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Sample records for alter ligand binding

  1. A chemometric analysis of ligand-induced changes in intrinsic fluorescence of folate binding protein indicates a link between altered conformational structure and physico-chemical characteristics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bruun, Susanne W; Holm, Jan; Hansen, Steen Ingemann

    2009-01-01

    Ligand binding alters the conformational structure and physico-chemical characteristics of bovine folate binding protein (FBP). For the purpose of achieving further information we analyzed ligand (folate and methotrexate)-induced changes in the fluorescence landscape of FBP. Fluorescence excitation...... of folate accords fairly well with the disappearance of strongly hydrophobic tryptophan residues from the solvent-exposed surface of FBP. The PARAFAC has thus proven useful to establish a hitherto unexplained link between parallel changes in conformational structure and physico-chemical characteristics...... of FBP induced by folate binding. Parameters for ligand binding derived from PARAFAC analysis of the fluorescence data were qualitatively and quantitatively similar to those obtained from binding of radiofolate to FBP. Herein, methotrexate exhibited a higher affinity for FBP than in competition...

  2. Long chain fatty acids alter the interactive binding of ligands to the two principal drug binding sites of human serum albumin.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Keishi Yamasaki

    Full Text Available A wide variety of drugs bind to human serum albumin (HSA at its two principal sites, namely site I and site II. A number of reports indicate that drug binding to these two binding sites are not completely independent, and that interactions between ligands of these two discrete sites can play a role. In this study, the effect of the binding of long-chain fatty acids on the interactive binding between dansyl-L-asparagine (DNSA; site I ligand and ibuprofen (site II ligand at pH6.5 was examined. Binding experiments showed that the binding of sodium oleate (Ole to HSA induces conformational changes in the molecule, which, in turn, changes the individual binding of DNSA and ibuprofen, as well as the mode of interaction between these two ligands from a 'competitive-like' allosteric interaction in the case of the defatted HSA conformer to a 'nearly independent' binding in the case of non-defatted HSA conformer. Circular dichroism measurements indicated that ibuprofen and Ole are likely to modify the spatial orientation of DNSA at its binding site. Docking simulations suggest that the long-distance electric repulsion between DNSA and ibuprofen on defatted HSA contributes to a 'competitive-like' allosteric interaction, whereas extending the distance between ligands and/or increasing the flexibility or size of the DNSA binding site in fatted HSA evokes a change in the interaction mode to 'nearly independent' binding. The present findings provide further insights into the structural dynamics of HSA upon the binding of fatty acids, and its effects on drug binding and drug-drug interactions that occur on HSA.

  3. Bitopic Ligands and Metastable Binding Sites

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fronik, Philipp; Gaiser, Birgit I; Sejer Pedersen, Daniel

    2017-01-01

    of orthosteric binding sites. Bitopic ligands have been employed to address the selectivity problem by combining (linking) an orthosteric ligand with an allosteric modulator, theoretically leading to high-affinity subtype selective ligands. However, it remains a challenge to identify suitable allosteric binding...... that have been reported to date, this type of bitopic ligands would be composed of two identical pharmacophores. Herein, we outline the concept of bitopic ligands, review metastable binding sites, and discuss their potential as a new source of allosteric binding sites....

  4. Ligand photo-isomerization triggers conformational changes in iGluR2 ligand binding domain.

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    Tino Wolter

    Full Text Available Neurological glutamate receptors bind a variety of artificial ligands, both agonistic and antagonistic, in addition to glutamate. Studying their small molecule binding properties increases our understanding of the central nervous system and a variety of associated pathologies. The large, oligomeric multidomain membrane protein contains a large and flexible ligand binding domains which undergoes large conformational changes upon binding different ligands. A recent application of glutamate receptors is their activation or inhibition via photo-switchable ligands, making them key systems in the emerging field of optochemical genetics. In this work, we present a theoretical study on the binding mode and complex stability of a novel photo-switchable ligand, ATA-3, which reversibly binds to glutamate receptors ligand binding domains (LBDs. We propose two possible binding modes for this ligand based on flexible ligand docking calculations and show one of them to be analogues to the binding mode of a similar ligand, 2-BnTetAMPA. In long MD simulations, it was observed that transitions between both binding poses involve breaking and reforming the T686-E402 protein hydrogen bond. Simulating the ligand photo-isomerization process shows that the two possible configurations of the ligand azo-group have markedly different complex stabilities and equilibrium binding modes. A strong but slow protein response is observed after ligand configuration changes. This provides a microscopic foundation for the observed difference in ligand activity upon light-switching.

  5. Correcting binding parameters for interacting ligand-lattice systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hervy, Jordan; Bicout, Dominique J.

