scholarly journals Estimation of Binding Rates and Affinities from Multiensemble Markov Models and Ligand Decoupling

Author(s):  
Yunhui Ge ◽  
Vincent Voelz

Accurate and efficient simulation of the thermodynamics and kinetics of protein-ligand interactions is crucial for computational drug discovery. Multiensemble Markov Model (MEMM) estimators can provide estimates of both binding rates and affinities from collections of short trajectories, but have not been systematically explored for situations when a ligand is decoupled through scaling of non-bonded interactions. In this work, we compare the performance of two MEMM approaches for estimating ligand binding affinities and rates: (1) the transition-based reweighting analysis method (TRAM) and (2) a Maximum Caliber (MaxCal) based method. As a test system, we construct a small host-guest system where the ligand is a single uncharged Lennard-Jones (LJ) particle, and the receptor is an 11-particle icosahedral pocket made from the same atom type. To realistically mimic a protein-ligand binding system, the LJ ε parameter was tuned, and the system placed in a periodic box with 860 TIP3P water molecules. A benchmark was performed using over 80 μs of unbiased simulation, and an 18-state Markov state model used to estimate reference binding affinities and rates. We then tested the performance of TRAM and MaxCal when challenged with limited data. Both TRAM and MaxCal approaches perform better than conventional MSMs, with TRAM showing better convergence and accuracy. We find that subsampling of trajectories to remove time correlation improves the accuracy of both TRAM and MaxCal, and that in most cases only a single biased ensemble to enhance sampled transitions is required to make accurate estimates.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunhui Ge ◽  
Vincent Voelz

Accurate and efficient simulation of the thermodynamics and kinetics of protein-ligand interactions is crucial for computational drug discovery. Multiensemble Markov Model (MEMM) estimators can provide estimates of both binding rates and affinities from collections of short trajectories, but have not been systematically explored for situations when a ligand is decoupled through scaling of non-bonded interactions. In this work, we compare the performance of two MEMM approaches for estimating ligand binding affinities and rates: (1) the transition-based reweighting analysis method (TRAM) and (2) a Maximum Caliber (MaxCal) based method. As a test system, we construct a small host-guest system where the ligand is a single uncharged Lennard-Jones (LJ) particle, and the receptor is an 11-particle icosahedral pocket made from the same atom type. To realistically mimic a protein-ligand binding system, the LJ ε parameter was tuned, and the system placed in a periodic box with 860 TIP3P water molecules. A benchmark was performed using over 80 μs of unbiased simulation, and an 18-state Markov state model used to estimate reference binding affinities and rates. We then tested the performance of TRAM and MaxCal when challenged with limited data. Both TRAM and MaxCal approaches perform better than conventional MSMs, with TRAM showing better convergence and accuracy. We find that subsampling of trajectories to remove time correlation improves the accuracy of both TRAM and MaxCal, and that in most cases only a single biased ensemble to enhance sampled transitions is required to make accurate estimates.


2014 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 477-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Woods ◽  
Maturos Malaisree ◽  
Julien Michel ◽  
Ben Long ◽  
Simon McIntosh-Smith ◽  
...  

Recent advances in computational hardware, software and algorithms enable simulations of protein–ligand complexes to achieve timescales during which complete ligand binding and unbinding pathways can be observed. While observation of such events can promote understanding of binding and unbinding pathways, it does not alone provide information about the molecular drivers for protein–ligand association, nor guidance on how a ligand could be optimised to better bind to the protein. We have developed the waterswap (C. J. Woods et al., J. Chem. Phys., 2011, 134, 054114) absolute binding free energy method that calculates binding affinities by exchanging the ligand with an equivalent volume of water. A significant advantage of this method is that the binding free energy is calculated using a single reaction coordinate from a single simulation. This has enabled the development of new visualisations of binding affinities based on free energy decompositions to per-residue and per-water molecule components. These provide a clear picture of which protein–ligand interactions are strong, and which active site water molecules are stabilised or destabilised upon binding. Optimisation of the algorithms underlying the decomposition enables near-real-time visualisation, allowing these calculations to be used either to provide interactive feedback to a ligand designer, or to provide run-time analysis of protein–ligand molecular dynamics simulations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (26) ◽  
pp. 4964-4983 ◽  
Author(s):  
CongBao Kang

Solution NMR spectroscopy plays important roles in understanding protein structures, dynamics and protein-protein/ligand interactions. In a target-based drug discovery project, NMR can serve an important function in hit identification and lead optimization. Fluorine is a valuable probe for evaluating protein conformational changes and protein-ligand interactions. Accumulated studies demonstrate that 19F-NMR can play important roles in fragment- based drug discovery (FBDD) and probing protein-ligand interactions. This review summarizes the application of 19F-NMR in understanding protein-ligand interactions and drug discovery. Several examples are included to show the roles of 19F-NMR in confirming identified hits/leads in the drug discovery process. In addition to identifying hits from fluorinecontaining compound libraries, 19F-NMR will play an important role in drug discovery by providing a fast and robust way in novel hit identification. This technique can be used for ranking compounds with different binding affinities and is particularly useful for screening competitive compounds when a reference ligand is available.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (05) ◽  
pp. 1950027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiangna Lu ◽  
Lian-Wen Qi ◽  
Jinfeng Liu

