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Prusty JS, Kumar A. In silico-driven identification and experimental confirmation of antifungal proteins (AFPs) against Candidaalbicans. Biochimie 2024:S0300-9084(24)00194-9. [PMID: 39134296 DOI: 10.1016/j.biochi.2024.08.007] [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: 03/21/2024] [Revised: 06/30/2024] [Accepted: 08/08/2024] [Indexed: 08/19/2024]
Abstract
Mycoses infect millions of people annually across the world. The most common mycosis agent, Candida albicans is responsible for a great deal of illness and death. C. albicans infection is becoming more widespread and the current antifungals polyenes, triazoles, and echinocandins are less efficient against it. Investigating antifungal peptides (AFPs) as therapeutic is gaining momentum. Therefore, we used MALDI-TOF/MS analysis to identify AFPs and protein-protein docking to analyze their interactions with the C. albicans target protein. Some microorganisms with strong antifungal action against C. albicans were selected for the isolation of AFPs. Using MALDI-TOF/MS, we identified 3 AFPs Chitin binding protein (ACW83017.1; Bacillus licheniformis), the bifunctional protein GlmU (BBQ13478.1; Stenotrophomonas maltophilia), and zinc metalloproteinase aureolysin (BBA25172.1; Staphylococcus aureus). These AFPs showed robust interactions with C. albicans target protein Sap5. We deciphered some important residues in identified APFs and highlighted interaction with Sap5 through hydrogen bonds, protein-protein interactions, and salt bridges using protein-protein docking and MD simulations. The three discovered AFPs-Sap5 complexes exhibit different levels of stability, as seen by the RMSD analysis and interaction patterns. Among protein-protein interactions, the remarkable stability of the BBQ25172.1-2QZX complex highlights the role of salt bridges and hydrogen bonds. Identified AFPs could be further studied for developing successful antifungal candidates and peptide-based new antifungal therapeutic strategies as fresh insights into addressing antifungal resistance also.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jyoti Sankar Prusty
- Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, 492010, CG, India
| | - Awanish Kumar
- Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, 492010, CG, India.
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2
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Mallawarachchi S, Wang H, Mulgaonkar N, Irigoyen S, Padilla C, Mandadi K, Borneman J, Fernando S. Specifically targeting antimicrobial peptides for inhibition of Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus. J Appl Microbiol 2024; 135:lxae061. [PMID: 38509024 DOI: 10.1093/jambio/lxae061] [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: 12/01/2023] [Revised: 02/21/2024] [Accepted: 03/19/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024]
Abstract
AIMS Huanglongbing (citrus greening) is a plant disease putatively caused by the unculturable Gram-negative bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), and it has caused severe damage to citrus plantations worldwide. There are no definitive treatments for this disease, and conventional disease control techniques have shown limited efficacy. This work presents an in silico evaluation of using specifically targeting anti-microbial peptides (STAMPs) consisting of a targeting segment and an antimicrobial segment to inhibit citrus greening by inhibiting the BamA protein of CLas, which is an outer membrane protein crucial for bacterial viability. METHODS AND RESULTS Initially, a set of peptides with a high affinity toward BamA protein were screened and evaluated via molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations and were verified in vitro via bio-layer interferometry (BLI). In silico studies and BLI experiments indicated that two peptides, HASP2 and HASP3, showed stable binding to BamA. Protein structures for STAMPs were created by fusing known anti-microbial peptides (AMPs) with the selected short peptides. The binding of STAMPs to BamA was assessed using molecular docking and binding energy calculations. The attachment of high-affinity short peptides significantly reduced the free energy of binding for AMPs, suggesting that it would make it easier for the STAMPs to bind to BamA. Efficacy testing in vitro using a closely related CLas surrogate bacterium showed that STAMPs had greater inhibitory activity than AMP alone. CONCLUSIONS In silico and in vitro results indicate that the STAMPs can inhibit CLas surrogate Rhizobium grahamii more effectively compared to AMPs, suggesting that STAMPs can achieve better inhibition of CLas, potentially via enhancing the site specificity of AMPs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samavath Mallawarachchi
- Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
| | - Haoqi Wang
- Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
| | - Nirmitee Mulgaonkar
- Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
| | - Sonia Irigoyen
- Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M University System, 2415 E Highway 83, Weslaco, TX 78596, United States
| | - Carmen Padilla
- Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M University System, 2415 E Highway 83, Weslaco, TX 78596, United States
| | - Kranthi Mandadi
- Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M University System, 2415 E Highway 83, Weslaco, TX 78596, United States
- Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
- Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture, Texas A&M AgriLife, College Station, TX 77843, United States
| | - James Borneman
- Department of Microbiology & Plant Pathology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, United States
| | - Sandun Fernando
- Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
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3
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Gomari MM, Arab SS, Balalaie S, Ramezanpour S, Hosseini A, Dokholyan NV, Tarighi P. Rational peptide design for targeting cancer cell invasion. Proteins 2024; 92:76-95. [PMID: 37646459 DOI: 10.1002/prot.26580] [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: 06/01/2023] [Revised: 08/01/2023] [Accepted: 08/03/2023] [Indexed: 09/01/2023]
Abstract
Cell invasion is an important process in cancer progression and recurrence. Invasion and implantation of cancer cells from their original place to other tissues, by disabling vital organs, challenges the treatment of cancer patients. Given the importance of the matter, many molecular treatments have been developed to inhibit cancer cell invasion. Because of their low production cost and ease of production, peptides are valuable therapeutic molecules for inhibiting cancer cell invasion. In recent years, advances in the field of computational biology have facilitated the design of anti-cancer peptides. In our investigation, using computational biology approaches such as evolutionary analysis, residue scanning, protein-peptide interaction analysis, molecular dynamics, and free energy analysis, our team designed a peptide library with about 100 000 candidates based on A6 (acetyl-KPSSPPEE-amino) sequence which is an anti-invasion peptide. During computational studies, two of the designed peptides that give the highest scores and showed the greatest sequence similarity to A6 were entered into the experimental analysis workflow for further analysis. In experimental analysis steps, the anti-metastatic potency and other therapeutic effects of designed peptides were evaluated using MTT assay, RT-qPCR, zymography analysis, and invasion assay. Our study disclosed that the IK1 (acetyl-RPSFPPEE-amino) peptide, like A6, has great potency to inhibit the invasion of cancer cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Mahmoudi Gomari
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Seyed Shahriar Arab
- Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
| | - Saeed Balalaie
- Peptide Chemistry Research Institute, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
| | - Sorour Ramezanpour
- Department of Chemistry, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
| | - Arshad Hosseini
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Nikolay V Dokholyan
- Department of Pharmacology, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Parastoo Tarighi
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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4
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Holmes SG, Desai UR. Assessing Genetic Algorithm-Based Docking Protocols for Prediction of Heparin Oligosaccharide Binding Geometries onto Proteins. Biomolecules 2023; 13:1633. [PMID: 38002315 PMCID: PMC10669598 DOI: 10.3390/biom13111633] [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: 10/12/2023] [Revised: 11/06/2023] [Accepted: 11/07/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Although molecular docking has evolved dramatically over the years, its application to glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) has remained challenging because of their intrinsic flexibility, highly anionic character and rather ill-defined site of binding on proteins. GAGs have been treated as either fully "rigid" or fully "flexible" in molecular docking. We reasoned that an intermediate semi-rigid docking (SRD) protocol may be better for the recapitulation of native heparin/heparan sulfate (Hp/HS) topologies. Herein, we study 18 Hp/HS-protein co-complexes containing chains from disaccharide to decasaccharide using genetic algorithm-based docking with rigid, semi-rigid, and flexible docking protocols. Our work reveals that rigid and semi-rigid protocols recapitulate native poses for longer chains (5→10 mers) significantly better than the flexible protocol, while 2→4-mer poses are better predicted using the semi-rigid approach. More importantly, the semi-rigid docking protocol is likely to perform better when no crystal structure information is available. We also present a new parameter for parsing selective versus non-selective GAG-protein systems, which relies on two computational parameters including consistency of binding (i.e., RMSD) and docking score (i.e., GOLD Score). The new semi-rigid protocol in combination with the new computational parameter is expected to be particularly useful in high-throughput screening of GAG sequences for identifying promising druggable targets as well as drug-like Hp/HS sequences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel G. Holmes
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298, USA;
- Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, 800 E. Leigh Street, Suite 212, Richmond, VA 23219, USA
| | - Umesh R. Desai
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298, USA;
- Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, 800 E. Leigh Street, Suite 212, Richmond, VA 23219, USA
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5
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Gomari MM, Abkhiz S, Pour TG, Lotfi E, Rostami N, Monfared FN, Ghobari B, Mosavi M, Alipour B, Dokholyan NV. Peptidomimetics in cancer targeting. Mol Med 2022; 28:146. [PMID: 36476230 PMCID: PMC9730693 DOI: 10.1186/s10020-022-00577-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2022] [Accepted: 11/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The low efficiency of treatment strategies is one of the main obstacles to developing cancer inhibitors. Up to now, various classes of therapeutics have been developed to inhibit cancer progression. Peptides due to their small size and easy production compared to proteins are highly regarded in designing cancer vaccines and oncogenic pathway inhibitors. Although peptides seem to be a suitable therapeutic option, their short lifespan, instability, and low binding affinity for their target have not been widely applicable against malignant tumors. Given the peptides' disadvantages, a new class of agents called peptidomimetic has been introduced. With advances in physical chemistry and biochemistry, as well as increased knowledge about biomolecule structures, it is now possible to chemically modify peptides to develop efficient peptidomimetics. In recent years, numerous studies have been performed to the evaluation of the effectiveness of peptidomimetics in inhibiting metastasis, angiogenesis, and cancerous cell growth. Here, we offer a comprehensive review of designed peptidomimetics to diagnose and treat cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Mahmoudi Gomari
