1
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Wang X, Huai Z, Sun Z. Host Dynamics under General-Purpose Force Fields. Molecules 2023; 28:5940. [PMID: 37630194 PMCID: PMC10458655 DOI: 10.3390/molecules28165940] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2023] [Revised: 08/02/2023] [Accepted: 08/07/2023] [Indexed: 08/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Macrocyclic hosts as prototypical receptors to gaseous and drug-like guests are crucial components in pharmaceutical research. The external guests are often coordinated at the center of these macromolecular containers. The formation of host-guest coordination is accompanied by the broken of host-water and host-ion interactions and sometimes also involves some conformational rearrangements of the host. A balanced description of various components of interacting terms is indispensable. However, up to now, the modeling community still lacks a general yet detailed understanding of commonly employed general-purpose force fields and the host dynamics produced by these popular selections. To fill this critical gap, in this paper, we profile the energetics and dynamics of four types of popular macrocycles, including cucurbiturils, pillararenes, cyclodextrins, and octa acids. The presented investigations of force field definitions, refitting, and evaluations are unprecedently detailed. Based on the valuable observations and insightful explanations, we finally summarize some general guidelines on force field parametrization and selection in host-guest modeling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaohui Wang
- Beijing Leto Laboratories Co., Ltd., Beijing 100083, China
- College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Zhe Huai
- XtalPi—AI Research Center, 7F, Tower A, Dongsheng Building, No. 8, Zhongguancun East Road, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Zhaoxi Sun
- College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
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2
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Montà-González G, Sancenón F, Martínez-Máñez R, Martí-Centelles V. Purely Covalent Molecular Cages and Containers for Guest Encapsulation. Chem Rev 2022; 122:13636-13708. [PMID: 35867555 PMCID: PMC9413269 DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.2c00198] [Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 29.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
Cage compounds offer unique binding pockets similar to enzyme-binding sites, which can be customized in terms of size, shape, and functional groups to point toward the cavity and many other parameters. Different synthetic strategies have been developed to create a toolkit of methods that allow preparing tailor-made organic cages for a number of distinct applications, such as gas separation, molecular recognition, molecular encapsulation, hosts for catalysis, etc. These examples show the versatility and high selectivity that can be achieved using cages, which is impossible by employing other molecular systems. This review explores the progress made in the field of fully organic molecular cages and containers by focusing on the properties of the cavity and their application to encapsulate guests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Montà-González
- Instituto
Interuniversitario de Investigación de Reconocimiento Molecular
y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDM) Universitat
Politècnica de València, Universitat de València. Camino de Vera, s/n 46022, Valencia, Spain
| | - Félix Sancenón
- Instituto
Interuniversitario de Investigación de Reconocimiento Molecular
y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDM) Universitat
Politècnica de València, Universitat de València. Camino de Vera, s/n 46022, Valencia, Spain,CIBER
de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain,Centro
de Investigación Príncipe Felipe, Unidad Mixta UPV-CIPF
de Investigación de Mecanismos de Enfermedades y Nanomedicina,
Valencia, Universitat Politècnica
de València, 46012 Valencia, Spain,Instituto
de Investigación Sanitaria la Fe, Unidad Mixta de Investigación
en Nanomedicina y Sensores, Universitat
Politènica de València, 46026 València, Spain,Departamento
de Química, Universitat Politècnica
de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
| | - Ramón Martínez-Máñez
- Instituto
Interuniversitario de Investigación de Reconocimiento Molecular
y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDM) Universitat
Politècnica de València, Universitat de València. Camino de Vera, s/n 46022, Valencia, Spain,CIBER
de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain,Centro
de Investigación Príncipe Felipe, Unidad Mixta UPV-CIPF
de Investigación de Mecanismos de Enfermedades y Nanomedicina,
Valencia, Universitat Politècnica
de València, 46012 Valencia, Spain,Instituto
de Investigación Sanitaria la Fe, Unidad Mixta de Investigación
en Nanomedicina y Sensores, Universitat
Politènica de València, 46026 València, Spain,Departamento
de Química, Universitat Politècnica
de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain,R.M.-M.: email,
| | - Vicente Martí-Centelles
- Instituto
Interuniversitario de Investigación de Reconocimiento Molecular
y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDM) Universitat