    2017-07-01

    Binding of ligands to macromolecules is central to many functional and regulatory biological processes. Key parameters characterizing ligand-macromolecule interactions are the stoichiometry, inducing the number of ligands per macromolecule binding site, and the dissociation constant, quantifying the ligand-binding site affinity. Both these parameters can be obtained from analyses of classical saturation experiments using the standard binding equation that offers the great advantage of mathematical simplicity but becomes an approximation for situations of interest when a ligand binds and covers more than one single binding site on the macromolecule. Using the framework of car-parking problem with latticelike macromolecules where each ligand can cover simultaneously several consecutive binding sites, we showed that employing the standard analysis leads to underestimation of binding parameters, i.e., ligands appear larger than they actually are and their affinity is also greater than it is. Therefore, we have derived expressions allowing to determine the ligand size and true binding parameters (stoichiometry and dissociation constant) as a function of apparent binding parameters retrieved from standard saturation experiments.

  6. LigandRFs: random forest ensemble to identify ligand-binding residues from sequence information alone

    KAUST Repository

    Chen, Peng

    2014-12-03

    Background Protein-ligand binding is important for some proteins to perform their functions. Protein-ligand binding sites are the residues of proteins that physically bind to ligands. Despite of the recent advances in computational prediction for protein-ligand binding sites, the state-of-the-art methods search for similar, known structures of the query and predict the binding sites based on the solved structures. However, such structural information is not commonly available. Results In this paper, we propose a sequence-based approach to identify protein-ligand binding residues. We propose a combination technique to reduce the effects of different sliding residue windows in the process of encoding input feature vectors. Moreover, due to the highly imbalanced samples between the ligand-binding sites and non ligand-binding sites, we construct several balanced data sets, for each of which a random forest (RF)-based classifier is trained. The ensemble of these RF classifiers forms a sequence-based protein-ligand binding site predictor. Conclusions Experimental results on CASP9 and CASP8 data sets demonstrate that our method compares favorably with the state-of-the-art protein-ligand binding site prediction methods.

  7. Strong Ligand-Protein Interactions Derived from Diffuse Ligand Interactions with Loose Binding Sites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marsh, Lorraine

    2015-01-01

    Many systems in biology rely on binding of ligands to target proteins in a single high-affinity conformation with a favorable ΔG. Alternatively, interactions of ligands with protein regions that allow diffuse binding, distributed over multiple sites and conformations, can exhibit favorable ΔG because of their higher entropy. Diffuse binding may be biologically important for multidrug transporters and carrier proteins. A fine-grained computational method for numerical integration of total binding ΔG arising from diffuse regional interaction of a ligand in multiple conformations using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach is presented. This method yields a metric that quantifies the influence on overall ligand affinity of ligand binding to multiple, distinct sites within a protein binding region. This metric is essentially a measure of dispersion in equilibrium ligand binding and depends on both the number of potential sites of interaction and the distribution of their individual predicted affinities. Analysis of test cases indicates that, for some ligand/protein pairs involving transporters and carrier proteins, diffuse binding contributes greatly to total affinity, whereas in other cases the influence is modest. This approach may be useful for studying situations where "nonspecific" interactions contribute to biological function.

  8. LigandRFs: random forest ensemble to identify ligand-binding residues from sequence information alone

    KAUST Repository

    Chen, Peng; Huang, Jianhua Z; Gao, Xin

    2014-01-01

    Protein-ligand binding is important for some proteins to perform their functions. Protein-ligand binding sites are the residues of proteins that physically bind to ligands. Despite of the recent advances in computational prediction

  9. LIBRA: LIgand Binding site Recognition Application.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hung, Le Viet; Caprari, Silvia; Bizai, Massimiliano; Toti, Daniele; Polticelli, Fabio

    2015-12-15

    In recent years, structural genomics and ab initio molecular modeling activities are leading to the availability of a large number of structural models of proteins whose biochemical function is not known. The aim of this study was the development of a novel software tool that, given a protein's structural model, predicts the presence and identity of active sites and/or ligand binding sites. The algorithm implemented by ligand binding site recognition application (LIBRA) is based on a graph theory approach to find the largest subset of similar residues between an input protein and a collection of known functional sites. The algorithm makes use of two predefined databases for active sites and ligand binding sites, respectively, derived from the Catalytic Site Atlas and the Protein Data Bank. Tests indicate that LIBRA is able to identify the correct binding/active site in 90% of the cases analyzed, 90% of which feature the identified site as ranking first. As far as ligand binding site recognition is concerned, LIBRA outperforms other structure-based ligand binding sites detection tools with which it has been compared. The application, developed in Java SE 7 with a Swing GUI embedding a JMol applet, can be run on any OS equipped with a suitable Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and is available at the following URL: http://www.computationalbiology.it/software/LIBRAv1.zip. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  10. Implicit ligand theory for relative binding free energies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nguyen, Trung Hai; Minh, David D. L.

    2018-03-01

    Implicit ligand theory enables noncovalent binding free energies to be calculated based on an exponential average of the binding potential of mean force (BPMF)—the binding free energy between a flexible ligand and rigid receptor—over a precomputed ensemble of receptor configurations. In the original formalism, receptor configurations were drawn from or reweighted to the apo ensemble. Here we show that BPMFs averaged over a holo ensemble yield binding free energies relative to the reference ligand that specifies the ensemble. When using receptor snapshots from an alchemical simulation with a single ligand, the new statistical estimator outperforms the original.