- grid.411746.10000 0004 4911 7066Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Shadi Abkhiz
- grid.411746.10000 0004 4911 7066Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Taha Ghantab Pour
- grid.411746.10000 0004 4911 7066Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Ehsan Lotfi
- grid.411746.10000 0004 4911 7066Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Neda Rostami
- grid.411425.70000 0004 0417 7516Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak, Iran
| | - Fatemeh Nafe Monfared
- grid.411705.60000 0001 0166 0922Department of Virology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Babak Ghobari
- grid.412831.d0000 0001 1172 3536Department of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
| | - Mona Mosavi
- grid.411746.10000 0004 4911 7066Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Behruz Alipour
- grid.411705.60000 0001 0166 0922Medical Biotechnology Department, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Nikolay V. Dokholyan
- grid.240473.60000 0004 0543 9901Department of Pharmacology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA USA ,grid.240473.60000 0004 0543 9901Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA USA
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6
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Molecular and structural basis of interactions of vitamin D3 hydroxyderivatives with aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR): An integrated experimental and computational study. Int J Biol Macromol 2022; 209:1111-1123. [PMID: 35421413 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.04.048] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2021] [Revised: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 04/06/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
To better understand the molecular and structural basis underlying the interaction of vitamin D3 hydroxyderivatives with AhR, molecular simulation was used to probe the binding of 1,20(OH)2D3, 1,25(OH)2D3, 20,23(OH)2D3 and 20(OH)D3 to AhR. qPCR showed that vitamin D3 derivatives stimulate expression of cyp1A1 and cyp1B1 genes that are downstream targets of AhR signaling. These secosteroids stimulated the translocation of the AhR to the nucleus, as measured by flow cytometry and western blotting. Molecular dynamics simulations were used to model the binding of vitamin D3 derivatives to AhR to examine their influence on the structure, conformation and dynamics of the AhR ligand binding domain (LBD). Binding thermodynamics, conformation, secondary structure, dynamical motion and electrostatic potential of AhR were analyzed. The molecular docking scores and binding free energy were all favorable for the binding of D3 derivatives to the AhR. These established ligands and the D3 derivatives are predicted to have different patterns of hydrogen bond formation with the AhR, and varied residue conformational fluctuations and dynamical motion for the LBD. These changes could alter the shape, size and electrostatic potential distribution of the ligand binding pocket, contributing to the different binding affinities of AhR for the natural ligands and D3 derivatives.
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7
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Binding site identification of G protein-coupled receptors through a 3D Zernike polynomials-based method: application to C. elegans olfactory receptors. J Comput Aided Mol Des 2022; 36:11-24. [PMID: 34977999 PMCID: PMC8831295 DOI: 10.1007/s10822-021-00434-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2021] [Accepted: 11/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
Abstract
Studying the binding processes of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) proteins is of particular interest both to better understand the molecular mechanisms that regulate the signaling between the extracellular and intracellular environment and for drug design purposes. In this study, we propose a new computational approach for the identification of the binding site for a specific ligand on a GPCR. The method is based on the Zernike polynomials and performs the ligand-GPCR association through a shape complementarity analysis of the local molecular surfaces. The method is parameter-free and it can distinguish, working on hundreds of experimentally GPCR-ligand complexes, binding pockets from randomly sampled regions on the receptor surface, obtaining an Area Under ROC curve of 0.77. Given its importance both as a model organism and in terms of applications, we thus investigated the olfactory receptors of the C. elegans, building a list of associations between 21 GPCRs belonging to its olfactory neurons and a set of possible ligands. Thus, we can not only carry out rapid and efficient screenings of drugs proposed for GPCRs, key targets in many pathologies, but also we laid the groundwork for computational mutagenesis processes, aimed at increasing or decreasing the binding affinity between ligands and receptors.
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8
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Hosseinzadeh P, Watson PR, Craven TW, Li X, Rettie S, Pardo-Avila F, Bera AK, Mulligan VK, Lu P, Ford AS, Weitzner BD, Stewart LJ, Moyer AP, Di Piazza M, Whalen JG, Greisen PJ, Christianson DW, Baker D. Anchor extension: a structure-guided approach to design cyclic peptides targeting enzyme active sites. Nat Commun 2021; 12:3384. [PMID: 34099674 PMCID: PMC8185074 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23609-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2020] [Accepted: 05/04/2021] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite recent success in computational design of structured cyclic peptides, de novo design of cyclic peptides that bind to any protein functional site remains difficult. To address this challenge, we develop a computational "anchor extension" methodology for targeting protein interfaces by extending a peptide chain around a non-canonical amino acid residue anchor. To test our approach using a well characterized model system, we design cyclic peptides that inhibit histone deacetylases 2 and 6 (HDAC2 and HDAC6) with enhanced potency compared to the original anchor (IC50 values of 9.1 and 4.4 nM for the best binders compared to 5.4 and 0.6 µM for the anchor, respectively). The HDAC6 inhibitor is among the most potent reported so far. These results highlight the potential for de novo design of high-affinity protein-peptide interfaces, as well as the challenges that remain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Parisa Hosseinzadeh
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
- Knight Campus Center, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
| | - Paris R Watson
- Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Timothy W Craven
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Xinting Li
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Stephen Rettie
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
- Molecular and Cellular Biology Ph.D. Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Fátima Pardo-Avila
- Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Asim K Bera
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Vikram Khipple Mulligan
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
- Systems Biology, Center for Computational Biology, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA
| | - Peilong Lu
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
- Key Laboratory of Structural Biology of Zhejiang Province, School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
| | - Alexander S Ford
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Brian D Weitzner
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
- Lyell Immunopharma, Inc., Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Lance J Stewart
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Adam P Moyer
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
- Molecular Engineering Ph.D. Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Maddalena Di Piazza
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Joshua G Whalen
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Per Jr Greisen
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA
- Novo Nordisk A/S, Måløv, Denmark
| | - David W Christianson
- Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - David Baker
- University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Protein Design, Seattle, WA, USA.
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9
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Sperti M, Malavolta M, Ciniero G, Borrelli S, Cavaglià M, Muscat S, Tuszynski JA, Afeltra A, Margiotta DPE, Navarini L. JAK inhibitors in immune-mediated rheumatic diseases: From a molecular perspective to clinical studies. J Mol Graph Model 2021; 104:107789. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jmgm.2020.107789] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2020] [Revised: 09/21/2020] [Accepted: 10/20/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
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10
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Ricaurte-Contreras LA, Lovera A, Moreno-Pérez DA, Bohórquez MD, Suárez CF, Gutiérrez-Vásquez E, Cuy-Chaparro L, Garzón-Ospina D, Patarroyo MA. Two 20-Residue-Long Peptides Derived from Plasmodium vivax Merozoite Surface Protein 10 EGF-Like Domains Are Involved in Binding to Human Reticulocytes. Int J Mol Sci 2021; 22:ijms22041609. [PMID: 33562650 PMCID: PMC7915351 DOI: 10.3390/ijms22041609] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2020] [Revised: 01/21/2021] [Accepted: 02/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Plasmodium parasites’ invasion of their target cells is a complex, multi-step process involving many protein-protein interactions. Little is known about how complex the interaction with target cells is in Plasmodium vivax and few surface molecules related to reticulocytes’ adhesion have been described to date. Natural selection, functional and structural analysis were carried out on the previously described vaccine candidate P. vivax merozoite surface protein 10 (PvMSP10) for evaluating its role during initial contact with target cells. It has been shown here that the recombinant carboxyl terminal region (rPvMSP10-C) bound to adult human reticulocytes but not to normocytes, as validated by two different protein-cell interaction assays. Particularly interesting was the fact that two 20-residue-long regions (388DKEECRCRANYMPDDSVDYF407 and 415KDCSKENGNCDVNAECSIDK434) were able to inhibit rPvMSP10-C binding to reticulocytes and rosette formation using enriched target cells. These peptides were derived from PvMSP10 epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like domains (precisely, from a well-defined electrostatic zone) and consisted of regions having the potential of being B- or T-cell epitopes. These findings provide evidence, for the first time, about the fragments governing PvMSP10 binding to its target cells, thus highlighting the importance of studying them for inclusion in a P. vivax antimalarial vaccine.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Alejandra Ricaurte-Contreras
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
- MSc Programme in Microbiology, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 45#26-85, Bogotá 111321, Colombia
| | - Andrea Lovera
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
| | - Darwin Andrés Moreno-Pérez
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
| | - Michel David Bohórquez
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
| | - Carlos Fernando Suárez
- Biomathematics Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia;
| | - Elizabeth Gutiérrez-Vásquez
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
| | - Laura Cuy-Chaparro
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
| | - Diego Garzón-Ospina
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
| | - Manuel Alfonso Patarroyo
- Molecular Biology and Immunology Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia (FIDIC), Carrera 50#26-20, Bogotá 111321, Colombia; (L.A.R.-C.); (A.L.); (D.A.M.-P.); (M.D.B.); (E.G.-V.); (L.C.-C.); (D.G.-O.)
