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Calinsky R, Levy Y. Histidine in Proteins: pH-Dependent Interplay between π-π, Cation-π, and CH-π Interactions. J Chem Theory Comput 2024; 20:6930-6945. [PMID: 39037905 PMCID: PMC11325542 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.4c00606] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/24/2024]
Abstract
Histidine (His) stands out as the most versatile natural amino acid due to its side chain's facile propensity to protonate at physiological pH, leading to a transition from aromatic to cationic characteristics and thereby enabling diverse biomolecular interactions. In this study, our objective was to quantify the energetics and geometries of pairwise interactions involving His at varying pH levels. Through quantum chemical calculations, we discovered that His exhibits robust participation in both π-π and cation-π interactions, underscoring its ability to adopt a π or cationic nature, akin to other common residues. Of particular note, we found that the affinity of protonated His for aromatic residues (via cation-π interactions) is greater than the affinity of neutral His for either cationic residues (also via cation-π interactions) or aromatic residues (via π-π interactions). Furthermore, His frequently engages in CH-π interactions, and notably, depending on its protonation state, we found that some instances of hydrogen bonding by His exhibit greater stability than is typical for interamino acid hydrogen bonds. The strength of the pH-dependent pairwise energies of His with aromatic residues is supported by the abundance of pairwise interactions with His of low and high predicted pKa values. Overall, our findings illustrate the contribution of His interactions to protein stability and its potential involvement in conformational changes despite its relatively low abundance in proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rivka Calinsky
- Department of Chemical and Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
| | - Yaakov Levy
- Department of Chemical and Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
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Kellogg GE. Three-Dimensional Interaction Homology: Deconstructing Residue-Residue and Residue-Lipid Interactions in Membrane Proteins. Molecules 2024; 29:2838. [PMID: 38930903 PMCID: PMC11207109 DOI: 10.3390/molecules29122838] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2024] [Revised: 06/09/2024] [Accepted: 06/10/2024] [Indexed: 06/28/2024] Open
Abstract
A method is described to deconstruct the network of hydropathic interactions within and between a protein's sidechain and its environment into residue-based three-dimensional maps. These maps encode favorable and unfavorable hydrophobic and polar interactions, in terms of spatial positions for optimal interactions, relative interaction strength, as well as character. In addition, these maps are backbone angle-dependent. After map calculation and clustering, a finite number of unique residue sidechain interaction maps exist for each backbone conformation, with the number related to the residue's size and interaction complexity. Structures for soluble proteins (~749,000 residues) and membrane proteins (~387,000 residues) were analyzed, with the latter group being subdivided into three subsets related to the residue's position in the membrane protein: soluble domain, core-facing transmembrane domain, and lipid-facing transmembrane domain. This work suggests that maps representing residue types and their backbone conformation can be reassembled to optimize the medium-to-high resolution details of a protein structure. In particular, the information encoded in maps constructed from the lipid-facing transmembrane residues appears to paint a clear picture of the protein-lipid interactions that are difficult to obtain experimentally.
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Affiliation(s)
- Glen E Kellogg
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298-0540, USA
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Kellogg GE, Cen Y, Dukat M, Ellis KC, Guo Y, Li J, May AE, Safo MK, Zhang S, Zhang Y, Desai UR. Merging cultures and disciplines to create a drug discovery ecosystem at Virginia commonwealth university: Medicinal chemistry, structural biology, molecular and behavioral pharmacology and computational chemistry. SLAS DISCOVERY : ADVANCING LIFE SCIENCES R & D 2023; 28:255-269. [PMID: 36863508 PMCID: PMC10619687 DOI: 10.1016/j.slasd.2023.02.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2023] [Revised: 02/10/2023] [Accepted: 02/21/2023] [Indexed: 03/04/2023]
Abstract
The Department of Medicinal Chemistry, together with the Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) has evolved, organically with quite a bit of bootstrapping, into a unique drug discovery ecosystem in response to the environment and culture of the university and the wider research enterprise. Each faculty member that joined the department and/or institute added a layer of expertise, technology and most importantly, innovation, that fertilized numerous collaborations within the University and with outside partners. Despite moderate institutional support with respect to a typical drug discovery enterprise, the VCU drug discovery ecosystem has built and maintained an impressive array of facilities and instrumentation for drug synthesis, drug characterization, biomolecular structural analysis and biophysical analysis, and pharmacological studies. Altogether, this ecosystem has had major impacts on numerous therapeutic areas, such as neurology, psychiatry, drugs of abuse, cancer, sickle cell disease, coagulopathy, inflammation, aging disorders and others. Novel tools and strategies for drug discovery, design and development have been developed at VCU in the last five decades; e.g., fundamental rational structure-activity relationship (SAR)-based drug design, structure-based drug design, orthosteric and allosteric drug design, design of multi-functional agents towards polypharmacy outcomes, principles on designing glycosaminoglycans as drugs, and computational tools and algorithms for quantitative SAR (QSAR) and understanding the roles of water and the hydrophobic effect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Glen E Kellogg
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA.
| | - Yana Cen
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Malgorzata Dukat
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Keith C Ellis
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Youzhong Guo
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Jiong Li
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Aaron E May
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Martin K Safo
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Shijun Zhang
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Yan Zhang
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA
| | - Umesh R Desai
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298-0540, USA.
