A Fragmenting Protocol with Explicit Hydration for Calculation of Binding Enthalpies of Target-Ligand Complexes at a Quantum Mechanical Level

Target-ligand binding affinity from single point enthalpy calculation and elemental composition

Reliable target-ligand binding thermodynamics data are essential for successful drug design and molecular engineering projects. Besides experimental methods, a number of theoretical approaches have been introduced for the generation of binding thermodynamics data. However, available approaches often neglect electronic effects or explicit water molecules influencing target-ligand interactions. To handle electronic effects within a reasonable time frame, we introduce a fast calculator QMH-L using a single target-ligand complex structure pre-optimized at the molecular mechanics level. QMH-L is composed of the semi-empirical quantum mechanics calculation of binding enthalpy with predicted explicit water molecules at the complex interface, and a simple descriptor based on the elemental composition of the ligand. QMH-L estimates the target-ligand binding free energy with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.94 kcal mol-1. The calculations also provide binding enthalpy values and they were compared with experimental binding thermodynamics data collected from the most reliable isothermal titration calorimetry studies of systems including various protein targets and challenging, large peptide ligands with a molecular weight of up to 2-3 thousand. The single point enthalpy calculations of QMH-L require modest computational resources and are based on short runs with open source and/or free software like Gromacs, Mopac, MobyWat, and Fragmenter. QMH-L can be applied for fast, automated scoring of drug candidates during a virtual screen, enthalpic engineering of new ligands or thermodynamic explanation of complex interactions.

DOX_BDW: Incorporating Solvation and Desolvation Effects of Cavity Water into Nonfitting Protein-Ligand Binding Affinity Prediction

Accurate prediction of the protein-ligand binding affinity (PLBA) with an affordable cost is one of the ultimate goals in the field of structure-based drug design (SBDD), as well as a great challenge in the computational and theoretical chemistry. Herein, we have systematically addressed the complicated solvation and desolvation effects on the PLBA brought by the difference of the explicit water in the protein cavity before and after ligands bind to the protein-binding site. Based on the new solvation model, a nonfitting method at the first-principles level for the PLBA prediction was developed by taking the bridging and displaced water (BDW) molecules into account simultaneously. The newly developed method, DOX_BDW, was validated against a total of 765 noncovalent and covalent protein-ligand binding pairs, including the CASF2016 core set, Cov_2022 covalent binding testing set, and six testing sets for the hit and lead compound optimization (HLO) simulation. In all of the testing sets, the DOX_BDW method was able to produce PLBA predictions that were strongly correlated with the corresponding experimental data (R = 0.66-0.85). The overall performance of DOX_BDW is better than the current empirical scoring functions that are heavily parameterized. DOX_BDW is particularly outstanding for the covalent binding situation, implying the need for considering an electronic structure in covalent drug design. Furthermore, the method is especially recommended to be used in the HLO scenario of SBDD, where hundreds of similar derivatives need to be screened and refined. The computational cost of DOX_BDW is affordable, and its accuracy is remarkable.

The Advances and Limitations of the Determination and Applications of Water Structure in Molecular Engineering

Water is a key actor of various processes of nature and, therefore, molecular engineering has to take the structural and energetic consequences of hydration into account. While the present review focuses on the target-ligand interactions in drug design, with a focus on biomolecules, these methods and applications can be easily adapted to other fields of the molecular engineering of molecular complexes, including solid hydrates. The review starts with the problems and solutions of the determination of water structures. The experimental approaches and theoretical calculations are summarized, including conceptual classifications. The implementations and applications of water models are featured for the calculation of the binding thermodynamics and computational ligand docking. It is concluded that theoretical approaches not only reproduce or complete experimental water structures, but also provide key information on the contribution of individual water molecules and are indispensable tools in molecular engineering.

The Structural Effects of Phosphorylation of Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 5 on Its Binding to Histone H4

The protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) enzyme is responsible for arginine methylation on various proteins, including histone H4. PRMT5 is a promising drug target, playing a role in the pathomechanism of several diseases, especially in the progression of certain types of cancer. It was recently proved that the phosphorylation of PRMT5 on T80 residue increases its methyltransferase activity; furthermore, elevated levels of the enzyme were measured in the case of human hepatocellular carcinoma and other types of tumours. In this study, we constructed the complexes of the unmodified human PRMT5-methylosome protein 50 (MEP50) structure and its T80-phosphorylated variant in complex with the full-length histone H4 peptide. The full-length histone H4 was built in situ into the human PRMT5-MEP50 enzyme using experimental H4 fragments. Extensive molecular dynamic simulations and structure and energy analyses were performed for the complexed and apo protein partners, as well. Our results provided an atomic level explanation for two important experimental findings: (1) the increased methyltransferase activity of the phosphorylated PRMT5 when compared to the unmodified type; (2) the PRMT5 methylates only the free form of histone H4 not bound in the nucleosome. The atomic level complex structure H4-PRMT5-MEP50 will help the design of new inhibitors and in uncovering further structure–function relationships of PRMT enzymes.

