Conformational analysis of TMC114, a novel HIV-1 protease inhibitor

TMC114, a potent novel HIV-1 protease inhibitor, remains active against a broad spectrum of mutant viruses. In order to bind to a variety of mutants, the compound needs to make strong, preferably backbone, interactions and have enough conformational flexibility to adapt to the changing geometry of the active site. The conformational analysis of TMC114 in the gas phase yielded 43 conformers in which five types of intramolecular H-bond interactions could be observed. All 43 conformers were subject to both rigid and flexible ligand docking in the wild-type and a triple mutant (L63P/V82T/I84V) of HIV-1 protease. The largest binding energy was calculated for the conformations that are close to the conformation observed in the X-ray complexes of TMC114 and HIV-1 protease.     

Structure, dynamics and solvation of HIV-1 protease/saquinavir complex in aqueous solution and their contributions to drug resistance: molecular dynamic simulations

As it is known that the understanding of the basic properties of the enzyme/inhibitor complex leads directly to enhancing the capability in drug designing and drug discovery. Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed to examine detailed information on the structure and dynamical properties of the HIV-1 PR complexed with saquinavir in the three protonated states, monoprotonates at Asp25 (Mono-25) and Asp25'(Mono-25') and diprotonate (Di-Pro) at both Asp25 and Asp25'. The obtained results support clinical data which reveal that Ile84 and Gly48 are two of the most frequent residues where mutation toward a protease inhibitor takes place. In contrast to the Ile84 mutation due to high displacement of Ile84 in the presence of saquinavir, source of the Gly48 mutation was observed to be due to the limited space in the HIV-1 PR pocket. The Gly48 was, on one side, found to form strong hydrogen bonds with saquinavir, while on the other side this residue was repelled by the hydrophobic Phe53 residue. In terms of inhibitor/enzyme binding, interactions between saquinavir and a catalytic triad of the HIV-1 PR were calculated using the ab initio method. The results show an order of the binding energy of Mono25相似文献   

Energetic basis for drug resistance of HIV-1 protease mutants against amprenavir

Amprenavir (APV) is a high affinity (0.15 nM) HIV-1 protease (PR) inhibitor. However, the affinities of the drug resistant protease variants V32I, I50V, I54V, I54M, I84V and L90M to amprenavir are decreased 3 to 30-fold compared to the wild-type. In this work, the popular molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area method has been used to investigate the effectiveness of amprenavir against the wild-type and these mutated protease variants. Our results reveal that the protonation state of Asp25/Asp25′ strongly affects the dynamics, the overall affinity and the interactions of the inhibitor with individual residues. We emphasize that, in contrast to what is often assumed, the protonation state may not be inferred from the affinities but requires pK_a calculations. At neutral pH, Asp25 and Asp25′ are ionized or protonated, respectively, as suggested from pK_a calculations. This protonation state was thus mainly considered in our study. Mutation induced changes in binding affinities are in agreement with the experimental findings. The decomposition of the binding free energy reveals the mechanisms underlying binding and drug resistance. Drug resistance arises from an increase in the energetic contribution from the van der Waals interactions between APV and PR (V32I, I50V, and I84V mutant) or a rise in the energetic contribution from the electrostatic interactions between the inhibitor and its target (I54M and I54V mutant). For the V32I mutant, also an increased free energy for the polar solvation contributes to the drug resistance. For the L90M mutant, a rise in the van der Waals energy for APV-PR interactions is compensated by a decrease in the polar solvation free energy such that the net binding affinity remains unchanged. Detailed understanding of the molecular forces governing binding and drug resistance might assist in the design of new inhibitors against HIV-1 PR variants that are resistant against current drugs.     

Drug-resistant molecular mechanism of CRF01_AE HIV-1 protease due to V82F mutation

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 protease (HIV-1 PR) is one of the major targets of anti-AIDS drug discovery. The circulating recombinant form 01 A/E (CRF01_AE, abbreviated AE) subtype is one of the most common HIV-1 subtypes, which is infecting more humans and is expanding rapidly throughout the world. It is, therefore, necessary to develop inhibitors against subtype AE HIV-1 PR. In this work, we have performed computer simulation of subtype AE HIV-1 PR with the drugs lopinavir (LPV) and nelfinavir (NFV), and examined the mechanism of resistance of the V82F mutation of this protease against LPV both structurally and energetically. The V82F mutation at the active site results in a conformational change of 79′s loop region and displacement of LPV from its proper binding site, and these changes lead to rotation of the side-chains of residues D25 and I50′. Consequently, the conformation of the binding cavity is deformed asymmetrically and some interactions between PR and LPV are destroyed. Additionally, by comparing the interactive mechanisms of LPV and NFV with HIV-1 PR we discovered that the presence of a dodecahydroisoquinoline ring at the P1′ subsite, a [2-(2,6-dimethylphenoxy)acetyl]amino group at the P2′ subsite, and an N2 atom at the P2 subsite could improve the binding affinity of the drug with AE HIV-1 PR. These findings are helpful for promising drug design. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Resistant mechanism against nelfinavir of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 proteases

