Deciphering the Peculiar Behavior of β-Lapachone in Lipid Monolayers and Bilayers

Mechanistic Understanding from Molecular Dynamics in Pharmaceutical Research 2: Lipid Membrane in Drug Design

We review the use of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation as a drug design tool in the context of the role that the lipid membrane can play in drug action, i.e., the interaction between candidate drug molecules and lipid membranes. In the standard "lock and key" paradigm, only the interaction between the drug and a specific active site of a specific protein is considered; the environment in which the drug acts is, from a biophysical perspective, far more complex than this. The possible mechanisms though which a drug can be designed to tinker with physiological processes are significantly broader than merely fitting to a single active site of a single protein. In this paper, we focus on the role of the lipid membrane, arguably the most important element outside the proteins themselves, as a case study. We discuss work that has been carried out, using MD simulation, concerning the transfection of drugs through membranes that act as biological barriers in the path of the drugs, the behavior of drug molecules within membranes, how their collective behavior can affect the structure and properties of the membrane and, finally, the role lipid membranes, to which the vast majority of drug target proteins are associated, can play in mediating the interaction between drug and target protein. This review paper is the second in a two-part series covering MD simulation as a tool in pharmaceutical research; both are designed as pedagogical review papers aimed at both pharmaceutical scientists interested in exploring how the tool of MD simulation can be applied to their research and computational scientists interested in exploring the possibility of a pharmaceutical context for their research.

Molecular dynamics simulation for mechanism revelation of the safety and nutrition of lipids and derivatives in food: State of the art

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has proved to be a powerful tool in the study of proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and carbohydrates et al. in fields of health, nutrition, and food science. In particular, MD simulation has been employed in the investigation of various lipid systems such as triglycerides, phospholipid membranes, etc. Due to the continuous updating of computing resources and the development of new MD simulation methods and force field parameters, the simulation's time and size scale of lipids system has increased by several orders of magnitude. However, MD simulation cannot be used for systems invovle chemical reactions. These greatly limit its further application in the field of lipid research. This paper reviews the progress and development of MD simulation, especially for the application of MD simulation in different lipid systems. In this paper, MD simulation and its general workflow was briefly introduced firstly. Subsequently, the application of MD simulation in various lipid systems was reviewed in-depth. Finally, the limitation and future prospects of MD simulation in lipid research were also discussed. This review provided new insights into the investigation of MD simulation, and a novel thought for lipid study. We believe that MD simulation will exhibit more and more great advantages in the investigation of lipids in the future due to the development of novlel methods.

Assessment of various formulation approaches for the application of beta-lapachone in prostate cancer therapy

Beta-lapachone (β-Lap) is an anticancer drug activated by the NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1), an enzyme over-expressed in a large variety of tumors. B-Lap is poorly soluble in water and in most biocompatible solvents. Micellar systems, liposomes and cyclodextrins (CDs) have been proposed for its solubilization. In this work, we analyzed the properties and in vitro efficacy of β-Lap loaded in polymer nanoparticles, liposome bilayers, complexed with sulfobutyl-ether (SBE)- and hydroxypropyl (HP)-β cyclodextrins, or double loaded in phospholipid vesicles. Nanoparticles led to the lowest drug loading. Encapsulation of [β-Lap:CD] complexes in vesicles made it possible to slightly increase the encapsulation rate of the drug in liposomes, however at the cost of poor encapsulation efficiency. Cytotoxicity tests generally showed a higher sensitivity of NIH 3T3 and PNT2 cells to the treatment compared to PC-3 cells, but also a slight resistance at high β-Lap concentrations. None of the studied β-Lap delivery systems showed significant enhanced cytotoxicity against PC-3 cells compared to the free drug. Cyclodextrins and double loaded vesicles, however, appeared more efficient drug delivery systems than liposomes and nanoparticles, combining both good solubilizing and cytotoxic properties. Ligand-functionalized double loaded liposomes might allow overcoming the lack of selectivity of the drug.