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Pereira CS, Teixeira MH, Russell DA, Hirst J, Arantes GM. Mechanism of rotenone binding to respiratory complex I depends on ligand flexibility. Sci Rep 2023; 13:6738. [PMID: 37185607 PMCID: PMC10130173 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-33333-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2022] [Accepted: 04/11/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Respiratory complex I is a major cellular energy transducer located in the inner mitochondrial membrane. Its inhibition by rotenone, a natural isoflavonoid, has been used for centuries by indigenous peoples to aid in fishing and, more recently, as a broad-spectrum pesticide or even a possible anticancer therapeutic. Unraveling the molecular mechanism of rotenone action will help to design tuned derivatives and to understand the still mysterious catalytic mechanism of complex I. Although composed of five fused rings, rotenone is a flexible molecule and populates two conformers, bent and straight. Here, a rotenone derivative locked in the straight form was synthesized and found to inhibit complex I with 600-fold less potency than natural rotenone. Large-scale molecular dynamics and free energy simulations of the pathway for ligand binding to complex I show that rotenone is more stable in the bent conformer, either free in the membrane or bound to the redox active site in the substrate-binding Q-channel. However, the straight conformer is necessary for passage from the membrane through the narrow entrance of the channel. The less potent inhibition of the synthesized derivative is therefore due to its lack of internal flexibility, and interconversion between bent and straight forms is required to enable efficient kinetics and high stability for rotenone binding. The ligand also induces reconfiguration of protein loops and side-chains inside the Q-channel similar to structural changes that occur in the open to closed conformational transition of complex I. Detailed understanding of ligand flexibility and interactions that determine rotenone binding may now be exploited to tune the properties of synthetic derivatives for specific applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caroline S Pereira
- Department of Biochemistry, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes 748, São Paulo, SP, 05508-900, Brazil
| | - Murilo H Teixeira
- Department of Biochemistry, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes 748, São Paulo, SP, 05508-900, Brazil
| | - David A Russell
- Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1EW, UK
| | - Judy Hirst
- MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 0XY, UK.
| | - Guilherme M Arantes
- Department of Biochemistry, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes 748, São Paulo, SP, 05508-900, Brazil.
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Liu H, Fu H, Chipot C, Shao X, Cai W. Accuracy of Alternate Nonpolarizable Force Fields for the Determination of Protein-Ligand Binding Affinities Dominated by Cation-π Interactions. J Chem Theory Comput 2021; 17:3908-3915. [PMID: 34125530 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.1c00219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Modifying pair-specific Lennard-Jones parameters through the nonbonded FIX (NBFIX) feature of the CHARMM36 force field has proven cost-effective for improving the description of cation-π interactions in biological objects by means of pairwise additive potential energy functions. Here, two sets of newly optimized CHARMM36 force-field parameters including NBFIX corrections, coined CHARMM36m-NBF and CHARMM36-WYF, and the original force fields, namely CHARMM36m and Amber ff14SB, are used to determine the standard binding free energies of seven protein-ligand complexes containing cation-π interactions. Compared with precise experimental measurements, our results indicate that the uncorrected, original force fields significantly underestimate the binding free energies, with a mean error of 5.3 kcal/mol, while the mean errors of CHARMM36m-NBF and CHARMM36-WYF amount to 0.8 and 2.1 kcal/mol, respectively. The present study cogently demonstrates that the use of modified parameters jointly with NBFIX corrections dramatically increases the accuracy of the standard binding free energy of protein-ligand complexes dominated by cation-π interactions, most notably with CHARMM36m-NBF.
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Affiliation(s)
- Han Liu
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, College of Chemistry, and Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China
| | - Haohao Fu
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, College of Chemistry, and Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China
| | - Christophe Chipot
- Laboratoire International Associé CNRS and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UMR No. 7019, Université de Lorraine, BP 70239, F-54506 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France.,Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States
| | - Xueguang Shao
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, College of Chemistry, and Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China
| | - Wensheng Cai
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, College of Chemistry, and Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China
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Curtolo F, Arantes GM. Mechanisms for Flavin-Mediated Oxidation: Hydride or Hydrogen-Atom Transfer? J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:6282-6287. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00945] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Felipe Curtolo
- Department of Biochemistry, Instituto de Quı́mica, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes 748, 05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Guilherme M. Arantes
- Department of Biochemistry, Instituto de Quı́mica, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes 748, 05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brazil
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Soares TA, Wahab HA. Outlook on the Development and Application of Molecular Simulations in Latin America. J Chem Inf Model 2020; 60:435-438. [PMID: 32009389 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.0c00112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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