- Health Sciences Division, Main Campus, Universidad Santo Tomás, Carrera 9#51-11, Bogotá 110231, Colombia
- Microbiology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 45#26-85, Bogotá 111321, Colombia
- Correspondence:
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11
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Raschka S, Kaufman B. Machine learning and AI-based approaches for bioactive ligand discovery and GPCR-ligand recognition. Methods 2020; 180:89-110. [PMID: 32645448 PMCID: PMC8457393 DOI: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2020.06.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2020] [Revised: 06/23/2020] [Accepted: 06/23/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
In the last decade, machine learning and artificial intelligence applications have received a significant boost in performance and attention in both academic research and industry. The success behind most of the recent state-of-the-art methods can be attributed to the latest developments in deep learning. When applied to various scientific domains that are concerned with the processing of non-tabular data, for example, image or text, deep learning has been shown to outperform not only conventional machine learning but also highly specialized tools developed by domain experts. This review aims to summarize AI-based research for GPCR bioactive ligand discovery with a particular focus on the most recent achievements and research trends. To make this article accessible to a broad audience of computational scientists, we provide instructive explanations of the underlying methodology, including overviews of the most commonly used deep learning architectures and feature representations of molecular data. We highlight the latest AI-based research that has led to the successful discovery of GPCR bioactive ligands. However, an equal focus of this review is on the discussion of machine learning-based technology that has been applied to ligand discovery in general and has the potential to pave the way for successful GPCR bioactive ligand discovery in the future. This review concludes with a brief outlook highlighting the recent research trends in deep learning, such as active learning and semi-supervised learning, which have great potential for advancing bioactive ligand discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Raschka
- University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Statistics, United States.
| | - Benjamin Kaufman
- University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, United States
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12
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Kahler U, Kamenik AS, Waibl F, Kraml J, Liedl KR. Protein-Protein Binding as a Two-Step Mechanism: Preselection of Encounter Poses during the Binding of BPTI and Trypsin. Biophys J 2020; 119:652-666. [PMID: 32697976 PMCID: PMC7399559 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2020.06.032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2020] [Revised: 06/16/2020] [Accepted: 06/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Biomolecular recognition between proteins follows complex mechanisms, the understanding of which can substantially advance drug discovery efforts. Here, we track each step of the binding process in atomistic detail with molecular dynamics simulations using trypsin and its inhibitor bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) as a model system. We use umbrella sampling to cover a range of unbinding pathways. Starting from these simulations, we subsequently seed classical simulations at different stages of the process and combine them to a Markov state model. We clearly identify three kinetically separated states (an unbound state, an encounter state, and the final complex) and describe the mechanisms that dominate the binding process. From our model, we propose the following sequence of events. The initial formation of the encounter complex is driven by long-range interactions because opposite charges in trypsin and BPTI draw them together. The encounter complex features the prealigned binding partners with binding sites still partially surrounded by solvation shells. Further approaching leads to desolvation and increases the importance of van der Waals interactions. The native binding pose is adopted by maximizing short-range interactions. Thereby side-chain rearrangements ensure optimal shape complementarity. In particular, BPTI’s P1 residue adapts to the S1 pocket and prime site residues reorient to optimize interactions. After the paradigm of conformation selection, binding-competent conformations of BPTI and trypsin are already present in the apo ensembles and their probabilities increase during this proposed two-step association process. This detailed characterization of the molecular forces driving the binding process includes numerous aspects that have been discussed as central to the binding of trypsin and BPTI and protein complex formation in general. In this study, we combine all these aspects into one comprehensive model of protein recognition. We thereby contribute to enhance our general understanding of this fundamental mechanism, which is particularly critical as the development of biopharmaceuticals continuously gains significance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ursula Kahler
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Anna S Kamenik
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Franz Waibl
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Johannes Kraml
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Klaus R Liedl
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
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13
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Dokholyan NV. Experimentally-driven protein structure modeling. J Proteomics 2020; 220:103777. [PMID: 32268219 PMCID: PMC7214187 DOI: 10.1016/j.jprot.2020.103777] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2019] [Revised: 03/17/2020] [Accepted: 04/02/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Revolutions in natural and exact sciences started at the dawn of last century have led to the explosion of theoretical, experimental, and computational approaches to determine structures of molecules, complexes, as well as their rich conformational dynamics. Since different experimental methods produce information that is attributed to specific time and length scales, corresponding computational methods have to be tailored to these scales and experiments. These methods can be then combined and integrated in scales, hence producing a fuller picture of molecular structure and motion from the "puzzle pieces" offered by various experiments. Here, we describe a number of computational approaches to utilize experimental data to glance into structure of proteins and understand their dynamics. We will also discuss the limitations and the resolution of the constraints-based modeling approaches. SIGNIFICANCE: Experimentally-driven computational structure modeling and determination is a rapidly evolving alternative to traditional approaches for molecular structure determination. These new hybrid experimental-computational approaches are proving to be a powerful microscope to glance into the structural features of intrinsically or partially disordered proteins, dynamics of molecules and complexes. In this review, we describe various approaches in the field of experimentally-driven computational structure modeling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nikolay V Dokholyan
- Department of Pharmacology, Penn State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA 17033, USA; Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA 17033, USA.; Department of Chemistry, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
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14
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Zheng L, Fan J, Mu Y. OnionNet: a Multiple-Layer Intermolecular-Contact-Based Convolutional Neural Network for Protein-Ligand Binding Affinity Prediction. ACS OMEGA 2019; 4:15956-15965. [PMID: 31592466 PMCID: PMC6776976 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01997] [Citation(s) in RCA: 146] [Impact Index Per Article: 29.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2019] [Accepted: 09/06/2019] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
Computational drug discovery provides an efficient tool for helping large-scale lead molecule screening. One of the major tasks of lead discovery is identifying molecules with promising binding affinities toward a target, a protein in general. The accuracies of current scoring functions that are used to predict the binding affinity are not satisfactory enough. Thus, machine learning or deep learning based methods have been developed recently to improve the scoring functions. In this study, a deep convolutional neural network model (called OnionNet) is introduced; its features are based on rotation-free element-pair-specific contacts between ligands and protein atoms, and the contacts are further grouped into different distance ranges to cover both the local and nonlocal interaction information between the ligand and the protein. The prediction power of the model is evaluated and compared with other scoring functions using the comparative assessment of scoring functions (CASF-2013) benchmark and the v2016 core set of the PDBbind database. The robustness of the model is further explored by predicting the binding affinities of the complexes generated from docking simulations instead of experimentally determined PDB structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liangzhen Zheng
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637551, Singapore
| | - Jingrong Fan
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637551, Singapore
| | - Yuguang Mu
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637551, Singapore
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15
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Rotamer Dynamics: Analysis of Rotamers in Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Proteins. Biophys J 2019; 116:2062-2072. [PMID: 31084902 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2019.04.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/08/2019] [Revised: 03/28/2019] [Accepted: 04/16/2019] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Given by χ torsional angles, rotamers describe the side-chain conformations of amino acid residues in a protein based on the rotational isomers (hence the word rotamer). Constructed rotamer libraries, based on either protein crystal structures or dynamics studies, are the tools for classifying rotamers (torsional angles) in a way that reflect their frequency in nature. Rotamer libraries are routinely used in structure modeling and evaluation. In this perspective article, we would like to encourage researchers to apply rotamer analyses beyond their traditional use. Molecular dynamics (MD) of proteins highlight the in silico behavior of molecules in solution and thus can identify favorable side-chain conformations. In this article, we used simple computational tools to study rotamer dynamics (RD) in MD simulations. First, we isolated each frame in the MD trajectories in separate Protein Data Bank files via the cpptraj module in AMBER. Then, we extracted torsional angles via the Bio3D module in R language. The classification of torsional angles was also done in R according to the penultimate rotamer library. RD analysis is useful for various applications such as protein folding, study of rotamer-rotamer relationship in protein-protein interaction, real-time correlation between secondary structures and rotamers, study of flexibility of side chains in binding site for molecular docking preparations, use of RD as guide in functional analysis and study of structural changes caused by mutations, providing parameters for improving coarse-grained MD accuracy and speed, and many others. Major challenges facing RD to emerge as a new scientific field involve the validation of results via easy, inexpensive wet-lab methods. This realm is yet to be explored.