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Kellogg GE, Marabotti A, Spyrakis F, Mozzarelli A. HINT, a code for understanding the interaction between biomolecules: a tribute to Donald J. Abraham. Front Mol Biosci 2023; 10:1194962. [PMID: 37351551 PMCID: PMC10282649 DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2023.1194962] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2023] [Accepted: 05/24/2023] [Indexed: 06/24/2023] Open
Abstract
A long-lasting goal of computational biochemists, medicinal chemists, and structural biologists has been the development of tools capable of deciphering the molecule-molecule interaction code that produces a rich variety of complex biomolecular assemblies comprised of the many different simple and biological molecules of life: water, small metabolites, cofactors, substrates, proteins, DNAs, and RNAs. Software applications that can mimic the interactions amongst all of these species, taking account of the laws of thermodynamics, would help gain information for understanding qualitatively and quantitatively key determinants contributing to the energetics of the bimolecular recognition process. This, in turn, would allow the design of novel compounds that might bind at the intermolecular interface by either preventing or reinforcing the recognition. HINT, hydropathic interaction, was a model and software code developed from a deceptively simple idea of Donald Abraham with the close collaboration with Glen Kellogg at Virginia Commonwealth University. HINT is based on a function that scores atom-atom interaction using LogP, the partition coefficient of any molecule between two phases; here, the solvents are water that mimics the cytoplasm milieu and octanol that mimics the protein internal hydropathic environment. This review summarizes the results of the extensive and successful collaboration between Abraham and Kellogg at VCU and the group at the University of Parma for testing HINT in a variety of different biomolecular interactions, from proteins with ligands to proteins with DNA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Glen E. Kellogg
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Anna Marabotti
- Department of Chemistry and Biology “A Zambelli”, University of Salerno, Fisciano (SA), Italy
| | - Francesca Spyrakis
- Department of Drug Science and Technology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Andrea Mozzarelli
- Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma and Institute of Biophysics, Parma, Italy
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AL Mughram MH, Catalano C, Herrington NB, Safo MK, Kellogg GE. 3D interaction homology: The hydrophobic residues alanine, isoleucine, leucine, proline and valine play different structural roles in soluble and membrane proteins. Front Mol Biosci 2023; 10:1116868. [PMID: 37056722 PMCID: PMC10086146 DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2023.1116868] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2022] [Accepted: 02/20/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
The aliphatic hydrophobic amino acid residues—alanine, isoleucine, leucine, proline and valine—are among the most common found in proteins. Their structural role in proteins is seemingly obvious: engage in hydrophobic interactions to stabilize secondary, and to a lesser extent, tertiary and quaternary structure. However, favorable hydrophobic interactions involving the sidechains of these residue types are generally less significant than the unfavorable set arising from interactions with polar atoms. Importantly, the constellation of interactions between residue sidechains and their environments can be recorded as three-dimensional maps that, in turn, can be clustered. The clustered average map sets compose a library of interaction profiles encoding interaction strengths, interaction types and the optimal 3D position for the interacting partners. This library is backbone angle-dependent and suggests solvent and lipid accessibility for each unique interaction profile. In this work, in addition to analysis of soluble proteins, a large set of membrane proteins that contained optimized artificial lipids were evaluated by parsing the structures into three distinct components: soluble extramembrane domain, lipid facing transmembrane domain, core transmembrane domain. The aliphatic residues were extracted from each of these sets and passed through our calculation protocol. Notable observations include: the roles of aliphatic residues in soluble proteins and in the membrane protein’s soluble domains are nearly identical, although the latter are slightly more solvent accessible; by comparing maps calculated with sidechain-lipid interactions to maps ignoring those interactions, the potential extent of residue-lipid and residue-interactions can be assessed and likely exploited in structure prediction and modeling; amongst these residue types, the levels of lipid engagement show isoleucine as the most engaged, while the other residues are largely interacting with neighboring helical residues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammed H. AL Mughram
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Claudio Catalano
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Noah B. Herrington
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Martin K. Safo
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Glen E. Kellogg
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
- Center for the Study of Biological Complexity, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
- *Correspondence: Glen E. Kellogg,
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AL Mughram MH, Herrington NB, Catalano C, Kellogg GE. Systematized analysis of secondary structure dependence of key structural features of residues in soluble and membrane-bound proteins. J Struct Biol X 2021; 5:100055. [PMID: 34934943 PMCID: PMC8654985 DOI: 10.1016/j.yjsbx.2021.100055] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2021] [Revised: 11/18/2021] [Accepted: 11/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Knowledge of three-dimensional protein structure is integral to most modern drug discovery efforts. Recent advancements have highlighted new techniques for 3D protein structure determination and, where structural data cannot be collected experimentally, prediction of protein structure. We have undertaken a major effort to use existing protein structures to collect, characterize, and catalogue the inter-atomic interactions that define and compose 3D structure by mapping hydropathic interaction environments as maps in 3D space. This work has been performed on a residue-by-residue basis, where we have seen evidence for relationships between environment character, residue solvent-accessible surface areas and their secondary structures. In this graphical review, we apply principles from our earlier studies and expand the scope to all common amino acid residue types in both soluble and membrane proteins. Key to this analysis is parsing the Ramachandran plot to an 8-by-8 chessboard to define secondary structure bins. Our analysis yielded a number of quantitative discoveries: 1) increased fraction of hydrophobic residues (alanine, isoleucine, leucine, phenylalanine and valine) in membrane proteins compared to their fractions in soluble proteins; 2) less burial coupled with significant increases in favorable hydrophobic interactions for hydrophobic residues in membrane proteins compared to soluble proteins; and 3) higher burial and more favorable polar interactions for polar residues now preferring the interior of membrane proteins. These observations and the supporting data should provide benchmarks for current studies of protein residues in different environments and may be able to guide future protein structure prediction efforts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammed H. AL Mughram
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery, and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
| | - Noah B. Herrington
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery, and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
| | - Claudio Catalano
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery, and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
| | - Glen E. Kellogg
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery, and Development, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
- Center for the Study of Biological Complexity, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
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