  11. Interaction of cadmium with atrial natriuretic factor receptors: Ligand binding and cellular processing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Giridhar, J.; Rathinavelu, A.; Isom, G.E.

    1990-01-01

    ANF is a peptide hormone secreted by the heart and produces potent diuresis and vascular smooth muscle relaxation. It is well known that Cd produces cardiovascular toxicity and is implicated in the pathogenesis of hypertension. Hence the effects of Cd on ANF receptor dynamics and ligand binding were studied in PC12 cells. Receptor internalization using 125 I-ANF as the ligand at 37 degree C displayed a decrease in endocytic rate constants (ERC) when either preincubated with Cd (500 μM for 30 min, ERC = 0.183/min) or coincubated with Cd (500 μM, ERC = 0.196) when compared to control value (ERC = 0.259/min). Ligand binding ( 125 I-ANF) was changed by Cd as reflected by a decrease in the number of binding sites/cell in both Cd preincubated (Kd = 3.81 x 10 -10 M, B max = 1 x 10 -10 M, binding sites/cell = 9333) and coincubated cells (Kd = 1.76 x 10 -10 M, B max = 3.92 x 10 -11 M, binding sites/cell = 5960) from control (Kd = 3.87 x 10 -10 M, B max = 9.58 x 10 -11 M, binding sites/cell = 12141). Photoaffinity labelling with 125 I-ANF as the ligand was used to measure receptor subtype binding. Coincubation of cells with Cd (500 μM) and ligand decreased both high and low mol. wt. receptor binding, whereas preincubation with Cd (500μM) for 60 min produced a slight decrease in binding of both receptor subtypes. These results indicate that the cardiovascular toxicity of Cd may be partially mediated by altered ANF receptor function

  12. Sampling and energy evaluation challenges in ligand binding protein design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dou, Jiayi; Doyle, Lindsey; Jr Greisen, Per; Schena, Alberto; Park, Hahnbeom; Johnsson, Kai; Stoddard, Barry L; Baker, David

    2017-12-01

    The steroid hormone 17α-hydroxylprogesterone (17-OHP) is a biomarker for congenital adrenal hyperplasia and hence there is considerable interest in development of sensors for this compound. We used computational protein design to generate protein models with binding sites for 17-OHP containing an extended, nonpolar, shape-complementary binding pocket for the four-ring core of the compound, and hydrogen bonding residues at the base of the pocket to interact with carbonyl and hydroxyl groups at the more polar end of the ligand. Eight of 16 designed proteins experimentally tested bind 17-OHP with micromolar affinity. A co-crystal structure of one of the designs revealed that 17-OHP is rotated 180° around a pseudo-two-fold axis in the compound and displays multiple binding modes within the pocket, while still interacting with all of the designed residues in the engineered site. Subsequent rounds of mutagenesis and binding selection improved the ligand affinity to nanomolar range, while appearing to constrain the ligand to a single bound conformation that maintains the same "flipped" orientation relative to the original design. We trace the discrepancy in the design calculations to two sources: first, a failure to model subtle backbone changes which alter the distribution of sidechain rotameric states and second, an underestimation of the energetic cost of desolvating the carbonyl and hydroxyl groups of the ligand. The difference between design model and crystal structure thus arises from both sampling limitations and energy function inaccuracies that are exacerbated by the near two-fold symmetry of the molecule. © 2017 The Authors Protein Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Protein Society.

  13. Prediction of GPCR-Ligand Binding Using Machine Learning Algorithms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sangmin Seo

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available We propose a novel method that predicts binding of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs and ligands. The proposed method uses hub and cycle structures of ligands and amino acid motif sequences of GPCRs, rather than the 3D structure of a receptor or similarity of receptors or ligands. The experimental results show that these new features can be effective in predicting GPCR-ligand binding (average area under the curve [AUC] of 0.944, because they are thought to include hidden properties of good ligand-receptor binding. Using the proposed method, we were able to identify novel ligand-GPCR bindings, some of which are supported by several studies.

  14. AutoSite: an automated approach for pseudo-ligands prediction—from ligand-binding sites identification to predicting key ligand atoms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ravindranath, Pradeep Anand; Sanner, Michel F.

    2016-01-01

    Motivation: The identification of ligand-binding sites from a protein structure facilitates computational drug design and optimization, and protein function assignment. We introduce AutoSite: an efficient software tool for identifying ligand-binding sites and predicting pseudo ligand corresponding to each binding site identified. Binding sites are reported as clusters of 3D points called fills in which every point is labelled as hydrophobic or as hydrogen bond donor or acceptor. From these fills AutoSite derives feature points: a set of putative positions of hydrophobic-, and hydrogen-bond forming ligand atoms. Results: We show that AutoSite identifies ligand-binding sites with higher accuracy than other leading methods, and produces fills that better matches the ligand shape and properties, than the fills obtained with a software program with similar capabilities, AutoLigand. In addition, we demonstrate that for the Astex Diverse Set, the feature points identify 79% of hydrophobic ligand atoms, and 81% and 62% of the hydrogen acceptor and donor hydrogen ligand atoms interacting with the receptor, and predict 81.2% of water molecules mediating interactions between ligand and receptor. Finally, we illustrate potential uses of the predicted feature points in the context of lead optimization in drug discovery projects. Availability and Implementation: http://adfr.scripps.edu/AutoDockFR/autosite.html Contact: sanner@scripps.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:27354702

  15. Optimizing the protein switch: altering nuclear import and export signals, and ligand binding domain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kakar, Mudit; Davis, James R.; Kern, Steve E.; Lim, Carol S.

