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Costa F, Ocello R, Guardiani C, Giacomello A, Masetti M. Integrated Approach Including Docking, MD Simulations, and Network Analysis Highlights the Action Mechanism of the Cardiac hERG Activator RPR260243. J Chem Inf Model 2023; 63:4888-4899. [PMID: 37504578 PMCID: PMC10428221 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00596] [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: 04/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
hERG is a voltage-gated potassium channel involved in the heart contraction whose defections are associated with the cardiac arrhythmia Long QT Syndrome type 2. The activator RPR260243 (RPR) represents a possible candidate to pharmacologically treat LQTS2 because it enhances the opening of the channel. However, the molecular detail of its action mechanism remains quite elusive. Here, we address the problem using a combination of docking, molecular dynamics simulations, and network analysis. We show that the drug preferably binds at the interface between the voltage sensor and the pore, enhancing the canonical activation path and determining a whole-structure rearrangement of the channel that slightly impairs inactivation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Flavio Costa
- Dipartimento
di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale, Sapienza Università di Roma, via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy
| | - Riccardo Ocello
- Department
of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, Alma Mater
Studiorum−Università di Bologna, via Belmeloro 6, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Carlo Guardiani
- Dipartimento
di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale, Sapienza Università di Roma, via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy
| | - Alberto Giacomello
- Dipartimento
di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale, Sapienza Università di Roma, via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy
| | - Matteo Masetti
- Department
of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, Alma Mater
Studiorum−Università di Bologna, via Belmeloro 6, 40126 Bologna, Italy
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Mancipe JC, Vargas-Pinto P, Rodríguez OE, Borrego-Muñoz P, Castellanos Londoño I, Ramírez D, Piñeros LG, Mejía MC, Pombo LM. Anti-Inflammatory Effect of Izalpinin Derived from Chromolaena leivensis: λ-Carrageenan-Induced Paw Edema and In Silico Model. Molecules 2023; 28:molecules28093722. [PMID: 37175132 PMCID: PMC10179959 DOI: 10.3390/molecules28093722] [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: 03/30/2023] [Revised: 04/17/2023] [Accepted: 04/20/2023] [Indexed: 05/15/2023] Open
Abstract
The flavonoid izalpinin was isolated from the aerial parts of Chromolaena leivensis. Its structural determination was carried out using MS and NMR spectroscopic techniques (1H, 13C). This compound was evaluated for its anti-inflammatory effect in a rat model on λ-carrageenan-induced plantar edema. Paw inflammation was measured at one-hour intervals for seven hours following the administration of λ-carrageenan. Serum creatine kinase (CK) levels were evaluated, obtaining statistically significant results with the treatments at doses of 10 mg/kg (* p < 0.01) and 20 mg/kg (** p < 0.005). The anti-inflammatory effect of the compound was evaluated by using plethysmography, and the results showed significant differences at the three concentrations (10 mg/kg, 20 mg/kg, 40 mg/kg) in the first and third hours after treatment. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.001; **** p < 0.0001 vs. the negative control group treated with vehicle (DMSO). Lastly, molecular docking analyses reveal that izalpinin has a strong binding affinity with five target proteins involved in the inflammatory process. The analysis using molecular dynamics allowed demonstrating that the ligand-protein complexes present acceptable stability, with RMSD values within the allowed range.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juan C Mancipe
- Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad de la Salle, Bogotá 110141, Colombia
| | - Pedro Vargas-Pinto
- Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad de la Salle, Bogotá 110141, Colombia
| | - Oscar E Rodríguez
- Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad del Bosque, Bogotá 110121, Colombia
- Escuela de Medicina, Fundación Universitaria Juan N. Corpas, Bogotá 110311, Colombia
| | | | | | - David Ramírez
- Departamento de Farmacología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4030000, Chile
| | - Luis G Piñeros
- Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad del Bosque, Bogotá 110121, Colombia
| | | | - Luis M Pombo
- Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad del Bosque, Bogotá 110121, Colombia
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Duarte AC, Costa EC, Filipe HAL, Saraiva SM, Jacinto T, Miguel SP, Ribeiro MP, Coutinho P. Animal-derived products in science and current alternatives. BIOMATERIALS ADVANCES 2023; 151:213428. [PMID: 37146527 DOI: 10.1016/j.bioadv.2023.213428] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2023] [Revised: 04/08/2023] [Accepted: 04/11/2023] [Indexed: 05/07/2023]
Abstract
More than fifty years after the 3Rs definition and despite the continuous implementation of regulatory measures, animals continue to be widely used in basic research. Their use comprises not only in vivo experiments with animal models, but also the production of a variety of supplements and products of animal origin for cell and tissue culture, cell-based assays, and therapeutics. The animal-derived products most used in basic research are fetal bovine serum (FBS), extracellular matrix proteins such as Matrigel™, and antibodies. However, their production raises several ethical issues regarding animal welfare. Additionally, their biological origin is associated with a high risk of contamination, resulting, frequently, in poor scientific data for clinical translation. These issues support the search for new animal-free products able to replace FBS, Matrigel™, and antibodies in basic research. In addition, in silico methodologies play an important role in the reduction of animal use in research by refining the data previously to in vitro and in vivo experiments. In this review, we depicted the current available animal-free alternatives in in vitro research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana C Duarte
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal; CICS-UBI - Centro de Investigação em Ciências da Saúde, Universidade da Beira Interior, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal
| | - Elisabete C Costa
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal
| | - Hugo A L Filipe
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal
| | - Sofia M Saraiva
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal
| | - Telma Jacinto
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal
| | - Sónia P Miguel
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal; CICS-UBI - Centro de Investigação em Ciências da Saúde, Universidade da Beira Interior, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal
| | - Maximiano P Ribeiro
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal; CICS-UBI - Centro de Investigação em Ciências da Saúde, Universidade da Beira Interior, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal
| | - Paula Coutinho
- CPIRN/IPG - Centro de Potencial e Inovação em Recursos Naturais, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda (CPIRN/IPG), 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal; CICS-UBI - Centro de Investigação em Ciências da Saúde, Universidade da Beira Interior, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal.