Inhibitors against human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) proteases are finely effective for anti-HIV-1 treatments. However, the therapeutic efficacy is reduced by the rapid emergence of inhibitor-resistant variants of the protease. Among patients who failed in the inhibitor nelfinavir (NFV) treatment, D30N, N88D, and L90M mutations of HIV-1 protease are often observed. Despite the serious clinical problem, it is not clear how these mutations, especially nonactive site mutations N88D and L90M, affect the affinity of NFV or why they cause the resistance to NFV. In this study, we executed molecular dynamics simulations of the NFV-bound proteases in the wild-type and D30N, N88D, D30N/N88D, and L90M mutants. Our simulations clarified the conformational change at the active site of the protease and the change of the affinity with NFV for all of these mutations, even though the 88th and 90th residues are not located in the NFV-bound cavity and not able to directly interact with NFV. D30N mutation causes the disappearance of the hydrogen bond between the m-phenol group of NFV and the 30th residue. N88D mutation alters the active site conformation slightly and induces a favorable hydrophobic contact. L90M mutation dramatically changes the conformation at the flap region and leads to an unfavorable distortion of the binding pocket of the protease, although 90M is largely far apart from the flap region. Furthermore, the changes of binding energies of the mutants from the wild-type protease are shown to be correlated with the mutant resistivity previously reported by the phenotypic experiments.     

分子动力学研究V82A和L90M变异对HIV PR-IDV复合物的影响

为了说明V82A和L90M变异对蛋白酶(PR)和茚地那韦(IDV)复合物的影响,进行了5.5ns的MD模拟.用MM-PBSA方法计算了体系的结合自由能,计算和实验结果一致.分解自由能为不同能量项说明,这两个变异引起熵的贡献变化大于焓的贡献变化.分解自由能到每个残基说明Wild,V82A和L90M具有相似的结合模式,结合能的贡献主要来源于A28/A28',I50/I50'和I84/I84'这六个残基组,详细分析了Wild和IDV的结合模式,对比分析了V82A和L90M变异引起结合模式的细小变化.V82A变异引起结合模式的变化是由于变异后位阻减小导致的.L90M变异引起D25和L90间的作用增强并引起结合模式的细小变化.研究结果有助于更好地理解变异对抑制剂和HIV-1PR结合模式的影响,并可以用来帮助设计更高效的PR抑制剂.     

Accurate prediction of protonation state as a prerequisite for reliable MM-PB(GB)SA binding free energy calculations of HIV-1 protease inhibitors

Binding free energies were calculated for the inhibitors lopinavir, ritonavir, saquinavir, indinavir, amprenavir, and nelfinavir bound to HIV-1 protease. An MMPB/SA-type analysis was applied to conformational samples from 3 ns explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations of the enzyme-inhibitor complexes. Binding affinities and the sampled conformations of the inhibitor and enzyme were compared between different HIV-1 protease protonation states to find the most likely protonation state of the enzyme in the complex with each of the inhibitors. The resulting set of protonation states leads to good agreement between calculated and experimental binding affinities. Results from the MMPB/SA analysis are compared with an explicit/implicit hybrid scheme and with MMGB/SA methods. It is found that the inclusion of explicit water molecules may offer a slight advantage in reproducing absolute binding free energies while the use of the Generalized Born approximation significantly affects the accuracy of the calculated binding affinities.     

Evolutionarily conserved functional mechanics across pepsin-like and retroviral aspartic proteases