Politècnica de València, Universitat de València. Camino de Vera, s/n 46022, Valencia, Spain,V.M.-C.:
email,
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3
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Alagbe BD, Gibb BC, Ashbaugh HS. Evolution of the Free Energy Landscapes of n-Alkane Guests Bound within Supramolecular Complexes. J Phys Chem B 2021; 125:7299-7310. [PMID: 34170690 PMCID: PMC8279555 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c03640] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Confinement within nanoscale spaces can dramatically alter the ensemble of conformations flexible species explore. For example, chaperone complexes take advantage of confinement to fold misfolded proteins, while viral capsids transport genomic materials in tight packings. Here we examine the free energy landscapes of n-alkanes confined within supramolecular dimeric complexes of deep-cavity cavitand octa-acid, which have been experimentally demonstrated to force these chains with increasing length to adopt extended, helical, hairpin, and spinning top conformational motifs, using molecular simulations. Alkanes up to n-docosane in both vacuum and water predominantly exhibit a free energy minimum for elongated conformations with a majority of trans dihedrals. Within harmonically sealed cavitand dimers, however, the free energy landscapes as a function of the end-to-end distance between their terminal methyl units exhibit minima that evolve with the length of the alkane. Distinct free energy basins are observed between the helical and hairpin motifs and between the hairpin and chicane motifs whose relative stability changes with the number of carbons in the bound guest. These changes are reminiscent of two state-like protein folding, although the observed alkane conformations confined are more insensitive to temperature perturbation than proteins are. While the chicane motif within the harmonically sealed dimers has not been observed experimentally, this conformation relaxes to the observed spinning top motif once the harmonic restraints are released for the complexes in aqueous solution, indicating that these motifs are related to one another. We do not observe distinct minima between the confined extended and helical motifs, suggesting these conformers are part of a larger linear motif family whose population of gauche dihedral angles grows in proportion to the number of carbons in the chain to ultimately form a helix that fits the alkane within the complex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Busayo D Alagbe
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States
| | - Bruce C Gibb
- Department of Chemistry, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States
| | - Henry S Ashbaugh
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States
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4
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Ashbaugh HS, Gibb BC, Suating P. Cavitand Complexes in Aqueous Solution: Collaborative Experimental and Computational Studies of the Wetting, Assembly, and Function of Nanoscopic Bowls in Water. J Phys Chem B 2021; 125:3253-3268. [PMID: 33651614 PMCID: PMC8040017 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c11017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2020] [Revised: 02/02/2021] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Water is the dominant liquid on Earth. Despite this, the main focus of supramolecular chemistry research has been on binding and assembly events in organic solvents. This arose because it is more straightforward to synthesize organic-media-soluble hosts and because of the relative simplicity of organic solvents compared to water. Nature, however, relies on water as a solvent, and spurred by this fact, supramolecular chemists have recently been making forays into the aqueous domain to understand water-mediated non-covalent interactions. These studies can benefit from the substantial understanding of the hydrophobic effect and electrostatic interactions developed by physical chemists. Nearly 20 years ago, the Gibb group first synthesized a class of water-soluble host molecules, the deep-cavity cavitands, that possess non-polar pockets that readily bind non-polar moieties in aqueous solution and are capable of assembling into a wide range of complexes with distinct stoichiometries. As such, these amphipathic host species are ideal platforms for studying the role of negatively curved features on guest complexation and the structural requirements for guided assembly processes driven by the hydrophobic effect. Here we review the collaborative experimental and computational investigations between Gibb and Ashbaugh over the past 10 years exploring questions including the following: How does water wet/solvate the non-polar surfaces of non-polar pockets? How does this wetting control the binding of non-polar guests? How does wetting affect the binding of anionic species? How does the nature and size of a guest size impact the assembly of cavitand hosts into multimeric capsular complexes? What are the conformational motifs of guests packed within the confines of capsular complexes? How might the electrostatic environment engendered by hosts impact the properties and reactivity of internalized guests?
