scholarly journals Submolecular probing of the complement C5a receptor–ligand binding reveals a cooperative two-site binding mechanism

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andra C. Dumitru ◽  
R. N. V. Krishna Deepak ◽  
Heng Liu ◽  
Melanie Koehler ◽  
Cheng Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractA current challenge to produce effective therapeutics is to accurately determine the location of the ligand-biding site and to characterize its properties. So far, the mechanisms underlying the functional activation of cell surface receptors by ligands with a complex binding mechanism remain poorly understood due to a lack of suitable nanoscopic methods to study them in their native environment. Here, we elucidated the ligand-binding mechanism of the human G protein-coupled C5a receptor (C5aR). We discovered for the first time a cooperativity between the two orthosteric binding sites. We found that the N-terminus C5aR serves as a kinetic trap, while the transmembrane domain acts as the functional site and both contributes to the overall high-affinity interaction. In particular, Asp282 plays a key role in ligand binding thermodynamics, as revealed by atomic force microscopy and steered molecular dynamics simulation. Our findings provide a new structural basis for the functional and mechanistic understanding of the GPCR family that binds large macromolecular ligands.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andra C. Dumitru ◽  
R. N. V. Krishna Deepak ◽  
Heng Liu ◽  
Melanie Koehler ◽  
Cheng Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractA current challenge in the field of life sciences is to decipher, in their native environment, the functional activation of cell surface receptors upon binding of complex ligands. Lack of suitable nanoscopic methods has hampered our ability to meet this challenge in an experimental manner. Here, we use for the first time the interplay between atomic force microscopy, steered molecular dynamics and functional assays to elucidate the complex ligand-binding mechanism of C5a with the human G protein-coupled C5a receptor (C5aR). We have identified two independent binding sites acting in concert where the N-terminal C5aR serves as kinetic trap and the transmembrane domain as functional site. Our results corroborate the two-site binding model and clearly identify a cooperative effect between two binding sites within the C5aR. We anticipate that our methodology could be used for development and design of new therapeutic agents to negatively modulate C5aR activity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andra C. Dumitru ◽  
R. N. V. Krishna Deepak ◽  
Heng Liu ◽  
Melanie Koehler ◽  
Cheng Zhang ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shunzhou Wan ◽  
Deepak Kumar ◽  
Valentin Ilyin ◽  
Ussama Al Homsi ◽  
Gulab Sher ◽  
...  

AbstractThe advent of personalised medicine promises a deeper understanding of mechanisms and therefore therapies. However, the connection between genomic sequences and clinical treatments is often unclear. We studied 50 breast cancer patients belonging to a population-cohort in the state of Qatar. From Sanger sequencing, we identified several new deleterious mutations in the estrogen receptor 1 gene (ESR1). The effect of these mutations on drug treatment in the protein target encoded by ESR1, namely the estrogen receptor, was achieved via rapid and accurate protein–ligand binding affinity interaction studies which were performed for the selected drugs and the natural ligand estrogen. Four nonsynonymous mutations in the ligand-binding domain were subjected to molecular dynamics simulation using absolute and relative binding free energy methods, leading to the ranking of the efficacy of six selected drugs for patients with the mutations. Our study shows that a personalised clinical decision system can be created by integrating an individual patient’s genomic data at the molecular level within a computational pipeline which ranks the efficacy of binding of particular drugs to variant proteins.


2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (13) ◽  
pp. 6633-6645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen M. Ogden ◽  
Liya Hu ◽  
Babal K. Jha ◽  
Banumathi Sankaran ◽  
Susan R. Weiss ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTSynthesis of 2′-5′-oligoadenylates (2-5A) by oligoadenylate synthetase (OAS) is an important innate cellular response that limits viral replication by activating the latent cellular RNase, RNase L, to degrade single-stranded RNA. Some rotaviruses and coronaviruses antagonize the OAS/RNase L pathway through the activity of an encoded 2H phosphoesterase domain that cleaves 2-5A. These viral 2H phosphoesterases are phylogenetically related to the cellular A kinase anchoring protein 7 (AKAP7) and share a core structure and an active site that contains two well-defined HΦ(S/T)Φ (where Φ is a hydrophobic residue) motifs, but their mechanism of substrate binding is unknown. Here, we report the structures of a viral 2H phosphoesterase, the C-terminal domain (CTD) of the group A rotavirus (RVA) VP3 protein, both alone and in complex with 2-5A. The domain forms a compact fold, with a concave β-sheet that contains the catalytic cleft, but it lacks two α-helical regions and two β-strands observed in AKAP7 and other 2H phosphoesterases. The cocrystal structure shows significant conformational changes in the R loop upon ligand binding. Bioinformatics and biochemical analyses reveal that conserved residues and residues required for catalytic activity and substrate binding comprise the catalytic motifs and a region on one side of the binding cleft. We demonstrate that the VP3 CTD of group B rotavirus, but not that of group G, cleaves 2-5A. These findings suggest that the VP3 CTD is a streamlined version of a 2H phosphoesterase with a ligand-binding mechanism that is shared among 2H phosphodiesterases that cleave 2-5A.IMPORTANCEThe C-terminal domain (CTD) of rotavirus VP3 is a 2H phosphoesterase that cleaves 2′-5′-oligoadenylates (2-5A), potent activators of an important innate cellular antiviral pathway. 2H phosphoesterase superfamily proteins contain two conserved catalytic motifs and a proposed core structure. Here, we present structures of a viral 2H phosphoesterase, the rotavirus VP3 CTD, alone and in complex with its substrate, 2-5A. The domain lacks two α-helical regions and β-strands present in other 2H phosphoesterases. A loop of the protein undergoes significant structural changes upon substrate binding. Together with our bioinformatics and biochemical findings, the crystal structures suggest that the RVA VP3 CTD domain is a streamlined version of a cellular enzyme that shares a ligand-binding mechanism with other 2H phosphodiesterases that cleave 2-5A but differs from those of 2H phosphodiesterases that cleave other substrates. These findings may aid in the future design of antivirals targeting viral phosphodiesterases with cleavage specificity for 2-5A.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajiv K. Kar ◽  
Md. Yousuf Ansari ◽  
Priyanka Suryadevara ◽  
Bikash R. Sahoo ◽  
Ganesh C. Sahoo ◽  
...  