The biological function of the aspartic protease from HIV-1 has recently been related to the conformational flexibility of its structural scaffold. Here, we use a multistep strategy to investigate whether the same mechanism affects the functionality in the pepsin-like fold. (i) We identify the set of conserved residues by using sequence-alignment techniques. These residues cluster in three distinct regions: near the cleavage-site cavity, in the four beta-sheets cross-linking the two lobes, and in a solvent-exposed region below the long beta-hairpin in the N-terminal lobe. (ii) We elucidate the role played by the conserved residues for the enzymatic functionality of one representative member of the fold family, the human beta-secretase, by means of classical molecular dynamics (MD). The conserved regions exhibit little overall mobility and yet are involved into the most important modes of structural fluctuations. These modes influence the substrate-catalytic aspartates distance through a relative rotation of the N- and C-terminal lobes. (iii) We investigate the effects of this modulation by estimating the reaction free energy at different representative substrate/enzyme conformations. The activation free energy is strongly affected by large-scale protein motions, similarly to what has been observed in the HIV-1 enzyme. (iv) We extend our findings to all other members of the two eukaryotic and retroviral fold families by recurring to a simple, topology-based, energy functional. This analysis reveals a sophisticated mechanism of enzymatic activity modulation common to all aspartic proteases. We suggest that aspartic proteases have been evolutionarily selected to possess similar functional motions despite the observed fold variations.     

Computational studies of darunavir into HIV-1 protease and DMPC bilayer: necessary conditions for effective binding and the role of the flaps

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 protease (HIV-1 PR) is one of the main targets toward AIDS therapy. We have selected the potent drug darunavir and a weak inhibitor (fullerene analog) as HIV-1 PR substrates to compare protease's conformational features upon binding. Molecular dynamics (MD), molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM-PBSA), and quantum-mechanical (QM) calculations indicated the importance of the stability of HIV-1 PR flaps toward effective binding: a weak inhibitor may induce flexibility to the flaps, which convert between closed and semiopen states. A water molecule in the darunavir-HIV-1 PR complex bridged the two flap tips of the protease through hydrogen bonding (HB) interactions in a stable structure, a feature that was not observed for the fullerene-HIV-1 PR complex. Additionally, despite that van der Waals interactions and nonpolar contribution to solvation favored permanent fullerene entrapment into the cavity, these interactions alone were not sufficient for effective binding; enhanced electrostatic interactions as observed in the darunavir-complex were the crucial component of the binding energy. An alternative pathway to the usual way of a ligand to access the cavity was also observed for both compounds. Each ligand entered the binding cavity through an opening between the one flap of the protease and a neighboring loop. This suggested that access to the cavity is not necessarily regulated by flap opening. Darunavir exerts its biological action inside the cell, after crossing the membrane barrier. Thus, we also initiated a study on the interactions between darunavir and the DMPC bilayer to reveal that the drug was accommodated inside the bilayer in conformations that resembled its structure into HIV-1 PR, being stabilized via HBs with the lipids and water molecules.     

Insights into the Allosteric Effect of SENP1 Q597A Mutation on the Hydrolytic Reaction of SUMO1 via an Integrated Computational Study

Small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO)-specific protease 1 (SENP1) is a cysteine protease that catalyzes the cleavage of the C-terminus of SUMO1 for the processing of SUMO precursors and deSUMOylation of target proteins. SENP1 is considered to be a promising target for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and prostate cancer. SENP1 Gln597 is located at the unstructured loop connecting the helices α4 to α5. The Q597A mutation of SENP1 allosterically disrupts the hydrolytic reaction of SUMO1 through an unknown mechanism. Here, extensive multiple replicates of microsecond molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, coupled with principal component analysis, dynamic cross-correlation analysis, community network analysis, and binding free energy calculations, were performed to elucidate the detailed mechanism. Our MD simulations showed that the Q597A mutation induced marked dynamic conformational changes in SENP1, especially in the unstructured loop connecting the helices α4 to α5 which the mutation site occupies. Moreover, the Q597A mutation caused conformational changes to catalytic Cys603 and His533 at the active site, which might impair the catalytic activity of SENP1 in processing SUMO1. Moreover, binding free energy calculations revealed that the Q597A mutation had a minor effect on the binding affinity of SUMO1 to SENP1. Together, these results may broaden our understanding of the allosteric modulation of the SENP1−SUMO1 complex.     

The Glu143 Residue Might Play a Significant Role in T20 Peptide Binding to HIV-1 Receptor gp41: An In Silico Study

Despite the enormous efforts made to develop other fusion inhibitors for HIV, the enfuvirtide (known as T20) peptide is the only approved HIV-1 inhibitory drug so far. Investigating the role of potential residues of the T20 peptide’s conformational dynamics could help us to understand the role of potential residues of the T20 peptide. We investigated T20 peptide conformation and binding interactions with the HIV-1 receptor (i.e., gp41) using MD simulations and docking techniques, respectively. Although the mutation of E143 into alanine decreased the flexibility of the E143A mutant, the conformational compactness of the mutant was increased. This suggests a potential role of E143 in the T20 peptide’s conformation. Interestingly, the free energy landscape showed a significant change in the wild-type T20 minimum, as the E143A mutant produced two observed minima. Finally, the docking results of T20 to the gp41 receptor showed a different binding interaction in comparison to the E143A mutant. This suggests that E143 residue can influence the binding interaction with the gp41 receptor. Overall, the E143 residue showed a significant role in conformation and binding to the HIV-1 receptor. These findings can be helpful in optimizing and developing HIV-1 inhibitor peptides.     

