Effect of dielectric medium on angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors binding to Zn2+

The Becke3LYP density functional was used to study structural and thermodynamic parameters of bivalent zinc cation complexes with selected substrates and ACE inhibitors (H₂O/OH⁻, neutral forms of captopril, zofenoprilat, omapatrilat, CH₃CONHCH₃, and N-terminal anions of captopril, zofenoprilat, omapatrilat, enalaprilat, perindoprilat, trandolaprilat, and fosinoprilat). The combination of DFT and the conductor-like polarizable continuum model (CPCM) were employed to compute the Gibbs interaction energies (ΔG) between Zn²⁺ and the selected ACE inhibitors for dielectric media with ɛ = 5 (to simulate the protein environment) and for water media (ɛ = 78.39) for comparison purposes. The results show that ΔG is sensitive to the dielectric constant of the environment and that lower dielectric medium favors the binding of inhibitors to the zinc cation.