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16
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Wang J, Dokholyan NV. MedusaDock 2.0: Efficient and Accurate Protein-Ligand Docking With Constraints. J Chem Inf Model 2019; 59:2509-2515. [PMID: 30946779 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.8b00905] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Molecular docking is the key ingredient of virtual drug screening, a promising and cost-effective approach for finding new drugs. A critical limitation of this approach is the inadequate sampling efficiency of both ligand and/or receptor conformations for finding the lowest energy bound state. To circumvent this limitation, we develop a protein-ligand docking methodology capable of incorporating structural constraints, experimentally derived or theoretically predicted, to improve accuracy and efficiency. We develop a web server with a user-friendly online graphical interface as a platform for accurate and efficient protein-ligand molecule docking.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jian Wang
- Department of Pharmacology , Penn State University College of Medicine , Hershey , Pennsylvania 17033 , United States
| | - Nikolay V Dokholyan
- Department of Pharmacology , Penn State University College of Medicine , Hershey , Pennsylvania 17033 , United States.,Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology , Penn State University College of Medicine , Hershey , Pennsylvania 17033 , United States
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17
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Mutagenesis of DsbAss is Crucial for the Signal Recognition Particle Mechanism in Escherichia coli: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations. Biomolecules 2019; 9:biom9040133. [PMID: 30987187 PMCID: PMC6523802 DOI: 10.3390/biom9040133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2019] [Revised: 03/17/2019] [Accepted: 03/20/2019] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
The disulfide bond signal sequence (DsbAss) protein is characterized as an important virulence factor in gram-negative bacteria. This study aimed to analyze the "alanine" alteration in the hydrophobic (H) region of DsbAss and to understand the conformational DsbAss alteration(s) inside the fifty-four homolog (Ffh)-binding groove which were revealed to be crucial for translocation of ovine growth hormone (OGH) to the periplasmic space in Escherichia coli via the secretory (Sec) pathway. An experimental design was used to explore the hydrophobicity and alteration of alanine (Ala) to isoleucine (Ile) in the tripartite structure of DsbAss. As a result, two DsbAss mutants (Ala at positions -11 and -13) with same hydrophobicity of 1.539 led to the conflicting translocation of the active OGH gene. We performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and molecular mechanics generalized born surface area (MM-GBSA) binding free energy calculations to examine the interaction energetic and dynamic aspects of DsbAss/signal repetition particle 54 (SRP54) binding, which has a principle role in Escherichia coli Sec pathways. Although both DsbAss mutants retained helicity, the MD simulation analysis evidenced that altering Ala-13 changed the orientation of the signal peptide in the Ffh M binding domain groove, favored more stable interaction energies (MM-GBSA ΔGtotal = -140.62 kcal mol-1), and hampered the process of OGH translocation, while Ala-11 pointed outward due to unstable conformation and less binding energy (ΔGtotal = -124.24 kcal mol-1). Here we report the dynamic behavior of change of "alanine" in the H-domain of DsbAss which affects the process of translocation of OGH, where MD simulation and MM-GBSA can be useful initial tools to investigate the virulence of bacteria.
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18
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Computational design of chemogenetic and optogenetic split proteins. Nat Commun 2018; 9:4042. [PMID: 30279442 PMCID: PMC6168510 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06531-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 61] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2018] [Accepted: 09/10/2018] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Controlling protein activity with chemogenetics and optogenetics has proven to be powerful for testing hypotheses regarding protein function in rapid biological processes. Controlling proteins by splitting them and then rescuing their activity through inducible reassembly offers great potential to control diverse protein activities. Building split proteins has been difficult due to spontaneous assembly, difficulty in identifying appropriate split sites, and inefficient induction of effective reassembly. Here we present an automated approach to design effective split proteins regulated by a ligand or by light (SPELL). We develop a scoring function together with an engineered domain to enable reassembly of protein halves with high efficiency and with reduced spontaneous assembly. We demonstrate SPELL by applying it to proteins of various shapes and sizes in living cells. The SPELL server (spell.dokhlab.org) offers an automated prediction of split sites. Designing split protein approaches is time consuming and often results in high background activity due to spontaneous assembly. Here the authors present an automated approach which uses a split energy scoring function to identify optimal protein split sites and reduces spontaneous assembly.
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19
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Porter KA, Xia B, Beglov D, Bohnuud T, Alam N, Schueler-Furman O, Kozakov D. ClusPro PeptiDock: efficient global docking of peptide recognition motifs using FFT. Bioinformatics 2018; 33:3299-3301. [PMID: 28430871 PMCID: PMC5860028 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btx216] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2016] [Accepted: 04/14/2017] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Summary We present an approach for the efficient docking of peptide motifs to their free receptor structures. Using a motif based search, we can retrieve structural fragments from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) that are very similar to the peptide’s final, bound conformation. We use a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) based docking method to quickly perform global rigid body docking of these fragments to the receptor. According to CAPRI peptide docking criteria, an acceptable conformation can often be found among the top-ranking predictions. Availability and Implementation The method is available as part of the protein-protein docking server ClusPro at https://peptidock.cluspro.org/nousername.php. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn A Porter
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Bing Xia
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Dmitri Beglov
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Tanggis Bohnuud
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Nawsad Alam
- Department of Microbiology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91120, Israel
| | | | - Dima Kozakov
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics.,Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
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20
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Waldner BJ, Kraml J, Kahler U, Spinn A, Schauperl M, Podewitz M, Fuchs JE, Cruciani G, Liedl KR. Electrostatic recognition in substrate binding to serine proteases. J Mol Recognit 2018; 31:e2727. [PMID: 29785722 PMCID: PMC6175425 DOI: 10.1002/jmr.2727] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2017] [Revised: 04/11/2018] [Accepted: 04/11/2018] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
Serine proteases of the Chymotrypsin family are structurally very similar but have very different substrate preferences. This study investigates a set of 9 different proteases of this family comprising proteases that prefer substrates containing positively charged amino acids, negatively charged amino acids, and uncharged amino acids with varying degree of specificity. Here, we show that differences in electrostatic substrate preferences can be predicted reliably by electrostatic molecular interaction fields employing customized GRID probes. Thus, we are able to directly link protease structures to their electrostatic substrate preferences. Additionally, we present a new metric that measures similarities in substrate preferences focusing only on electrostatics. It efficiently compares these electrostatic substrate preferences between different proteases. This new metric can be interpreted as the electrostatic part of our previously developed substrate similarity metric. Consequently, we suggest, that substrate recognition in terms of electrostatics and shape complementarity are rather orthogonal aspects of substrate recognition. This is in line with a 2‐step mechanism of protein‐protein recognition suggested in the literature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Birgit J Waldner
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Johannes Kraml
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Ursula Kahler
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Alexander Spinn
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Michael Schauperl
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Maren Podewitz
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Julian E Fuchs
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
| | - Gabriele Cruciani
- Laboratory of Chemometrics, Department of Chemistry, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
| | - Klaus R Liedl
- Institute of General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, and Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
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21
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Abstract
During the last two decades, the pharmaceutical industry has progressed from detecting small molecules to designing biologic-based therapeutics. Amino acid-based drugs are a group of biologic-based therapeutics that can effectively combat the diseases caused by drug resistance or molecular deficiency. Computational techniques play a key role to design and develop the amino acid-based therapeutics such as proteins, peptides and peptidomimetics. In this study, it was attempted to discuss the various elements for computational design of amino acid-based therapeutics. Protein design seeks to identify the properties of amino acid sequences that fold to predetermined structures with desirable structural and functional characteristics. Peptide drugs occupy a middle space between proteins and small molecules and it is hoped that they can target "undruggable" intracellular protein-protein interactions. Peptidomimetics, the compounds that mimic the biologic characteristics of peptides, present refined pharmacokinetic properties compared to the original peptides. Here, the elaborated techniques that are developed to characterize the amino acid sequences consistent with a specific structure and allow protein design are discussed. Moreover, the key principles and recent advances in currently introduced computational techniques for rational peptide design are spotlighted. The most advanced computational techniques developed to design novel peptidomimetics are also summarized.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tayebeh Farhadi
- Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center (CRDRC), National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Seyed MohammadReza Hashemian
- Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center (CRDRC), National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
- Clinical Tuberculosis and Epidemiology Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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22