Enzyme adenosine kinase is responsible for phosphorylation of adenosine to AMP and is crucial for parasites which are purine auxotrophs. The present study describes development of robust homology model ofLeishmania donovaniadenosine kinase to forecast interaction phenomenon with inhibitory molecules using structure-based drug designing strategy. Docking calculation using reported organic small molecules and natural products revealed key active site residues such as Arg131 and Asp16 for ligand binding, which is consistent with previous studies. Molecular dynamics simulation of ligand protein complex revealed the importance of hydrogen bonding with active site residues and solvent molecules, which may be crucial for successful development of drug candidates. Precise role of Phe168 residue in the active site was elucidated in this report that provided stability to ligand-protein complex via aromatic-πcontacts. Overall, the present study is believed to provide valuable information to design a new compound with improved activity for antileishmanial therapeutics development.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel C. Gill ◽  
David Mobley

<div>Sampling multiple binding modes of a ligand in a single molecular dynamics simulation is difficult. A given ligand may have many internal degrees of freedom, along with many different ways it might orient itself a binding site or across several binding sites, all of which might be separated by large energy barriers. We have developed a novel Monte Carlo move called Molecular Darting (MolDarting) to reversibly sample between predefined binding modes of a ligand. Here, we couple this with nonequilibrium candidate Monte Carlo (NCMC) to improve acceptance of moves.</div><div>We apply this technique to a simple dipeptide system, a ligand binding to T4 Lysozyme L99A, and ligand binding to HIV integrase in order to test this new method. We observe significant increases in acceptance compared to uniformly sampling the internal, and rotational/translational degrees of freedom in these systems.</div>


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Gill ◽  
Nathan M. Lim ◽  
Patrick Grinaway ◽  
Ariën S. Rustenburg ◽  
Josh Fass ◽  
...  

<div>Accurately predicting protein-ligand binding is a major goal in computational chemistry, but even the prediction of ligand binding modes in proteins poses major challenges. Here, we focus on solving the binding mode prediction problem for rigid fragments. That is, we focus on computing the dominant placement, conformation, and orientations of a relatively rigid, fragment-like ligand in a receptor, and the populations of the multiple binding modes which may be relevant. This problem is important in its own right, but is even more timely given the recent success of alchemical free energy calculations. Alchemical calculations are increasingly used to predict binding free energies of ligands to receptors. However, the accuracy of these calculations is dependent on proper sampling of the relevant ligand binding modes. Unfortunately, ligand binding modes may often be uncertain, hard to predict, and/or slow to interconvert on simulation timescales, so proper sampling with current techniques can require prohibitively long simulations. We need new methods which dramatically improve sampling of ligand binding modes. Here, we develop and apply a nonequilibrium candidate Monte Carlo (NCMC) method to improve sampling of ligand binding modes.</div><div><br></div><div>In this technique the ligand is rotated and subsequently allowed to relax in its new position through alchemical perturbation before accepting or rejecting the rotation and relaxation as a nonequilibrium Monte Carlo move. When applied to a T4 lysozyme model binding system, this NCMC method shows over two orders of magnitude improvement in binding mode sampling efficiency compared to a brute force molecular dynamics simulation. This is a first step towards applying this methodology to pharmaceutically relevant binding of fragments and, eventually, drug-like molecules. We are making this approach available via our new Binding Modes of Ligands using Enhanced Sampling (BLUES) package which is freely available on GitHub.</div>


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Gill ◽  
Nathan M. Lim ◽  
Patrick Grinaway ◽  
Ariën S. Rustenburg ◽  
Josh Fass ◽  
...  

<div>Accurately predicting protein-ligand binding is a major goal in computational chemistry, but even the prediction of ligand binding modes in proteins poses major challenges. Here, we focus on solving the binding mode prediction problem for rigid fragments. That is, we focus on computing the dominant placement, conformation, and orientations of a relatively rigid, fragment-like ligand in a receptor, and the populations of the multiple binding modes which may be relevant. This problem is important in its own right, but is even more timely given the recent success of alchemical free energy calculations. Alchemical calculations are increasingly used to predict binding free energies of ligands to receptors. However, the accuracy of these calculations is dependent on proper sampling of the relevant ligand binding modes. Unfortunately, ligand binding modes may often be uncertain, hard to predict, and/or slow to interconvert on simulation timescales, so proper sampling with current techniques can require prohibitively long simulations. We need new methods which dramatically improve sampling of ligand binding modes. Here, we develop and apply a nonequilibrium candidate Monte Carlo (NCMC) method to improve sampling of ligand binding modes.</div><div><br></div><div>In this technique the ligand is rotated and subsequently allowed to relax in its new position through alchemical perturbation before accepting or rejecting the rotation and relaxation as a nonequilibrium Monte Carlo move. When applied to a T4 lysozyme model binding system, this NCMC method shows over two orders of magnitude improvement in binding mode sampling efficiency compared to a brute force molecular dynamics simulation. This is a first step towards applying this methodology to pharmaceutically relevant binding of fragments and, eventually, drug-like molecules. We are making this approach available via our new Binding Modes of Ligands using Enhanced Sampling (BLUES) package which is freely available on GitHub.</div>


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