Binding free energy contributions of interfacial waters in HIV-1 protease/inhibitor complexes

Water molecules are commonly observed in crystal structures of protein-ligand complexes where they mediate protein-ligand binding. It is of considerable theoretical and practical importance to determine quantitatively the individual free energy contributions of these interfacial water molecules to protein-ligand binding and to elucidate factors that influence them. The double-decoupling free energy molecular dynamics simulation method has been used to calculate the binding free energy contribution for each of the four interfacial water molecules observed in the crystal structure of HIV-1 protease complexed with KNI-272, a potent inhibitor. While two of these water molecules contribute significantly to the binding free energy, the other two have close to zero contribution. It was further observed that the protonation states of two catalytic aspartate residues, Asp25 and Asp125, strongly influence the free energy contribution of a conserved water molecule Wat301 and that different inhibitors significantly influence the free energy contribution of Wat301. Our results have important implications on our understanding of the role of interfacial water molecules in protein-ligand binding and to structure-based drug design aimed at incorporating these interfacial water molecules into ligands.     

Combining molecular docking and molecular dynamics studies for modelling Staphylococcus aureus MurD inhibitory activity

The ATP-dependent bacterial MurD enzyme catalyses the formation of the peptide bond between cytoplasmic intermediate UDP-N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine and D-glutamic acid. This is essential for bacterial cell wall peptidoglycan synthesis in both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. MurD is recognized as an important target for the development of new antibacterial agents. In the present study we prepared the 3D-stucture of the catalytic pocket of the Staphylococcus aureus MurD enzyme by homology modelling. Extra-precision docking, binding free energy calculation by the MM–GBSA approach and a 40 ns molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of 2-thioxothiazolidin-4-one based inhibitor $1 was carried out to elucidate its inhibition potential for the S. aureus MurD enzyme. Molecular docking results showed that Lys19, Gly147, Tyr148, Lys328, Thr330 and Phe431 residues are responsible for the inhibitor–protein complex stabilization. Binding free energy calculation revealed electrostatic solvation and van der Waals energy components as major contributors for the inhibitor binding. The inhibitor-modelled S. aureus protein complex had a stable conformation in response to the atomic flexibility and interaction, when subjected to MD simulation at 40 ns in aqueous solution. We designed some molecules as potent inhibitors of S. aureus MurD, and to validate the stability of the designed molecule D1-modelled protein complex we performed a 20 ns MD simulation. Results obtained from this study can be utilized for the design of potent S. aureus MurD inhibitors.     

Insights into the dynamics of HIV-1 protease: a kinetic network model constructed from atomistic simulations

The conformational dynamics in the flaps of HIV-1 protease plays a crucial role in the mechanism of substrate binding. We develop a kinetic network model, constructed from detailed atomistic simulations, to determine the kinetic mechanisms of the conformational transitions in HIV-1 PR. To overcome the time scale limitation of conventional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, our method combines replica exchange MD with transition path theory (TPT) to study the diversity and temperature dependence of the pathways connecting functionally important states of the protease. At low temperatures the large-scale flap opening is dominated by a small number of paths; at elevated temperatures the transition occurs through many structurally heterogeneous routes. The expanded conformation in the crystal structure 1TW7 is found to closely mimic a key intermediate in the flap-opening pathways at low temperature. We investigated the different transition mechanisms between the semi-open and closed forms. The calculated relaxation times reveal fast semi-open ? closed transitions, and infrequently the flaps fully open. The ligand binding rate predicted from this kinetic model increases by 38-fold from 285 to 309 K, which is in general agreement with experiments. To our knowledge, this is the first application of a network model constructed from atomistic simulations together with TPT to analyze conformational changes between different functional states of a natively folded protein.     