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Setiawan D, Brender J, Zhang Y. Recent advances in automated protein design and its future challenges. Expert Opin Drug Discov 2018; 13:587-604. [PMID: 29695210 DOI: 10.1080/17460441.2018.1465922] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Protein function is determined by protein structure which is in turn determined by the corresponding protein sequence. If the rules that cause a protein to adopt a particular structure are understood, it should be possible to refine or even redefine the function of a protein by working backwards from the desired structure to the sequence. Automated protein design attempts to calculate the effects of mutations computationally with the goal of more radical or complex transformations than are accessible by experimental techniques. Areas covered: The authors give a brief overview of the recent methodological advances in computer-aided protein design, showing how methodological choices affect final design and how automated protein design can be used to address problems considered beyond traditional protein engineering, including the creation of novel protein scaffolds for drug development. Also, the authors address specifically the future challenges in the development of automated protein design. Expert opinion: Automated protein design holds potential as a protein engineering technique, particularly in cases where screening by combinatorial mutagenesis is problematic. Considering solubility and immunogenicity issues, automated protein design is initially more likely to make an impact as a research tool for exploring basic biology in drug discovery than in the design of protein biologics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dani Setiawan
- a Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , MI , USA
| | - Jeffrey Brender
- b Radiation Biology Branch , Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute - NIH , Bethesda , MD , USA
| | - Yang Zhang
- a Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , MI , USA.,c Department of Biological Chemistry , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , MI , USA
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23
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Peptide Derivatives of Erythropoietin in the Treatment of Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration. THERAPEUTIC PROTEINS AND PEPTIDES 2018; 112:309-357. [DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2018.01.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
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24
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Curtidor H, Reyes C, Bermúdez A, Vanegas M, Varela Y, Patarroyo ME. Conserved Binding Regions Provide the Clue for Peptide-Based Vaccine Development: A Chemical Perspective. Molecules 2017; 22:molecules22122199. [PMID: 29231862 PMCID: PMC6149789 DOI: 10.3390/molecules22122199] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2017] [Revised: 11/24/2017] [Accepted: 11/27/2017] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Synthetic peptides have become invaluable biomedical research and medicinal chemistry tools for studying functional roles, i.e., binding or proteolytic activity, naturally-occurring regions’ immunogenicity in proteins and developing therapeutic agents and vaccines. Synthetic peptides can mimic protein sites; their structure and function can be easily modulated by specific amino acid replacement. They have major advantages, i.e., they are cheap, easily-produced and chemically stable, lack infectious and secondary adverse reactions and can induce immune responses via T- and B-cell epitopes. Our group has previously shown that using synthetic peptides and adopting a functional approach has led to identifying Plasmodium falciparumconserved regions binding to host cells. Conserved high activity binding peptides’ (cHABPs) physicochemical, structural and immunological characteristics have been taken into account for properly modifying and converting them into highly immunogenic, protection-inducing peptides (mHABPs) in the experimental Aotus monkey model. This article describes stereo–electron and topochemical characteristics regarding major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-mHABP-T-cell receptor (TCR) complex formation. Some mHABPs in this complex inducing long-lasting, protective immunity have been named immune protection-inducing protein structures (IMPIPS), forming the subunit components in chemically synthesized vaccines. This manuscript summarizes this particular field and adds our recent findings concerning intramolecular interactions (H-bonds or π-interactions) enabling proper IMPIPS structure as well as the peripheral flanking residues (PFR) to stabilize the MHCII-IMPIPS-TCR interaction, aimed at inducing long-lasting, protective immunological memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hernando Curtidor
- Colombian Institute of Immunology Foundation (FIDIC Nonprofit-Making Organisation), Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
- School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rosario, Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
| | - César Reyes
- Colombian Institute of Immunology Foundation (FIDIC Nonprofit-Making Organisation), Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
| | - Adriana Bermúdez
- Colombian Institute of Immunology Foundation (FIDIC Nonprofit-Making Organisation), Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
- School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rosario, Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
| | - Magnolia Vanegas
- Colombian Institute of Immunology Foundation (FIDIC Nonprofit-Making Organisation), Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
- School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rosario, Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
| | - Yahson Varela
- Colombian Institute of Immunology Foundation (FIDIC Nonprofit-Making Organisation), Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
- Faculty of Health Sciences, Applied and Environmental Sciences University (UDCA), Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
| | - Manuel E Patarroyo
- Colombian Institute of Immunology Foundation (FIDIC Nonprofit-Making Organisation), Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
- Faculty of Medicine, National University of Colombia, Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
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25
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Krüger DM, Glas A, Bier D, Pospiech N, Wallraven K, Dietrich L, Ottmann C, Koch O, Hennig S, Grossmann TN. Structure-Based Design of Non-natural Macrocyclic Peptides That Inhibit Protein-Protein Interactions. J Med Chem 2017; 60:8982-8988. [PMID: 29028171 PMCID: PMC5682607 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b01221] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
![]()
Macrocyclic
peptides can interfere with challenging biomolecular
targets including protein–protein interactions. Whereas there
are various approaches that facilitate the identification of peptide-derived
ligands, their evolution into higher affinity binders remains a major
hurdle. We report a virtual screen based on molecular docking that
allows the affinity maturation of macrocyclic peptides taking non-natural
amino acids into consideration. These macrocycles bear large and flexible
substituents that usually complicate the use of docking approaches.
A virtual library containing more than 1400 structures was screened
against the target focusing on docking poses with the core structure
resembling a known bioactive conformation. Based on this screen, a
macrocyclic peptide 22 involving two non-natural amino
acids was evolved showing increased target affinity and biological
activity. Predicted binding modes were verified by X-ray crystallography.
The presented workflow allows the screening of large macrocyclic peptides
with diverse modifications thereby expanding the accessible chemical
space and reducing synthetic efforts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dennis M Krüger
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.,Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, TU Dortmund University , Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
| | - Adrian Glas
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.,Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, TU Dortmund University , Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
| | - David Bier
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.,Department of Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen , Universitätstr. 7, 45141 Essen, Germany
| | - Nicole Pospiech
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
| | - Kerstin Wallraven
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
| | - Laura Dietrich
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.,Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, TU Dortmund University , Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
| | - Christian Ottmann
- Department of Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen , Universitätstr. 7, 45141 Essen, Germany.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute of Complex Molecular Systems, Eindhoven University of Technology , Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands
| | - Oliver Koch
- Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, TU Dortmund University , Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
| | - Sven Hennig
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.,Department of Chemistry & Pharmaceutical Sciences, VU University Amsterdam , De Boelelaan 1083, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Tom N Grossmann
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society , Otto-Hahn-Str. 15, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.,Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, TU Dortmund University , Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany.,Department of Chemistry & Pharmaceutical Sciences, VU University Amsterdam , De Boelelaan 1083, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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26
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Dagliyan O, Karginov AV, Yagishita S, Gale ME, Wang H, DerMardirossian C, Wells CM, Dokholyan NV, Kasai H, Hahn KM. Engineering Pak1 Allosteric Switches. ACS Synth Biol 2017; 6:1257-1262. [PMID: 28365983 DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.6b00359] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
P21-activated kinases (PAKs) are important regulators of cell motility and morphology. It has been challenging to interrogate their functions because cells adapt to genetic manipulation of PAK, and because inhibitors act on multiple PAK isoforms. Here we describe genetically encoded PAK1 analogues that can be selectively activated by the membrane-permeable small molecule rapamycin. An engineered domain inserted away from the active site responds to rapamycin to allosterically control activity of the PAK1 isoform. To examine the mechanism of rapamycin-induced PAK1 activation, we used molecular dynamics with graph theory to predict amino acids involved in allosteric communication with the active site. This analysis revealed allosteric pathways that were exploited to generate kinase switches. Activation of PAK1 resulted in transient cell spreading in metastatic breast cancer cells, and long-term dendritic spine enlargement in mouse hippocampal CA1 neurons.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Andrei V. Karginov
- Department
of Pharmacology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago Illinois 60612, United States
| | - Sho Yagishita
- Center
for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Bunko-ku,
Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
| | - Madeline E. Gale
- Division
of Cancer Studies, King’s College London, London SE1 1UL, England, U.K
| | | | - Celine DerMardirossian
- Department
of Cell and Molecular Biology, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California 92037, United States
| | - Claire M. Wells
- Division
of Cancer Studies, King’s College London, London SE1 1UL, England, U.K
| | | | - Haruo Kasai
- Center
for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Bunko-ku,
Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
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27
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Amir-Hassan A, Lee VS, Baharuddin A, Othman S, Xu Y, Huang M, Yusof R, Rahman NA, Othman R. Conformational and energy evaluations of novel peptides binding to dengue virus envelope protein. J Mol Graph Model 2017; 74:273-287. [PMID: 28458006 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmgm.2017.03.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2017] [Revised: 03/15/2017] [Accepted: 03/16/2017] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Effective novel peptide inhibitors which targeted the domain III of the dengue envelope (E) protein by blocking dengue virus (DENV) entry into target cells, were identified. The binding affinities of these peptides towards E-protein were evaluated by using a combination of docking and explicit solvent molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods. The interactions of these complexes were further investigated by using the Molecular Mechanics-Poisson Boltzmann Surface Area (MMPBSA) and Molecular Mechanics Generalized Born Surface Area (MMGBSA) methods. Free energy calculations of the peptides interacting with the E-protein demonstrated that van der Waals (vdW) and electrostatic interactions were the main driving forces stabilizing the complexes. Interestingly, calculated binding free energies showed good agreement with the experimental dissociation constant (Kd) values. Our results also demonstrated that specific residues might play a crucial role in the effective binding interactions. Thus, this study has demonstrated that a combination of docking and molecular dynamics simulations can accelerate the identification process of peptides as potential inhibitors of dengue virus entry into host cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Asfarina Amir-Hassan