    2007-01-01

    Ligand regulated localization controllable protein constructs were optimized in this study. Several constructs were made from a classical nuclear export signal (HIV-rev, MAPKK, or progesterone receptor) in combination with a SV40 T-antigen type nuclear import signal. Different ligand binding domains (LBDs from glucocorticoid receptor or progesterone receptor) were also tested for their ability to impart control over localization of proteins. This study was designed to create constructs which are cytoplasmic in the absence of ligand and nuclear in the presence of ligand, and also to regulate the amount of protein translocating to the nucleus on ligand induction. The balance between the strengths of import and export signals was critical for overall localization of proteins. The amount of protein entering the nucleus was also affected by the dose of ligand (10-100nM). However, the overall import characteristics were determined by the strengths of localization signals and the inherent localization properties of the LBD used. This study established that the amount of protein present in a particular compartment can be regulated by the use of localization signals of various strengths. These optimized localization controllable protein constructs can be used to correct for diseases due to aberrant localization of proteins. PMID:17574289

  16. Receptor-ligand binding sites and virtual screening.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hattotuwagama, Channa K; Davies, Matthew N; Flower, Darren R

    2006-01-01

    Within the pharmaceutical industry, the ultimate source of continuing profitability is the unremitting process of drug discovery. To be profitable, drugs must be marketable: legally novel, safe and relatively free of side effects, efficacious, and ideally inexpensive to produce. While drug discovery was once typified by a haphazard and empirical process, it is now increasingly driven by both knowledge of the receptor-mediated basis of disease and how drug molecules interact with receptors and the wider physiome. Medicinal chemistry postulates that to understand a congeneric ligand series, or set thereof, is to understand the nature and requirements of a ligand binding site. Likewise, structural molecular biology posits that to understand a binding site is to understand the nature of ligands bound therein. Reality sits somewhere between these extremes, yet subsumes them both. Complementary to rules of ligand design, arising through decades of medicinal chemistry, structural biology and computational chemistry are able to elucidate the nature of binding site-ligand interactions, facilitating, at both pragmatic and conceptual levels, the drug discovery process.

  17. ProBiS-ligands: a web server for prediction of ligands by examination of protein binding sites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Konc, Janez; Janežič, Dušanka

    2014-07-01

    The ProBiS-ligands web server predicts binding of ligands to a protein structure. Starting with a protein structure or binding site, ProBiS-ligands first identifies template proteins in the Protein Data Bank that share similar binding sites. Based on the superimpositions of the query protein and the similar binding sites found, the server then transposes the ligand structures from those sites to the query protein. Such ligand prediction supports many activities, e.g. drug repurposing. The ProBiS-ligands web server, an extension of the ProBiS web server, is open and free to all users at http://probis.cmm.ki.si/ligands. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  18. Essential role of conformational selection in ligand binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vogt, Austin D; Pozzi, Nicola; Chen, Zhiwei; Di Cera, Enrico

    2014-02-01

    Two competing and mutually exclusive mechanisms of ligand recognition - conformational selection and induced fit - have dominated our interpretation of ligand binding in biological macromolecules for almost six decades. Conformational selection posits the pre-existence of multiple conformations of the macromolecule from which the ligand selects the optimal one. Induced fit, on the other hand, postulates the existence of conformational rearrangements of the original conformation into an optimal one that are induced by binding of the ligand. In the former case, conformational transitions precede the binding event; in the latter, conformational changes follow the binding step. Kineticists have used a facile criterion to distinguish between the two mechanisms based on the dependence of the rate of relaxation to equilibrium, kobs, on the ligand concentration, [L]. A value of kobs decreasing hyperbolically with [L] has been seen as diagnostic of conformational selection, while a value of kobs increasing hyperbolically with [L] has been considered diagnostic of induced fit. However, this simple conclusion is only valid under the rather unrealistic assumption of conformational transitions being much slower than binding and dissociation events. In general, induced fit only produces values of kobs that increase with [L] but conformational selection is more versatile and is associated with values of kobs that increase with, decrease with or are independent of [L]. The richer repertoire of kinetic properties of conformational selection applies to kinetic mechanisms with single or multiple saturable relaxations and explains the behavior of nearly all experimental systems reported in the literature thus far. Conformational selection is always sufficient and often necessary to account for the relaxation kinetics of ligand binding to a biological macromolecule and is therefore an essential component of any binding mechanism. On the other hand, induced fit is never necessary and