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Affiliation(s)
- Henry S. Ashbaugh
- Department
of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States
| | - Bruce C. Gibb
- Department
of Chemistry, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States
| | - Paolo Suating
- Department
of Chemistry, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, United States
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5
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Lei Z, Finnegan TJ, Gunawardana VWL, Pavlović RZ, Xie H, Moore CE, Badjić JD. A Molecular Capsule with Revolving Doors Partitioning Its Inner Space. Chemistry 2020; 26:16480-16485. [PMID: 32648599 DOI: 10.1002/chem.202003247] [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: 07/10/2020] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Covalent capsule 1 was designed to include two molecular baskets linked with three mobile pyridines tucked into its inner space. On the basis of both theory (DFT) and experiments (NMR and X-ray crystallography), we found that the pyridine "doors" split the chamber (380 Å3 ) of 1 so that two equally sizeable compartments (190 Å3 ) became joined through a conformationally flexible aromatic barrier. The compartments of such unique host could be populated with CCl4 (88 Å3 ; PC=46 %), CBr4 (106 Å3 ; 56 %) or their combination CCl4 /CBr4 (PC=51 %), with thermodynamic stabilities ΔG° tracking the values of packing coefficients (PC). Halogen (C-X⋅⋅⋅π) and hydrogen bonding (C-H⋅⋅⋅X) contacts held the haloalkane guests in the cavities of 1. The consecutive complexations were found to occur in a negative allosteric manner, which we propose to result from the induced-fit mode of complexation. Newly designed 1 opens a way for probing the effects of inner conformational dynamics on noncovalent interactions, reactivity and intramolecular translation in confined spaces of hollow molecules.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhiquan Lei
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, 100 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43228, USA
| | - Tyler J Finnegan
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, 100 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43228, USA
| | | | - Radoslav Z Pavlović
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, 100 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43228, USA
| | - Han Xie
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, 100 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43228, USA
| | - Curtis E Moore
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, 100 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43228, USA
| | - Jovica D Badjić
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, 100 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43228, USA
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6
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Wei X, Raj AM, Ji J, Wu W, Veerakanellore GB, Yang C, Ramamurthy V. Reversal of Regioselectivity during Photodimerization of 2-Anthracenecarboxylic Acid in a Water-Soluble Organic Cavitand. Org Lett 2019; 21:7868-7872. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.9b02860] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Xueqin Wei
- School of Pharmacy, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning 530021, China
- Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry & Technology of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, and Healthy Food Evaluation Research Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China
| | - A. Mohan Raj
- Department of Chemistry, University of Miami, Coral Cables, Florida 33124, , United States
| | - Jiecheng Ji
- Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry & Technology of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, and Healthy Food Evaluation Research Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China
| | - Wanhua Wu
- Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry & Technology of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, and Healthy Food Evaluation Research Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China
| | | | - Cheng Yang
- Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry & Technology of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, and Healthy Food Evaluation Research Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China
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7
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Jiang Z, Remsing RC, Rego NB, Patel AJ. Characterizing Solvent Density Fluctuations in Dynamical Observation Volumes. J Phys Chem B 2019; 123:1650-1661. [PMID: 30682885 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.8b11423] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
Hydrophobic effects drive diverse aqueous assemblies, such as micelle formation or protein folding, wherein the solvent plays an important role. Consequently, characterizing the free energetics of solvent density fluctuations can lead to important insights into these processes. Although techniques such as the indirect umbrella sampling (INDUS) method can be used to characterize solvent fluctuations in static observation volumes of various sizes and shapes, characterizing how the solvent mediates inherently dynamic processes, such as self-assembly or conformational change, remains a challenge. In this work, we generalize the INDUS method to facilitate the enhanced sampling of solvent fluctuations in dynamical observation volumes, whose positions and shapes can evolve. We illustrate the usefulness of this generalization by characterizing water density fluctuations in dynamical volumes pertaining to the hydration of flexible solutes, the assembly of small hydrophobes, and conformational transitions in a model peptide. We also use the method to probe the dynamics of hard spheres.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Richard C Remsing
- Institute for Computational Molecular Science , Temple University , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania 19122 , United States
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8
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Affiliation(s)
- Teresa L. Mako
- Department of Chemistry, University of Rhode Island, 140 Flagg Road, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881, United States
| | - Joan M. Racicot
- Department of Chemistry, University of Rhode Island, 140 Flagg Road, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881, United States
| | - Mindy Levine
- Department of Chemistry, University of Rhode Island, 140 Flagg Road, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881, United States
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9
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Barnett JW, Tang D, Gibb BC, Ashbaugh HS. Alkane guest packing drives switching between multimeric deep-cavity cavitand assembly states. Chem Commun (Camb) 2018; 54:2639-2642. [PMID: 29469155 DOI: 10.1039/c8cc00036k] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
Alkane guest transfer into aqueous dimeric, tetrameric, hexameric, and octameric assemblies of the deep-cavity cavitand TEMOA is examined using molecular simulations. The experimental transitions between aggregation states strongly correlate with calculated alkane transfer free energy minima, demonstrating the guiding role of guest packing on stabilizing multimeric complexes. The predictive simulation approach described affords a salient rationale as to why octameric assemblies have yet to be experimentally observed.
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Affiliation(s)
- J Wesley Barnett
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA.
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