- Drug Design & Development Research Group, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
| | - Vannajan Sanghiran Lee
- Drug Design & Development Research Group, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
| | - Aida Baharuddin
- Drug Design & Development Research Group, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
| | - Shatrah Othman
- Drug Design & Development Research Group, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
| | - Yongtao Xu
- School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom; School of Biomedical Engineering, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, Henan 453003, China
| | - Meilan Huang
- School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
| | - Rohana Yusof
- Drug Design & Development Research Group, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
| | - Noorsaadah Abd Rahman
- Drug Design & Development Research Group, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
| | - Rozana Othman
- Drug Design & Development Research Group, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Centre for Natural Product Research and Drug Discovery, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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28
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Peterson LX, Roy A, Christoffer C, Terashi G, Kihara D. Modeling disordered protein interactions from biophysical principles. PLoS Comput Biol 2017; 13:e1005485. [PMID: 28394890 PMCID: PMC5402988 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005485] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2016] [Revised: 04/24/2017] [Accepted: 03/29/2017] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Disordered protein-protein interactions (PPIs), those involving a folded protein and an intrinsically disordered protein (IDP), are prevalent in the cell, including important signaling and regulatory pathways. IDPs do not adopt a single dominant structure in isolation but often become ordered upon binding. To aid understanding of the molecular mechanisms of disordered PPIs, it is crucial to obtain the tertiary structure of the PPIs. However, experimental methods have difficulty in solving disordered PPIs and existing protein-protein and protein-peptide docking methods are not able to model them. Here we present a novel computational method, IDP-LZerD, which models the conformation of a disordered PPI by considering the biophysical binding mechanism of an IDP to a structured protein, whereby a local segment of the IDP initiates the interaction and subsequently the remaining IDP regions explore and coalesce around the initial binding site. On a dataset of 22 disordered PPIs with IDPs up to 69 amino acids, successful predictions were made for 21 bound and 18 unbound receptors. The successful modeling provides additional support for biophysical principles. Moreover, the new technique significantly expands the capability of protein structure modeling and provides crucial insights into the molecular mechanisms of disordered PPIs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lenna X. Peterson
- Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
| | - Amitava Roy
- Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biosciences Branch, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, Montana, United States of America
| | - Charles Christoffer
- Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
| | - Genki Terashi
- Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
- School of Pharmacy, Kitasato University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Daisuke Kihara
- Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
- Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
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29
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Salmaso V, Sturlese M, Cuzzolin A, Moro S. Exploring Protein-Peptide Recognition Pathways Using a Supervised Molecular Dynamics Approach. Structure 2017; 25:655-662.e2. [DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2017.02.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2016] [Revised: 01/26/2017] [Accepted: 02/22/2017] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
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30
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Tuusa J, Raasakka A, Ruskamo S, Kursula P. Myelin-derived and putative molecular mimic peptides share structural properties in aqueous and membrane-like environments. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2017. [DOI: 10.1186/s40893-017-0021-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
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31
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Application of the ATTRACT Coarse-Grained Docking and Atomistic Refinement for Predicting Peptide-Protein Interactions. Methods Mol Biol 2017. [PMID: 28236233 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-6798-8_5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register]
Abstract
Peptide-protein interactions are abundant in the cell and form an important part of the interactome. Large-scale modeling of peptide-protein complexes requires a fully blind approach; i.e., simultaneously predicting the peptide-binding site and the peptide conformation to high accuracy. Here, we present one of the first fully blind peptide-protein docking protocols, pepATTRACT. It combines a coarse-grained ensemble docking search of the entire protein surface with two stages of atomistic flexible refinement. pepATTRACT yields high-quality predictions for 70 % of the cases when tested on a large benchmark of peptide-protein complexes. This performance in fully blind mode is similar to state-of-the-art local docking approaches that use information on the location of the binding site. Limiting the search to the peptide-binding region, the resulting pepATTRACT-local approach further improves the performance. Docking scripts for pepATTRACT and pepATTRACT-local can be generated via a web interface at www.attract.ph.tum.de/peptide.html . Here, we explain how to set up a docking run with the pepATTRACT web interface and demonstrate its usage by an application on binding of disordered regions from tumor suppressor p53 to a partner protein.
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32
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Wang B, Blin T, Käkinen A, Ge X, Pilkington EH, Quinn JF, Whittaker MR, Davis TP, Ke PC, Ding F. Brushed polyethylene glycol and phosphorylcholine for grafting nanoparticles against protein binding. Polym Chem 2016; 7:6875-6879. [PMID: 28348639 PMCID: PMC5365087 DOI: 10.1039/c6py01480a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
To provide a molecular insight for guiding polymer coating in surface science and nanotechnology, here we examined the structures of brushed polyethylene glycol(bPEG)- and phosphorylcholine(bPC)-grafted iron oxide nanoparticles and analyzed their protein avoiding properties. We show bPC as an advantageous biomimetic alternative to PEG in rendering stealth nanostructures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bo Wang
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
| | - Thomas Blin
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
| | - Aleksandr Käkinen
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
| | - Xinwei Ge
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
| | - Emily H. Pilkington
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
| | - John F. Quinn
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
| | - Michael R. Whittaker
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
| | - Thomas P. Davis
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
- Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom
| | - Pu Chun Ke
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
| | - Feng Ding
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
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33
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Yan C, Xu X, Zou X. Fully Blind Docking at the Atomic Level for Protein-Peptide Complex Structure Prediction. Structure 2016; 24:1842-1853. [PMID: 27642160 DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2016.07.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2016] [Revised: 07/13/2016] [Accepted: 07/29/2016] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
Protein-peptide interactions play an important role in many cellular processes. In silico prediction of protein-peptide complex structure is highly desirable for mechanistic investigation of these processes and for therapeutic design. However, predicting all-atom structures of protein-peptide complexes without any knowledge about the peptide binding site and the bound peptide conformation remains a big challenge. Here, we present a docking-based method for predicting protein-peptide complex structures, referred to as MDockPeP, which starts with the peptide sequence and globally docks the all-atom, flexible peptide onto the protein structure. MDockPeP was tested on the peptiDB benchmarking database using both bound and unbound protein structures. The results show that MDockPeP successfully generated near-native peptide binding modes in 95.0% of the bound docking cases and in 92.2% of the unbound docking cases. The performance is significantly better than other existing docking methods. MDockPeP is computationally efficient and suitable for large-scale applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chengfei Yan
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Informatics Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
| | - Xianjin Xu
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Informatics Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
| | - Xiaoqin Zou
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Informatics Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
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34
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Kilburg D, Gallicchio E. Recent Advances in Computational Models for the Study of Protein-Peptide Interactions. ADVANCES IN PROTEIN CHEMISTRY AND STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY 2016; 105:27-57. [PMID: 27567483 DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2016.06.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
We review computational models and software tools in current use for the study of protein-peptide interactions. Peptides and peptide derivatives are growing in interest as therapeutic agents to target protein-protein interactions. Protein-protein interactions are pervasive in biological systems and are responsible for the regulation of critical functions within the cell. Mutations or dysregulation of expression can alter the network of interactions among proteins and cause diseases such as cancer. Protein-protein binding interfaces, which are often large, shallow, and relatively feature-less, are difficult to target with small-molecule inhibitors. Peptide derivatives based on the binding motifs present in the target protein complex are increasingly drawing interest as superior alternatives to conventional small-molecule inhibitors. However, the design of peptide-based inhibitors also presents novel challenges. Peptides are more complex and more flexible than standard medicinal compounds. They also tend to form more extended and more complex interactions with their protein targets. Computational modeling is increasingly being employed to supplement synthetic and biochemical work to offer guidance and energetic and structural insights. In this review, we discuss recent in silico structure-based and physics-based approaches currently employed to model protein-peptide interactions with a few examples of their applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- D Kilburg
- Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY, United States; The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, United States
| | - E Gallicchio
- Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY, United States; The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, United States.