  19. How to deal with multiple binding poses in alchemical relative protein-ligand binding free energy calculations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaus, Joseph W; Harder, Edward; Lin, Teng; Abel, Robert; McCammon, J Andrew; Wang, Lingle

    2015-06-09

    Recent advances in improved force fields and sampling methods have made it possible for the accurate calculation of protein–ligand binding free energies. Alchemical free energy perturbation (FEP) using an explicit solvent model is one of the most rigorous methods to calculate relative binding free energies. However, for cases where there are high energy barriers separating the relevant conformations that are important for ligand binding, the calculated free energy may depend on the initial conformation used in the simulation due to the lack of complete sampling of all the important regions in phase space. This is particularly true for ligands with multiple possible binding modes separated by high energy barriers, making it difficult to sample all relevant binding modes even with modern enhanced sampling methods. In this paper, we apply a previously developed method that provides a corrected binding free energy for ligands with multiple binding modes by combining the free energy results from multiple alchemical FEP calculations starting from all enumerated poses, and the results are compared with Glide docking and MM-GBSA calculations. From these calculations, the dominant ligand binding mode can also be predicted. We apply this method to a series of ligands that bind to c-Jun N-terminal kinase-1 (JNK1) and obtain improved free energy results. The dominant ligand binding modes predicted by this method agree with the available crystallography, while both Glide docking and MM-GBSA calculations incorrectly predict the binding modes for some ligands. The method also helps separate the force field error from the ligand sampling error, such that deviations in the predicted binding free energy from the experimental values likely indicate possible inaccuracies in the force field. An error in the force field for a subset of the ligands studied was identified using this method, and improved free energy results were obtained by correcting the partial charges assigned to the

  20. How To Deal with Multiple Binding Poses in Alchemical Relative Protein–Ligand Binding Free Energy Calculations

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-01

    Recent advances in improved force fields and sampling methods have made it possible for the accurate calculation of protein–ligand binding free energies. Alchemical free energy perturbation (FEP) using an explicit solvent model is one of the most rigorous methods to calculate relative binding free energies. However, for cases where there are high energy barriers separating the relevant conformations that are important for ligand binding, the calculated free energy may depend on the initial conformation used in the simulation due to the lack of complete sampling of all the important regions in phase space. This is particularly true for ligands with multiple possible binding modes separated by high energy barriers, making it difficult to sample all relevant binding modes even with modern enhanced sampling methods. In this paper, we apply a previously developed method that provides a corrected binding free energy for ligands with multiple binding modes by combining the free energy results from multiple alchemical FEP calculations starting from all enumerated poses, and the results are compared with Glide docking and MM-GBSA calculations. From these calculations, the dominant ligand binding mode can also be predicted. We apply this method to a series of ligands that bind to c-Jun N-terminal kinase-1 (JNK1) and obtain improved free energy results. The dominant ligand binding modes predicted by this method agree with the available crystallography, while both Glide docking and MM-GBSA calculations incorrectly predict the binding modes for some ligands. The method also helps separate the force field error from the ligand sampling error, such that deviations in the predicted binding free energy from the experimental values likely indicate possible inaccuracies in the force field. An error in the force field for a subset of the ligands studied was identified using this method, and improved free energy results were obtained by correcting the partial charges assigned to the

  1. Ligand Binding Domain Protein in Tetracycline-Inducible Expression

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Purpose: To investigate tetracycline-inducible expression system for producing clinically usable, highquality liver X receptor ligand-binding domain recombinant protein. Methods: In this study, we have expressed and purified the recombinant liver X receptor β-ligand binding domain proteins in E. coli using a tetracycline ...

  2. Real-Time Ligand Binding Pocket Database Search Using Local Surface Descriptors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chikhi, Rayan; Sael, Lee; Kihara, Daisuke

    2010-01-01

    Due to the increasing number of structures of unknown function accumulated by ongoing structural genomics projects, there is an urgent need for computational methods for characterizing protein tertiary structures. As functions of many of these proteins are not easily predicted by conventional sequence database searches, a legitimate strategy is to utilize structure information in function characterization. Of a particular interest is prediction of ligand binding to a protein, as ligand molecule recognition is a major part of molecular function of proteins. Predicting whether a ligand molecule binds a protein is a complex problem due to the physical nature of protein-ligand interactions and the flexibility of both binding sites and ligand molecules. However, geometric and physicochemical complementarity is observed between the ligand and its binding site in many cases. Therefore, ligand molecules which bind to a local surface site in a protein can be predicted by finding similar local pockets of known binding ligands in the structure database. Here, we present two representations of ligand binding pockets and utilize them for ligand binding prediction by pocket shape comparison. These representations are based on mapping of surface properties of binding pockets, which are compactly described either by the two dimensional pseudo-Zernike moments or the 3D Zernike descriptors. These compact representations allow a fast real-time pocket searching against a database. Thorough benchmark study employing two different datasets show that our representations are competitive with the other existing methods. Limitations and potentials of the shape-based methods as well as possible improvements are discussed. PMID:20455259

  3. Cloud computing for protein-ligand binding site comparison.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hung, Che-Lun; Hua, Guan-Jie