Possible allosteric interactions of monoindazole-substituted P2 cyclic urea analogues with wild-type and mutant HIV-1 protease

Our ongoing efforts to understand the difference in the binding pattern of HIV-1 protease inhibitor (HIVPI) with the wild-type and mutant HIV-1 protease (HIVPR) and to provide mechanistic insight are continued further. We report here the results of a recent quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) study on monoindazole-substituted P2 analogues of cyclic urea HIVPIs. The QSAR models revealed an inverted parabolic relationship between biological activity and calculated molar refractivity (CMR). That is, biological activity first decreases with increase in CMR and at a certain minimum point (inversion point) it suddenly changes and increases with further increase in CMR. CMR is a measure of volume-dependent-polarizability and is an indication of the polar interactions between ligand and receptor. The results seem to be best rationalized by larger molecules inducing a change in a receptor unit that allows for a new mode of interaction. Similar QSAR models were also observed for the biological activity of these molecules tested against a panel of mutant viruses including mutant strains with single amino acid substitution (I84V), double amino acid substitutions (I84V/V82F), and multiple amino acid changes corresponding to mutations observed in clinical isolates of patients treated with Ritonavir((R)). Interestingly the inversion points for these mutant strains were found larger than for wild-type. The subtle but significant difference in the inversion point indicates change in the shape and size of the binding pocket. Earlier QSAR studies have shown that the correlation of biological activity with an inverted parabola is an indicative of the 'allosteric interaction' of the ligands with the receptor. This report presents a detail analysis of these observations.     

Rapid and accurate prediction of binding free energies for saquinavir-bound HIV-1 proteases

To explain drug resistance by computer simulations at the molecular level, we first have to assess the accuracy of theoretical predictions. Herein we report an application of the molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM/PBSA) technique to the ranking of binding affinities of the inhibitor saquinavir with the wild type (WT) and three resistant mutants of HIV-1 protease: L90M, G48V, and G48V/L90M. For each ligand-protein complex we report 10 ns of fully unrestrained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with explicit solvent. We investigate convergence, internal consistency, and model dependency of MM/PBSA ligand binding energies. Converged enthalpy and entropy estimates produce ligand binding affinities within 1.5 kcal/mol of experimental values, with a remarkable level of correlation to the experimentally observed ranking of resistance levels. A detailed analysis of the enthalpic/entropic balance of drug-protease interactions explains resistance in L90M in terms of a higher vibrational entropy than in the WT complex, while G48V disrupts critical hydrogen bonds at the inhibitor's binding site and produces an altered, more unfavorable balance of Coulomb and polar desolvation energies.     

Binding of novel fullerene inhibitors to HIV-1 protease: insight through molecular dynamics and molecular mechanics Poisson–Boltzmann surface area calculations

The objectives of this study include the design of a series of novel fullerene-based inhibitors for HIV-1 protease (HIV-1 PR), by employing two strategies that can also be applied to the design of inhibitors for any other target. Additionally, the interactions which contribute to the observed exceptionally high binding free energies were analyzed. In particular, we investigated: (1) hydrogen bonding (H-bond) interactions between specific fullerene derivatives and the protease, (2) the regions of HIV-1 PR that play a significant role in binding, (3) protease changes upon binding and (4) various contributions to the binding free energy, in order to identify the most significant of them. This study has been performed by employing a docking technique, two 3D-QSAR models, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and the molecular mechanics Poisson–Boltzmann surface area (MM–PBSA) method. Our computed binding free energies are in satisfactory agreement with the experimental results. The suitability of specific fullerene derivatives as drug candidates was further enhanced, after ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity) properties have been estimated to be promising. The outcomes of this study revealed important protein–ligand interaction patterns that may lead towards the development of novel, potent HIV-1 PR inhibitors.     

Probing molecular mechanism of inhibitor bindings to bromodomain-containing protein 4 based on molecular dynamics simulations and principal component analysis

ABSTRACT

It is well known that bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) has been thought as a promising target utilized for treating various human diseases, such as inflammatory disorders, malignant tumours, acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML), bone diseases, etc. For this study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, binding free energy calculations, and principal component analysis (PCA) were integrated together to uncover binding modes of inhibitors 8P9, 8PU, and 8PX to BRD4(1). The results obtained from binding free energy calculations show that van der Waals interactions act as the main regulator in bindings of inhibitors to BRD4(1). The information stemming from PCA reveals that inhibitor associations extremely affect conformational changes, internal dynamics, and movement patterns of BRD4(1). Residue-based free energy decomposition method was wielded to unveil contributions of independent residues to inhibitor bindings and the data signify that hydrogen bonding interactions and hydrophobic interactions are decisive factors affecting bindings of inhibitors to BRD4(1). Meanwhile, eight residues Trp81, Pro82, Val87, Leu92, Leu94, Cys136, Asn140, and Ile146 are recognized as the common hot interaction spots of three inhibitors with BRD4(1). The results from this work are expected to provide a meaningfully theoretical guidance for design and development of effective inhibitors inhibiting of the activity of BRD4.