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35
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Molecular basis and quantitative assessment of TRF1 and TRF2 protein interactions with TIN2 and Apollo peptides. EUROPEAN BIOPHYSICS JOURNAL: EBJ 2016; 46:171-187. [DOI: 10.1007/s00249-016-1157-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2016] [Revised: 06/30/2016] [Accepted: 07/09/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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36
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Dickson A, Ahlstrom LS, Brooks CL. Coupled folding and binding with 2D Window-Exchange Umbrella Sampling. J Comput Chem 2016; 37:587-94. [PMID: 26250657 PMCID: PMC4744578 DOI: 10.1002/jcc.24004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2015] [Revised: 05/18/2015] [Accepted: 05/27/2015] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Intrinsically disordered regions of proteins can gain structure by binding to a partner. This process, of coupled folding and binding (CFaB), is a fundamental part of many important biological processes. Structure-based models have proven themselves capable of revealing fundamental aspects of how CFaB occurs, however, typical methods to enhance the sampling of these transitions, such as replica exchange, do not adequately sample the transition state region of this extremely rare process. Here, we use a variant of Umbrella Sampling to enforce sampling of the transition states of CFaB of HdeA monomers at neutral pH, an extremely rare process that occurs over timescales ranging from seconds to hours. Using high resolution sampling in the transition state region, we cluster states along the principal transition path to obtain a detailed description of coupled binding and folding for the HdeA dimer, revealing new insight into the ensemble of states that are accessible to client recognition. We then demonstrate that exchanges between umbrella sampling windows, as done in previous work, significantly improve relaxation in variables orthogonal to the restraints used. Altogether, these results show that Window-Exchange Umbrella Sampling is a promising approach for systems that exhibit flexible binding, and can reveal transition state ensembles of these systems in high detail. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex Dickson
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
| | - Logan S. Ahlstrom
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
| | - Charles L. Brooks
- Biophysics Program, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 and Department of Chemistry, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
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37
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Abstract
Allosteric transition, defined as conformational changes induced by ligand binding, is one of the fundamental properties of proteins. Allostery has been observed and characterized in many proteins, and has been recently utilized to control protein function via regulation of protein activity. Here, we review the physical and evolutionary origin of protein allostery, as well as its importance to protein regulation, drug discovery, and biological processes in living systems. We describe recently developed approaches to identify allosteric pathways, connected sets of pairwise interactions that are responsible for propagation of conformational change from the ligand-binding site to a distal functional site. We then present experimental and computational protein engineering approaches for control of protein function by modulation of allosteric sites. As an example of application of these approaches, we describe a synergistic computational and experimental approach to rescue the cystic-fibrosis-associated protein cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator, which upon deletion of a single residue misfolds and causes disease. This example demonstrates the power of allosteric manipulation in proteins to both elucidate mechanisms of molecular function and to develop therapeutic strategies that rescue those functions. Allosteric control of proteins provides a tool to shine a light on the complex cascades of cellular processes and facilitate unprecedented interrogation of biological systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nikolay V Dokholyan
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
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38
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Allen SE, Dokholyan NV, Bowers AA. Dynamic Docking of Conformationally Constrained Macrocycles: Methods and Applications. ACS Chem Biol 2016; 11:10-24. [PMID: 26575401 DOI: 10.1021/acschembio.5b00663] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
Many natural products consist of large and flexible macrocycles that engage their targets via multiple contact points. This combination of contained flexibility and large contact area often allows natural products to bind at target surfaces rather than deep pockets, making them attractive scaffolds for inhibiting protein-protein interactions and other challenging therapeutic targets. The increasing ability to manipulate such compounds either biosynthetically or via semisynthetic modification means that these compounds can now be considered as starting points for medchem campaigns rather than solely as ends. Modern medchem benefits substantially from rational improvements made on the basis of molecular docking. As such, docking methods have been enhanced in recent years to deal with the complicated binding modalities and flexible scaffolds of macrocyclic natural products and natural product-like structures. Here, we comprehensively review methods for treating and docking these large macrocyclic scaffolds and discuss some of the resulting advances in medicinal chemistry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Scott E. Allen
- Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and ‡Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Nikolay V. Dokholyan
- Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and ‡Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Albert A. Bowers
- Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and ‡Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
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39
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Szöllősi D, Erdei Á, Gyimesi G, Magyar C, Hegedűs T. Access Path to the Ligand Binding Pocket May Play a Role in Xenobiotics Selection by AhR. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0146066. [PMID: 26727491 PMCID: PMC4699818 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146066] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2015] [Accepted: 12/11/2015] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding of multidrug binding at the atomic level would facilitate drug design and strategies to modulate drug metabolism, including drug transport, oxidation, and conjugation. Therefore we explored the mechanism of promiscuous binding of small molecules by studying the ligand binding domain, the PAS-B domain of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). Because of the low sequence identities of PAS domains to be used for homology modeling, structural features of the widely employed HIF-2α and a more recent suitable template, CLOCK were compared. These structures were used to build AhR PAS-B homology models. We performed molecular dynamics simulations to characterize dynamic properties of the PAS-B domain and the generated conformational ensembles were employed in in silico docking. In order to understand structural and ligand binding features we compared the stability and dynamics of the promiscuous AhR PAS-B to other PAS domains exhibiting specific interactions or no ligand binding function. Our exhaustive in silico binding studies, in which we dock a wide spectrum of ligand molecules to the conformational ensembles, suggest that ligand specificity and selection may be determined not only by the PAS-B domain itself, but also by other parts of AhR and its protein interacting partners. We propose that ligand binding pocket and access channels leading to the pocket play equally important roles in discrimination of endogenous molecules and xenobiotics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dániel Szöllősi
- MTA-SE Molecular Biophysics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1094, Hungary
- Department of Biophysics and Radiation Biology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, 1094, Hungary
| | - Áron Erdei
- MTA-SE Molecular Biophysics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1094, Hungary
- Faculty of Information Technology and Bionics, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, 1083, Hungary
| | - Gergely Gyimesi
- Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, 3012, Switzerland
| | - Csaba Magyar
- Institute of Enzymology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1117, Hungary
| | - Tamás Hegedűs
- MTA-SE Molecular Biophysics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1094, Hungary
- Department of Biophysics and Radiation Biology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, 1094, Hungary
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40
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Convertino M, Dokholyan NV. Computational Modeling of Small Molecule Ligand Binding Interactions and Affinities. Methods Mol Biol 2016; 1414:23-32. [PMID: 27094283 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-3569-7_2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Understanding and controlling biological phenomena via structure-based drug screening efforts often critically rely on accurate description of protein-ligand interactions. However, most of the currently available computational techniques are affected by severe deficiencies in both protein and ligand conformational sampling as well as in the scoring of the obtained docking solutions. To overcome these limitations, we have recently developed MedusaDock, a novel docking methodology, which simultaneously models ligand and receptor flexibility. Coupled with MedusaScore, a physical force field-based scoring function that accounts for the protein-ligand interaction energy, MedusaDock, has reported the highest success rate in the CSAR 2011 exercise. Here, we present a standard computational protocol to evaluate the binding properties of the two enantiomers of the non-selective β-blocker propanolol in the β2 adrenergic receptor's binding site. We describe details of our protocol, which have been successfully applied to several other targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marino Convertino
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, 120 Mason Farm Road, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Nikolay V Dokholyan
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, 120 Mason Farm Road, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
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41
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Shobair M, Dagliyan O, Kota P, Dang YL, He H, Stutts MJ, Dokholyan NV. Gain-of-Function Mutation W493R in the Epithelial Sodium Channel Allosterically Reconfigures Intersubunit Coupling. J Biol Chem 2015; 291:3682-92. [PMID: 26668308 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.m115.678052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2015] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Sodium absorption in epithelial cells is rate-limited by the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) activity in lung, kidney, and the distal colon. Pathophysiological conditions, such as cystic fibrosis and Liddle syndrome, result from water-electrolyte imbalance partly due to malfunction of ENaC regulation. Because the quaternary structure of ENaC is yet undetermined, the bases of pathologically linked mutations in ENaC subunits α, β, and γ are largely unknown. Here, we present a structural model of heterotetrameric ENaC α1βα2γ that is consistent with previous cross-linking results and site-directed mutagenesis experiments. By using this model, we show that the disease-causing mutation αW493R rewires structural dynamics of the intersubunit interfaces α1β and α2γ. Changes in dynamics can allosterically propagate to the channel gate. We demonstrate that cleavage of the γ-subunit, which is critical for full channel activation, does not mediate activation of ENaC by αW493R. Our molecular dynamics simulations led us to identify a channel-activating electrostatic interaction between α2Arg-493 and γGlu-348 at the α2γ interface. By neutralizing a sodium-binding acidic patch at the α1β interface, we reduced ENaC activation of αW493R by more than 2-fold. By combining homology modeling, molecular dynamics, cysteine cross-linking, and voltage clamp experiments, we propose a dynamics-driven model for the gain-of-function in ENaC by αW493R. Our integrated computational and experimental approach advances our understanding of structure, dynamics, and function of ENaC in its disease-causing state.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mahmoud Shobair
- From the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biophysics, Curriculum in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and
| | - Onur Dagliyan
- From the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and
| | - Pradeep Kota
- From the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and
| | - Yan L Dang
- Cystic Fibrosis and Pulmonary Diseases Research and Treatment Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
| | - Hong He
- Cystic Fibrosis and Pulmonary Diseases Research and Treatment Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
| | - M Jackson Stutts
- Cystic Fibrosis and Pulmonary Diseases Research and Treatment Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
| | - Nikolay V Dokholyan
- From the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biophysics, Curriculum in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Cystic Fibrosis and Pulmonary Diseases Research and Treatment Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
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42
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Nedumpully-Govindan P, Yang Y, Andorfer R, Cao W, Ding F. Promotion or Inhibition of Islet Amyloid Polypeptide Aggregation by Zinc Coordination Depends on Its Relative Concentration. Biochemistry 2015; 54:7335-44. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.biochem.5b00891] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Ye Yang
- Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, United States
| | - Rachel Andorfer
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, United States
| | - Weiguo Cao
- Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, United States
| | - Feng Ding
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, United States
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43
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Proctor EA, Dokholyan NV. Applications of Discrete Molecular Dynamics in biology and medicine. Curr Opin Struct Biol 2015; 37:9-13. [PMID: 26638022 DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2015.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2015] [Revised: 10/28/2015] [Accepted: 11/05/2015] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Discrete Molecular Dynamics (DMD) is a physics-based simulation method using discrete energetic potentials rather than traditional continuous potentials, allowing microsecond time scale simulations of biomolecular systems to be performed on personal computers rather than supercomputers or specialized hardware. With the ongoing explosion in processing power even in personal computers, applications of DMD have similarly multiplied. In the past two years, researchers have used DMD to model structures of disease-implicated protein folding intermediates, study assembly of protein complexes, predict protein-protein binding conformations, engineer rescue mutations in disease-causative protein mutants, design a protein conformational switch to control cell signaling, and describe the behavior of polymeric dispersants for environmental cleanup of oil spills, among other innovative applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth A Proctor
- Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States.
| | - Nikolay V Dokholyan
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States.