    2013-01-01

    The proteome-wide analysis of protein-ligand binding sites and their interactions with ligands is important in structure-based drug design and in understanding ligand cross reactivity and toxicity. The well-known and commonly used software, SMAP, has been designed for 3D ligand binding site comparison and similarity searching of a structural proteome. SMAP can also predict drug side effects and reassign existing drugs to new indications. However, the computing scale of SMAP is limited. We have developed a high availability, high performance system that expands the comparison scale of SMAP. This cloud computing service, called Cloud-PLBS, combines the SMAP and Hadoop frameworks and is deployed on a virtual cloud computing platform. To handle the vast amount of experimental data on protein-ligand binding site pairs, Cloud-PLBS exploits the MapReduce paradigm as a management and parallelizing tool. Cloud-PLBS provides a web portal and scalability through which biologists can address a wide range of computer-intensive questions in biology and drug discovery.

  4. Effect of cobratoxin binding on the normal mode vibration within acetylcholine binding protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bertaccini, Edward J; Lindahl, Erik; Sixma, Titia; Trudell, James R

    2008-04-01

    Recent crystal structures of the acetylcholine binding protein (AChBP) have revealed surprisingly small structural alterations upon ligand binding. Here we investigate the extent to which ligand binding may affect receptor dynamics. AChBP is a homologue of the extracellular component of ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs). We have previously used an elastic network normal-mode analysis to propose a gating mechanism for the LGICs and to suggest the effects of various ligands on such motions. However, the difficulties with elastic network methods lie in their inability to account for the modest effects of a small ligand or mutation on ion channel motion. Here, we report the successful application of an elastic network normal mode technique to measure the effects of large ligand binding on receptor dynamics. The present calculations demonstrate a clear alteration in the native symmetric motions of a protein due to the presence of large protein cobratoxin ligands. In particular, normal-mode analysis revealed that cobratoxin binding to this protein significantly dampened the axially symmetric motion of the AChBP that may be associated with channel gating in the full nAChR. The results suggest that alterations in receptor dynamics could be a general feature of ligand binding.

  5. Retinoid-binding proteins: similar protein architectures bind similar ligands via completely different ways.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu-Ru Zhang

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Retinoids are a class of compounds that are chemically related to vitamin A, which is an essential nutrient that plays a key role in vision, cell growth and differentiation. In vivo, retinoids must bind with specific proteins to perform their necessary functions. Plasma retinol-binding protein (RBP and epididymal retinoic acid binding protein (ERABP carry retinoids in bodily fluids, while cellular retinol-binding proteins (CRBPs and cellular retinoic acid-binding proteins (CRABPs carry retinoids within cells. Interestingly, although all of these transport proteins possess similar structures, the modes of binding for the different retinoid ligands with their carrier proteins are different. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this work, we analyzed the various retinoid transport mechanisms using structure and sequence comparisons, binding site analyses and molecular dynamics simulations. Our results show that in the same family of proteins and subcellular location, the orientation of a retinoid molecule within a binding protein is same, whereas when different families of proteins are considered, the orientation of the bound retinoid is completely different. In addition, none of the amino acid residues involved in ligand binding is conserved between the transport proteins. However, for each specific binding protein, the amino acids involved in the ligand binding are conserved. The results of this study allow us to propose a possible transport model for retinoids. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results reveal the differences in the binding modes between the different retinoid-binding proteins.

  6. Characterizing low affinity epibatidine binding to α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors with ligand depletion and nonspecific binding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Person Alexandra M

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Along with high affinity binding of epibatidine (Kd1≈10 pM to α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR, low affinity binding of epibatidine (Kd2≈1-10 nM to an independent binding site has been reported. Studying this low affinity binding is important because it might contribute understanding about the structure and synthesis of α4β2 nAChR. The binding behavior of epibatidine and α4β2 AChR raises a question about interpreting binding data from two independent sites with ligand depletion and nonspecific binding, both of which can affect equilibrium binding of [3H]epibatidine and α4β2 nAChR. If modeled incorrectly, ligand depletion and nonspecific binding lead to inaccurate estimates of binding constants. Fitting total equilibrium binding as a function of total ligand accurately characterizes a single site with ligand depletion and nonspecific binding. The goal of this study was to determine whether this approach is sufficient with two independent high and low affinity sites. Results Computer simulations of binding revealed complexities beyond fitting total binding for characterizing the second, low affinity site of α4β2 nAChR. First, distinguishing low-affinity specific binding from nonspecific binding was a potential problem with saturation data. Varying the maximum concentration of [3H]epibatidine, simultaneously fitting independently measured nonspecific binding, and varying α4β2 nAChR concentration were effective remedies. Second, ligand depletion helped identify the low affinity site when nonspecific binding was significant in saturation or competition data, contrary to a common belief that ligand depletion always is detrimental. Third, measuring nonspecific binding without α4β2 nAChR distinguished better between nonspecific binding and low-affinity specific binding under some circumstances of competitive binding than did presuming nonspecific binding to be residual [3H]epibatidine binding after