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4
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Holcomb M, Chang Y, Goodsell DS, Forli S. Evaluation of AlphaFold2 structures as docking targets. Protein Sci 2023; 32:e4530. [PMID: 36479776 PMCID: PMC9794023 DOI: 10.1002/pro.4530] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 29.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2022] [Revised: 11/28/2022] [Accepted: 12/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
AlphaFold2 is a promising new tool for researchers to predict protein structures and generate high-quality models, with low backbone and global root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) when compared with experimental structures. However, it is unclear if the structures predicted by AlphaFold2 will be valuable targets of docking. To address this question, we redocked ligands in the PDBbind datasets against the experimental co-crystallized receptor structures and against the AlphaFold2 structures using AutoDock-GPU. We find that the quality measure provided during structure prediction is not a good predictor of docking performance, despite accurately reflecting the quality of the alpha carbon alignment with experimental structures. Removing low-confidence regions of the predicted structure and making side chains flexible improves the docking outcomes. Overall, despite high-quality prediction of backbone conformation, fine structural details limit the naive application of AlphaFold2 models as docking targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew Holcomb
- Department of Integrative Structural and Computational BiologyThe Scripps Research InstituteLa JollaCaliforniaUSA
| | - Ya‐Ting Chang
- Department of Integrative Structural and Computational BiologyThe Scripps Research InstituteLa JollaCaliforniaUSA
| | - David S. Goodsell
- Department of Integrative Structural and Computational BiologyThe Scripps Research InstituteLa JollaCaliforniaUSA,Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank, RutgersThe State University of New JerseyPiscatawayNew JerseyUSA,Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine, RutgersThe State University of New JerseyPiscatawayNew JerseyUSA,Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, RutgersThe State University of New JerseyNew BrunswickNew JerseyUSA
| | - Stefano Forli
- Department of Integrative Structural and Computational BiologyThe Scripps Research InstituteLa JollaCaliforniaUSA
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Multitargeted Molecular Docking and Dynamic Simulation Studies of Bioactive Compounds from Rosmarinus officinalis against Alzheimer’s Disease. Molecules 2022; 27:molecules27217241. [DOI: 10.3390/molecules27217241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2022] [Revised: 09/09/2022] [Accepted: 09/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been associated with the hallmark features of cholinergic dysfunction, amyloid beta (Aβ) aggregation and impaired synaptic transmission, which makes the associated proteins, such as β-site amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE I), acetylcholine esterase (AChE) and synapsin I, II and III, major targets for therapeutic intervention. The present study investigated the therapeutic potential of three major phytochemicals of Rosmarinus officinalis, ursolic acid (UA), rosmarinic acid (RA) and carnosic acid (CA), based on their binding affinity with AD-associated proteins. Detailed docking studies were conducted using AutoDock vina followed by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations using Amber 20. The docking analysis of the selected molecules showed the binding energies of their interaction with the target proteins, while MD simulations comprising root mean square deviation (RMSD), root mean square fluctuation (RMSF) and molecular mechanics/generalized born surface area (MM/GBSA) binding free energy calculations were carried out to check the stability of bound complexes. The drug likeness and the pharmacokinetic properties of the selected molecules were also checked through the Lipinski filter and ADMETSAR analysis. All these bioactive compounds demonstrated strong binding affinity with AChE, BACE1 and synapsin I, II and III. The results showed UA and RA to be potential inhibitors of AChE and BACE1, exhibiting binding energies comparable to those of donepezil, used as a positive control. The drug likeness and pharmacokinetic properties of these compounds also demonstrated drug-like characteristics, indicating the need for further in vitro and in vivo investigations to ascertain their therapeutic potential for AD.
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Abstract
Abstract
Macrocycles represent an important class of ligands, both in natural products and designed drugs. In drug design, macrocyclizations can impart specific ligand conformations and contribute to passive permeation by encouraging intramolecular H-bonds. AutoDock-GPU and Vina can model macrocyclic ligands flexibly, without requiring the enumeration of macrocyclic conformers before docking. Here, we characterize the performance of the method for handling macrocyclic compounds, which is implemented and the default behaviour for ligand preparation with our ligand preparation pipeline, Meeko. A pseudoatom is used to encode bond geometry and produce an anisotropic closure force for macrocyclic rings. This method is evaluated on a diverse set of small molecule and peptide macrocycles, ranging from 7- to 33-membered rings, showing little accuracy loss compared to rigid redocking of the X-ray macrocycle conformers. This suggests that for conformationally flexible macrocycles with unknown binding modes, this method can be effectively used to predict the macrocycle conformation.
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