Exploration of Somatostatin Binding Mechanism to Somatostatin Receptor Subtype 4

Somatostatin (also named as growth hormone-inhibiting hormone or somatotropin release-inhibiting factor) is a regulatory peptide important for the proper functioning of the endocrine system, local inflammatory reactions, mood and motor coordination, and behavioral responses to stress. Somatostatin exerts its effects via binding to G-protein-coupled somatostatin receptors of which the fourth subtype (SSTR4) is a particularly important receptor mediating analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-depressant effects without endocrine actions. Thus, SSTR4 agonists are promising drug candidates. Although the knowledge of the atomic resolution-binding modes of SST would be essential for drug development, experimental elucidation of the structures of SSTR4 and its complexes is still awaiting. In the present study, structures of the somatostatin–SSTR4 complex were produced using an unbiased, blind docking approach. Beyond the static structures, the binding mechanism of SST was also elucidated in the explicit water molecular dynamics (MD) calculations, and key binding modes (external, intermediate, and internal) were distinguished. The most important residues on both receptor and SST sides were identified. An energetic comparison of SST binding to SSTR4 and 2 offered a residue-level explanation of receptor subtype selectivity. The calculated structures show good agreement with available experimental results and indicate that somatostatin binding is realized via prerequisite binding modes and an induced fit mechanism. The identified binding modes and the corresponding key residues provide useful information for future drug design targeting SSTR4.

Cov_DOX: A Method for Structure Prediction of Covalent Protein-Ligand Bindings

A handful of molecular docking tools have been extended to enable a covalent docking. However, all of them face the challenge brought by the covalent bond between proteins and ligands. Many covalent drug design scenarios still heavily rely on demanding crystallographic experiments for accurate binding structures. Aiming at filling the gap between covalent dockings and crystallographic experiments, we develop and validate a hybrid method, dubbed as Cov_DOX, in this work. Cov_DOX achieves an overall success rate of 81% with RMSD < 2 Å for the Top 1 pose prediction in the validation against a test set including 405 crystal structures for covalent protein-ligand complexes, covering various types of the warhead chemistry and receptors. Such accuracy is not far from the much more demanding crystallographic experiments, in sharp contrast to the performance of the covalent docking front runners (success rate: 40-60%).

Protein Fluctuations in Response to Random External Forces

Elastic network models (ENMs) have been widely used in the last decades to investigate protein motions and dynamics. There the intrinsic fluctuations based on the isolated structures are obtained from the normal modes of these elastic networks, and they generally show good agreement with the B-factors extracted from X-ray crystallographic experiments, which are commonly considered to be indicators of protein flexibility. In this paper, we propose a new approach to analyze protein fluctuations and flexibility, which has a more appropriate physical basis. It is based on the application of random forces to the protein ENM to simulate the effects of collisions of solvent on a protein structure. For this purpose, we consider both the Cα-atom coarse-grained anisotropic network model (ANM) and an elastic network augmented with points included for the crystallized waters. We apply random forces to these protein networks everywhere, as well as only on the protein surface alone. Despite the randomness of the directions of the applied perturbations, the computed average displacements of the protein network show a remarkably good agreement with the experimental B-factors. In particular, for our set of 919 protein structures, we find that the highest correlation with the B-factors is obtained when applying forces to the external surface of the water-augmented ANM (an overall gain of 3% in the Pearson’s coefficient for the entire dataset, with improvements up to 30% for individual proteins), rather than when evaluating the fluctuations obtained from the normal modes of a standard Cα-atom coarse-grained ANM. It follows that protein fluctuations should be considered not just as the intrinsic fluctuations of the internal dynamics, but also equally well as responses to external solvent forces, or as a combination of both.

Molecular Structure, Binding Affinity, and Biological Activity in the Epigenome

Development of valid structure–activity relationships (SARs) is a key to the elucidation of pathomechanisms of epigenetic diseases and the development of efficient, new drugs. The present review is based on selected methodologies and applications supplying molecular structure, binding affinity and biological activity data for the development of new SARs. An emphasis is placed on emerging trends and permanent challenges of new discoveries of SARs in the context of proteins as epigenetic drug targets. The review gives a brief overview and classification of the molecular background of epigenetic changes, and surveys both experimental and theoretical approaches in the field. Besides the results of sophisticated, cutting edge techniques such as cryo-electron microscopy, protein crystallography, and isothermal titration calorimetry, examples of frequently used assays and fast screening techniques are also selected. The review features how different experimental methods and theoretical approaches complement each other and result in valid SARs of the epigenome.