  7. Characterizing low affinity epibatidine binding to α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors with ligand depletion and nonspecific binding

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Background Along with high affinity binding of epibatidine (Kd1≈10 pM) to α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), low affinity binding of epibatidine (Kd2≈1-10 nM) to an independent binding site has been reported. Studying this low affinity binding is important because it might contribute understanding about the structure and synthesis of α4β2 nAChR. The binding behavior of epibatidine and α4β2 AChR raises a question about interpreting binding data from two independent sites with ligand depletion and nonspecific binding, both of which can affect equilibrium binding of [3H]epibatidine and α4β2 nAChR. If modeled incorrectly, ligand depletion and nonspecific binding lead to inaccurate estimates of binding constants. Fitting total equilibrium binding as a function of total ligand accurately characterizes a single site with ligand depletion and nonspecific binding. The goal of this study was to determine whether this approach is sufficient with two independent high and low affinity sites. Results Computer simulations of binding revealed complexities beyond fitting total binding for characterizing the second, low affinity site of α4β2 nAChR. First, distinguishing low-affinity specific binding from nonspecific binding was a potential problem with saturation data. Varying the maximum concentration of [3H]epibatidine, simultaneously fitting independently measured nonspecific binding, and varying α4β2 nAChR concentration were effective remedies. Second, ligand depletion helped identify the low affinity site when nonspecific binding was significant in saturation or competition data, contrary to a common belief that ligand depletion always is detrimental. Third, measuring nonspecific binding without α4β2 nAChR distinguished better between nonspecific binding and low-affinity specific binding under some circumstances of competitive binding than did presuming nonspecific binding to be residual [3H]epibatidine binding after adding a large concentration of

  8. Ligand recognition by RAR and RXR receptors: binding and selectivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sussman, Fredy; de Lera, Angel R

    2005-10-06

    Fundamental biological functions, most notably embriogenesis, cell growth, cell differentiation, and cell apoptosis, are in part regulated by a complex genomic network that starts with the binding (and activation) of retinoids to their cognate receptors, members of the superfamily of nuclear receptors. We have studied ligand recognition of retinoic receptors (RXRalpha and RARgamma) using a molecular-mechanics-based docking method. The protocol used in this work is able to rank the affinity of pairs of ligands for a single retinoid receptor, the highest values corresponding to those that adapt better to the shape of the binding site and generate the optimal set of electrostatic and apolar interactions with the receptor. Moreover, our studies shed light onto some of the energetic contributions to retinoid receptor ligand selectivity. In this regard we show that there is a difference in polarity between the binding site regions that anchor the carboxylate in RAR and RXR, which translates itself into large differences in the energy of interaction of both receptors with the same ligand. We observe that the latter energy change is canceled off by the solvation energy penalty upon binding. This energy compensation is borne out as well by experiments that address the effect of site-directed mutagenesis on ligand binding to RARgamma. The hypothesis that the difference in binding site polarity might be exploited to build RXR-selective ligands is tested with some compounds having a thiazolidinedione anchoring group.

  9. Flow Cytometry-Based Bead-Binding Assay for Measuring Receptor Ligand Specificity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sprokholt, Joris K.; Hertoghs, Nina; Geijtenbeek, Teunis B. H.

    2016-01-01

    In this chapter we describe a fluorescent bead-binding assay, which is an efficient and feasible method to measure interaction between ligands and receptors on cells. In principle, any ligand can be coated on fluorescent beads either directly or via antibodies. Binding between ligand-coated beads

  10. A web server for analysis, comparison and prediction of protein ligand binding sites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Harinder; Srivastava, Hemant Kumar; Raghava, Gajendra P S

    2016-03-25

    One of the major challenges in the field of system biology is to understand the interaction between a wide range of proteins and ligands. In the past, methods have been developed for predicting binding sites in a protein for a limited number of ligands. In order to address this problem, we developed a web server named 'LPIcom' to facilitate users in understanding protein-ligand interaction. Analysis, comparison and prediction modules are available in the "LPIcom' server to predict protein-ligand interacting residues for 824 ligands. Each ligand must have at least 30 protein binding sites in PDB. Analysis module of the server can identify residues preferred in interaction and binding motif for a given ligand; for example residues glycine, lysine and arginine are preferred in ATP binding sites. Comparison module of the server allows comparing protein-binding sites of multiple ligands to understand the similarity between ligands based on their binding site. This module indicates that ATP, ADP and GTP ligands are in the same cluster and thus their binding sites or interacting residues exhibit a high level of similarity. Propensity-based prediction module has been developed for predicting ligand-interacting residues in a protein for more than 800 ligands. In addition, a number of web-based tools have been integrated to facilitate users in creating web logo and two-sample between ligand interacting and non-interacting residues. In summary, this manuscript presents a web-server for analysis of ligand interacting residue. This server is available for public use from URL http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/lpicom .

  11. Recent improvements to Binding MOAD: a resource for protein–ligand binding affinities and structures

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmed, Aqeel; Smith, Richard D.; Clark, Jordan J.; Dunbar, James B.; Carlson, Heather A.

