover , New Hampshire 03755 , United States
| | - Bruce R Donald
- Department of Computer Science , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27708 , United States.,Department of Biochemistry , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27710 , United States.,Department of Chemistry , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina 27710 , United States
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Reeve SM, Si D, Krucinska J, Yan Y, Viswanathan K, Wang S, Holt GT, Frenkel MS, Ojewole AA, Estrada A, Agabiti SS, Alverson JB, Gibson ND, Priestley ND, Wiemer AJ, Donald BR, Wright DL. Toward Broad Spectrum Dihydrofolate Reductase Inhibitors Targeting Trimethoprim Resistant Enzymes Identified in Clinical Isolates of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus. ACS Infect Dis 2019; 5:1896-1906. [PMID: 31565920 DOI: 10.1021/acsinfecdis.9b00222] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The spread of plasmid borne resistance enzymes in clinical Staphylococcus aureus isolates is rendering trimethoprim and iclaprim, both inhibitors of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), ineffective. Continued exploitation of these targets will require compounds that can broadly inhibit these resistance-conferring isoforms. Using a structure-based approach, we have developed a novel class of ionized nonclassical antifolates (INCAs) that capture the molecular interactions that have been exclusive to classical antifolates. These modifications allow for a greatly expanded spectrum of activity across these pathogenic DHFR isoforms, while maintaining the ability to penetrate the bacterial cell wall. Using biochemical, structural, and computational methods, we are able to optimize these inhibitors to the conserved active sites of the endogenous and trimethoprim resistant DHFR enzymes. Here, we report a series of INCA compounds that exhibit low nanomolar enzymatic activity and potent cellular activity with human selectivity against a panel of clinically relevant TMP resistant (TMPR) and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephanie M. Reeve
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Debjani Si
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Jolanta Krucinska
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Yongzhao Yan
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Kishore Viswanathan
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Siyu Wang
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, 308 Research Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University, 101 Science Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
| | - Graham T. Holt
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, 308 Research Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University, 101 Science Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
| | - Marcel S. Frenkel
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, 255 Nanaline H. Duke, Durham, North Carolina 27710, United States
| | - Adegoke A. Ojewole
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, 308 Research Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Duke University, 101 Science Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
| | - Alexavier Estrada
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Sherry S. Agabiti
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Jeremy B. Alverson
- Department of Chemistry, University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, Montana 59812, United States
| | - Nathan D. Gibson
- Department of Chemistry, University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, Montana 59812, United States
| | - Nigel D. Priestley
- Department of Chemistry, University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, Montana 59812, United States
| | - Andrew J. Wiemer
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
| | - Bruce R. Donald
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, 308 Research Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
- Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, 255 Nanaline H. Duke, Durham, North Carolina 27710, United States
- Department of Chemistry, Duke University, 124 Science Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27708, United States
| | - Dennis L. Wright
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Connecticut, 69 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
- Department of Chemistry, University of Connecticut, 55 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, United States
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Kuhlman B, Bradley P. Advances in protein structure prediction and design. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 2019; 20:681-697. [PMID: 31417196 PMCID: PMC7032036 DOI: 10.1038/s41580-019-0163-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 386] [Impact Index Per Article: 77.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/19/2019] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
The prediction of protein three-dimensional structure from amino acid sequence has been a grand challenge problem in computational biophysics for decades, owing to its intrinsic scientific interest and also to the many potential applications for robust protein structure prediction algorithms, from genome interpretation to protein function prediction. More recently, the inverse problem - designing an amino acid sequence that will fold into a specified three-dimensional structure - has attracted growing attention as a potential route to the rational engineering of proteins with functions useful in biotechnology and medicine. Methods for the prediction and design of protein structures have advanced dramatically in the past decade. Increases in computing power and the rapid growth in protein sequence and structure databases have fuelled the development of new data-intensive and computationally demanding approaches for structure prediction. New algorithms for designing protein folds and protein-protein interfaces have been used to engineer novel high-order assemblies and to design from scratch fluorescent proteins with novel or enhanced properties, as well as signalling proteins with therapeutic potential. In this Review, we describe current approaches for protein structure prediction and design and highlight a selection of the successful applications they have enabled.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian Kuhlman
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
| | - Philip Bradley
- Computational Biology Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA.
- Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
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HALLEN MARKA, DONALD BRUCER. Protein Design by Provable Algorithms. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM 2019; 62:76-84. [PMID: 31607753 PMCID: PMC6788629 DOI: 10.1145/3338124] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Protein design algorithms can leverage provable guarantees of accuracy to provide new insights and unique optimized molecules.
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Affiliation(s)
- MARK A. HALLEN
- Research assistant professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, IL, USA
| | - BRUCE R. DONALD
- James B. Duke Professor of Computer Science at Duke University, as well as a
professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the Duke University Medical
Center, Durham, NC, USA
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Hallen MA. PLUG (Pruning of Local Unrealistic Geometries) removes restrictions on biophysical modeling for protein design. Proteins 2018; 87:62-73. [PMID: 30378699 DOI: 10.1002/prot.25623] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2018] [Revised: 10/10/2018] [Accepted: 10/16/2018] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Protein design algorithms must search an enormous conformational space to identify favorable conformations. As a result, those that perform this search with guarantees of accuracy generally start with a conformational pruning step, such as dead-end elimination (DEE). However, the mathematical assumptions of DEE-based pruning algorithms have up to now severely restricted the biophysical model that can feasibly be used in protein design. To lift these restrictions, I propose to prune local unrealistic geometries (PLUG) using a linear programming-based method. PLUG's biophysical model consists only of well-known lower bounds on interatomic distances. PLUG is intended as preprocessing for energy-based protein design calculations, whose biophysical model need not support DEE pruning. Based on 96 test cases, PLUG is at least as effective at pruning as DEE for larger protein designs-the type that most require pruning. When combined with the LUTE protein design algorithm, PLUG greatly facilitates designs that account for continuous entropy, large multistate designs with continuous flexibility, and designs with extensive continuous backbone flexibility and advanced nonpairwise energy functions. Many of these designs are tractable only with PLUG, either for empirical reasons (LUTE's machine learning step achieves an accurate fit only after PLUG pruning), or for theoretical reasons (many energy functions are fundamentally incompatible with DEE).
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark A Hallen
- Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
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