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44
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Modeling of protein-peptide interactions using the CABS-dock web server for binding site search and flexible docking. Methods 2015; 93:72-83. [PMID: 26165956 DOI: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2015.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 114] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2015] [Revised: 07/06/2015] [Accepted: 07/08/2015] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Protein-peptide interactions play essential functional roles in living organisms and their structural characterization is a hot subject of current experimental and theoretical research. Computational modeling of the structure of protein-peptide interactions is usually divided into two stages: prediction of the binding site at a protein receptor surface, and then docking (and modeling) the peptide structure into the known binding site. This paper presents a comprehensive CABS-dock method for the simultaneous search of binding sites and flexible protein-peptide docking, available as a user's friendly web server. We present example CABS-dock results obtained in the default CABS-dock mode and using its advanced options that enable the user to increase the range of flexibility for chosen receptor fragments or to exclude user-selected binding modes from docking search. Furthermore, we demonstrate a strategy to improve CABS-dock performance by assessing the quality of models with classical molecular dynamics. Finally, we discuss the promising extensions and applications of the CABS-dock method and provide a tutorial appendix for the convenient analysis and visualization of CABS-dock results. The CABS-dock web server is freely available at http://biocomp.chem.uw.edu.pl/CABSdock/.
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45
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Schindler CEM, de Vries SJ, Zacharias M. Fully Blind Peptide-Protein Docking with pepATTRACT. Structure 2015; 23:1507-1515. [PMID: 26146186 DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2015.05.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 87] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2015] [Revised: 05/21/2015] [Accepted: 05/25/2015] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
Peptide-protein interactions are ubiquitous in the cell and form an important part of the interactome. Computational docking methods can complement experimental characterization of these complexes, but current protocols are not applicable on the proteome scale. Here, we present a new fully blind flexible peptide-protein docking protocol, pepATTRACT, which combines a rapid coarse-grained global peptide docking search of the entire protein surface with a two-stage atomistic flexible refinement. Global unbound-unbound docking yielded near-native models for 70% of the docking cases when testing the protocol on the largest benchmark of peptide-protein complexes available to date. This performance is similar to that of state-of-the-art local docking protocols that rely on information about the binding site. Upon restricting the search to the peptide binding region, the resulting pepATTRACT-local approach outperformed existing methods. Docking scripts for pepATTRACT and pepATTRACT-local can be generated via a web interface at www.attract.ph.tum.de/peptide.html.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina E M Schindler
- Physics Department T38, Technische Universität München, James-Franck-Straße 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
| | - Sjoerd J de Vries
- Physics Department T38, Technische Universität München, James-Franck-Straße 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
| | - Martin Zacharias
- Physics Department T38, Technische Universität München, James-Franck-Straße 1, 85748 Garching, Germany.
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46
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Planesas JM, Pérez-Nueno VI, Borrell JI, Teixidó J. Studying the binding interactions of allosteric agonists and antagonists of the CXCR4 receptor. J Mol Graph Model 2015; 60:1-14. [PMID: 26080355 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmgm.2015.05.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2015] [Revised: 05/06/2015] [Accepted: 05/07/2015] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Several examples of allosteric modulators of GPCRs have been reported recently in the literature, but understanding their molecular mechanism presents a new challenge for medicinal chemistry. For the specific case of the cellular receptor CXCR4, it is known that pepducins (lipidated fragments of intracellular GPCR loops) such as ATI-2341 modulate CXCR4 activity agonistically via an allosteric mechanism. Moreover, there are also examples of small organic molecules such as AMD11070 and GSK812397 which may also act as allosteric antagonists. However, incomplete knowledge of the ligand-binding sites has hampered a detailed molecular understanding of how these inhibitors work. Here, we attempt to answer this question by analysing the binding interactions between the CXCR4 receptor and the above-mentioned allosteric modulators. We propose two different allosteric binding sites, one located in the intracellular loops 1, 2 and 3 (ICL1, ICL2 and ICL3) which binds the pepducin agonist ATI-2341, and the other at a subsite of the main extracellular orthosteric binding pocket between extracellular loops 1 and 2 and the N-terminus, which binds the antagonists AMD11070 and GSK812397. Allosteric interactions between the CXCR4 and ATI-2341 were predicted by combining different modeling approaches. First, a rotational blind docking search was applied and the best poses were subsequently refined using flexible docking methods and molecular dynamic simulations. For the AMD11070 and GSK812397 antagonists, the entire CXCR4 protein surface was explored by blind docking in order to define the binding region. A second docking analysis by subsites was then performed to refine the allosteric interactions. Finally, we identified the binding residues that appear to be essential for CXCR4 allosteric modulators.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jesús M Planesas
- Grup d'Enginyeria Molecular, Institut Químic de Sarriá (IQS), Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Violeta I Pérez-Nueno
- Grup d'Enginyeria Molecular, Institut Químic de Sarriá (IQS), Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain; Harmonic Pharma, Espace Transfert, 615 rue du Jardin Botanique, 54600 Villers lès Nancy, France.
| | - José I Borrell
- Grup d'Enginyeria Molecular, Institut Químic de Sarriá (IQS), Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Jordi Teixidó
- Grup d'Enginyeria Molecular, Institut Químic de Sarriá (IQS), Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain.
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Ben-Shimon A, Niv MY. AnchorDock: Blind and Flexible Anchor-Driven Peptide Docking. Structure 2015; 23:929-940. [PMID: 25914054 DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2015.03.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2014] [Revised: 03/20/2015] [Accepted: 03/22/2015] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
The huge conformational space stemming from the inherent flexibility of peptides is among the main obstacles to successful and efficient computational modeling of protein-peptide interactions. Current peptide docking methods typically overcome this challenge using prior knowledge from the structure of the complex. Here we introduce AnchorDock, a peptide docking approach, which automatically targets the docking search to the most relevant parts of the conformational space. This is done by precomputing the free peptide's structure and by computationally identifying anchoring spots on the protein surface. Next, a free peptide conformation undergoes anchor-driven simulated annealing molecular dynamics simulations around the predicted anchoring spots. In the challenging task of a completely blind docking test, AnchorDock produced exceptionally good results (backbone root-mean-square deviation ≤ 2.2Å, rank ≤15) for 10 of 13 unbound cases tested. The impressive performance of AnchorDock supports a molecular recognition pathway that is driven via pre-existing local structural elements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Avraham Ben-Shimon
- Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment and The Fritz Haber Center for Molecular Dynamics, The Hebrew University, Rehovot 76100, Israel
| | - Masha Y Niv
- Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment and The Fritz Haber Center for Molecular Dynamics, The Hebrew University, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
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48
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Sellers MS, Hurley MM. XPairIt Docking Protocolfor peptide docking and analysis. MOLECULAR SIMULATION 2015. [DOI: 10.1080/08927022.2015.1025267] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
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49
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Rentzsch R, Renard BY. Docking small peptides remains a great challenge: an assessment using AutoDock Vina. Brief Bioinform 2015; 16:1045-56. [PMID: 25900849 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbv008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 92] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2014] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
There is a growing interest in the mechanisms and the prediction of how flexible peptides bind proteins, often in a highly selective and conserved manner. While both existing small-molecule docking methods and custom protocols can be used, even short peptides make difficult targets owing to their high torsional flexibility. Any benchmarking should therefore start with those. We compiled a meta-data set of 47 complexes with peptides up to five residues, based on 11 related studies from the past decade. Although their highly varying strategies and constraints preclude direct, quantitative comparisons, we still provide a comprehensive overview of the reported results, using a simple yet stringent measure: the quality of the top-scoring peptide pose. Using the entire data set, this is augmented by our own benchmark of AutoDock Vina, a freely available, fast and widely used docking tool. It particularly addresses non-expert users and was therefore implemented in a highly integrated manner. Guidelines addressing important issues such as the amount of sampling required for result reproducibility are so far lacking. Using peptide docking as an example, this is the first study to address these issues in detail. Finally, to encourage further, standardized benchmarking efforts, the compiled data set is made available in an accessible, transparent and extendable manner.
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50
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Inhibition of IAPP aggregation by insulin depends on the insulin oligomeric state regulated by zinc ion concentration. Sci Rep 2015; 5:8240. [PMID: 25649462 PMCID: PMC4316164 DOI: 10.1038/srep08240] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2014] [Accepted: 01/12/2015] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
While islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) aggregation is associated with β-cell death in type-II diabetes (T2D), environmental elements of β-cell granules — e.g. high concentrations of insulin and Zn2+ — inhibit IAPP aggregation in healthy individuals. The inhibition by insulin is experimentally known, but the role of Zn2+ is controversial as both correlations and anti-correlations at the population level are observed between T2D risk and the activity of a β-cell specific zinc ion transporter, ZnT8. Since Zn2+ concentration determines insulin oligomer equilibrium, we computationally investigated interactions of IAPP with different insulin oligomers and compared with IAPP homodimer formation. We found that IAPP binding with insulin oligomers competes with the formation of both higher-molecular-weight insulin oligomers and IAPP homodimers. Therefore, zinc deficiency due to loss-of-function ZnT8 mutations shifts insulin oligomer equilibrium toward zinc-free monomers and dimers, which bind IAPP monomers more efficiently compared to zinc-bound hexamers. The hetero-molecular complex formation prevents IAPP from self-association and subsequent aggregation, reducing T2D risk.
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