Water plays a significant role in determining the protein–ligand binding modes, especially when water molecules are involved in mediating protein–ligand interactions, and these important water molecules are receiving more and more attention in recent years. Considering the effects of water molecules has gradually become a routine process for accurate description of the protein–ligand interactions. As a free docking program, Autodock has been most widely used in predicting the protein–ligand binding modes. However, whether the inclusion of water molecules in Autodock would improve its docking performance has not been systematically investigated. Here, we incorporate important bridging water molecules into Autodock program, and systematically investigate the effectiveness of these water molecules in protein–ligand docking. This approach was evaluated using 18 structurally diverse protein–ligand complexes, in which several water molecules bridge the protein–ligand interactions. Different treatment of water molecules were tested by using the fixed and rotatable water molecules, and a considerable improvement in successful docking simulations was found when including these water molecules. This study illustrates the necessity of inclusion of water molecules in Autodock docking, and emphasizes the importance of a proper treatment of water molecules in protein–ligand binding predictions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deliang Chen ◽  
Yibao Li ◽  
Wei Guo ◽  
Yongdong Li ◽  
Tor Savidge ◽  
...  

The contributions of metal–ligand interactions to the ligand binding affinities are largely reduced by the shielding effects of metal complexes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 582-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shilpa Nadimpalli Kobren ◽  
Mona Singh

Abstract Domains are fundamental subunits of proteins, and while they play major roles in facilitating protein–DNA, protein–RNA and other protein–ligand interactions, a systematic assessment of their various interaction modes is still lacking. A comprehensive resource identifying positions within domains that tend to interact with nucleic acids, small molecules and other ligands would expand our knowledge of domain functionality as well as aid in detecting ligand-binding sites within structurally uncharacterized proteins. Here, we introduce an approach to identify per-domain-position interaction ‘frequencies’ by aggregating protein co-complex structures by domain and ascertaining how often residues mapping to each domain position interact with ligands. We perform this domain-based analysis on ∼91000 co-complex structures, and infer positions involved in binding DNA, RNA, peptides, ions or small molecules across 4128 domains, which we refer to collectively as the InteracDome. Cross-validation testing reveals that ligand-binding positions for 2152 domains are highly consistent and can be used to identify residues facilitating interactions in ∼63–69% of human genes. Our resource of domain-inferred ligand-binding sites should be a great aid in understanding disease etiology: whereas these sites are enriched in Mendelian-associated and cancer somatic mutations, they are depleted in polymorphisms observed across healthy populations. The InteracDome is available at http://interacdome.princeton.edu.


1985 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 155-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal J. Goldschmidt-Clermont ◽  
Robert M. Galbraith ◽  
David L. Emerson ◽  
Andre E. Nel ◽  
Philip A. M. Werner ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 140306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omkar Singh ◽  
Kunal Sawariya ◽  
Polamarasetty Aparoy

Over the years, various computational methodologies have been developed to understand and quantify receptor–ligand interactions. Protein–ligand interactions can also be explained in the form of a network and its properties. The ligand binding at the protein-active site is stabilized by formation of new interactions like hydrogen bond, hydrophobic and ionic. These non-covalent interactions when considered as links cause non-isomorphic sub-graphs in the residue interaction network. This study aims to investigate the relationship between these induced sub-graphs and ligand activity. Graphlet signature-based analysis of networks has been applied in various biological problems; the focus of this work is to analyse protein–ligand interactions in terms of neighbourhood connectivity and to develop a method in which the information from residue interaction networks, i.e. graphlet signatures, can be applied to quantify ligand affinity. A scoring method was developed, which depicts the variability in signatures adopted by different amino acids during inhibitor binding, and was termed as GSUS (graphlet signature uniqueness score). The score is specific for every individual inhibitor. Two well-known drug targets, COX-2 and CA-II and their inhibitors, were considered to assess the method. Residue interaction networks of COX-2 and CA-II with their respective inhibitors were used. Only hydrogen bond network was considered to calculate GSUS and quantify protein–ligand interaction in terms of graphlet signatures. The correlation of the GSUS with pIC 50 was consistent in both proteins and better in comparison to the Autodock results. The GSUS scoring method was better in activity prediction of molecules with similar structure and diverse activity and vice versa. This study can be a major platform in developing approaches that can be used alone or together with existing methods to predict ligand affinity from protein–ligand complexes.


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