Study, by use of coarse-grained models, of the functionally crucial residues and allosteric pathway of anesthetic regulation of the Gloeobacter violaceus ligand-gated ion channel

Common Internal Allosteric Network Links Anesthetic Binding Sites in a Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channel

General anesthetics bind reversibly to ion channels, modifying their global conformational distributions, but the underlying atomic mechanisms are not completely known. We examine this issue by way of the model protein Gloeobacter violaceous ligand-gated ion channel (GLIC) using computational molecular dynamics, with a coarse-grained model to enhance sampling. We find that in flooding simulations, both propofol and a generic particle localize to the crystallographic transmembrane anesthetic binding region, and that propofol also localizes to an extracellular region shared with the crystallographic ketamine binding site. Subsequent simulations to probe these binding modes in greater detail demonstrate that ligand binding induces structural asymmetry in GLIC. Consequently, we employ residue interaction correlation analysis to describe the internal allosteric network underlying the coupling of ligand and distant effector sites necessary for conformational change. Overall, the results suggest that the same allosteric network may underlie the actions of various anesthetics, regardless of binding site.

Domain Motions and Functionally-Key Residues of L-Alanine Dehydrogenase Revealed by an Elastic Network Model

Mycobacterium tuberculosisl-alanine dehydrogenase (l-MtAlaDH) plays an important role in catalyzing l-alanine to ammonia and pyruvate, which has been considered to be a potential target for tuberculosis treatment. In the present work, the functional domain motions encoded in the structure of l-MtAlaDH were investigated by using the Gaussian network model (GNM) and the anisotropy network model (ANM). The slowest modes for the open-apo and closed-holo structures of the enzyme show that the domain motions have a common hinge axis centered in residues Met133 and Met301. Accompanying the conformational transition, both the 1,4-dihydronicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD)-binding domain (NBD) and the substrate-binding domain (SBD) move in a highly coupled way. The first three slowest modes of ANM exhibit the open-closed, rotation and twist motions of l-MtAlaDH, respectively. The calculation of the fast modes reveals the residues responsible for the stability of the protein, and some of them are involved in the interaction with the ligand. Then, the functionally-important residues relevant to the binding of the ligand were identified by using a thermodynamic method. Our computational results are consistent with the experimental data, which will help us to understand the physical mechanism for the function of l-MtAlaDH.