    2015-01-01

    For over 10 years, Binding MOAD (Mother of All Databases; http://www.BindingMOAD.org) has been one of the largest resources for high-quality protein–ligand complexes and associated binding affinity data. Binding MOAD has grown at the rate of 1994 complexes per year, on average. Currently, it contains 23 269 complexes and 8156 binding affinities. Our annual updates curate the data using a semi-automated literature search of the references cited within the PDB file, and we have recently upgraded our website and added new features and functionalities to better serve Binding MOAD users. In order to eliminate the legacy application server of the old platform and to accommodate new changes, the website has been completely rewritten in the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) environment. The improved user interface incorporates current third-party plugins for better visualization of protein and ligand molecules, and it provides features like sorting, filtering and filtered downloads. In addition to the field-based searching, Binding MOAD now can be searched by structural queries based on the ligand. In order to remove redundancy, Binding MOAD records are clustered in different families based on 90% sequence identity. The new Binding MOAD, with the upgraded platform, features and functionalities, is now equipped to better serve its users. PMID:25378330

  12. Molecular Properties of Globin Channels and Pores: Role of Cholesterol in Ligand Binding and Movement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gene A Morrill

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT: Globins contain one or more cavities that control or affect such functions as ligand movement and ligand binding. Here we report that the extended globin family [cytoglobin (Cygb; neuroglobin (Ngb; myoglobin (Mb; hemoglobin (Hb subunits Hba(α and Hbb(β] contain either a transmembrane (TM helix or pore-lining region as well as internal cavities. Protein motif/domain analyses indicate that Ngb and Hbb each contain 5 cholesterol-binding (CRAC/CARC domains and 1 caveolin binding motif, whereas the Cygb dimer has 6 cholesterol-binding domains but lacks caveolin-binding motifs. Mb and Hba each exhibit 2 cholesterol-binding domains and also lack caveolin-binding motifs. The Hb αβ-tetramer contains 14 cholesterol-binding domains. Computer algorithms indicate that Cygb and Ngb cavities display multiple partitions and C-terminal pore-lining regions, whereas Mb has three major cavities plus a C-terminal pore-lining region. The Hb tetramer exhibits a large internal cavity but the subunits differ in that they contain a C-terminal TM helix (Hba and pore-lining region (Hbb. The cavities include 43 of 190 Cygb residues, 38 of 151 of Ngb residues, 55 of 154 Mb residues and 137 of 688 residues in the Hb tetramer. Each cavity complex includes 6 to 8 residues of the TM helix or pore-lining region and CRAC/CARC domains exist within all cavities. Erythrocyte Hb αβ-tetramers are largely cytosolic but also bind to a membrane anion exchange protein, band 3, which contains a large internal cavity and 12 TM helices (5 being pore-lining regions. The Hba TM helix may be the erythrocyte membrane band 3 attachment site. Band 3 contributes 4 caveolin binding motifs and 10 CRAC/CARC domains. Cholesterol binding may create lipid-disordered phases that alter globin cavities and facilitate ligand movement, permitting ion channel formation and conformational changes that orchestrate anion and ligand (O2, CO2, NO movement within the large internal cavities and

  13. Glycation alters ligand binding, enzymatic, and pharmacological properties of human albumin.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baraka-Vidot, Jennifer; Planesse, Cynthia; Meilhac, Olivier; Militello, Valeria; van den Elsen, Jean; Bourdon, Emmanuel; Rondeau, Philippe

    2015-05-19

    Albumin, the major circulating protein in blood plasma, can be subjected to an increased level of glycation in a diabetic context. Albumin exerts crucial pharmacological activities through its drug binding capacity, i.e., ketoprofen, and via its esterase-like activity, allowing the conversion of prodrugs into active drugs. In this study, the impact of the glucose-mediated glycation on the pharmacological and biochemical properties of human albumin was investigated. Aggregation product levels and the redox state were quantified to assess the impact of glycation-mediated changes on the structural properties of albumin. Glucose-mediated changes in ketoprofen binding properties and esterase-like activity were evaluated using fluorescence spectroscopy and p-nitrophenyl acetate hydrolysis assays, respectively. With the exception of oxidative parameters, significant dose-dependent alterations in biochemical and functional properties of in vitro glycated albumin were observed. We also found that the dose-dependent increase in levels of glycation and protein aggregation and average molecular mass changes correlated with a gradual decrease in the affinity of albumin for ketoprofen and its esterase-like property. In parallel, significant alterations in both pharmacological properties were also evidenced in albumin purified from diabetic patients. Partial least-squares regression analyses established a significant correlation between glycation-mediated changes in biochemical and pharmacological properties of albumin, highlighting the important role for glycation in the variability of the drug response in a diabetic situation.

  14. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest ligand's binding to nicotinamidase/pyrazinamidase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Ji-Long; Zheng, Qing-Chuan; Li, Zheng-Qiang; Zhang, Hong-Xing

    2012-01-01

    The research on the binding process of ligand to pyrazinamidase (PncA) is crucial for elucidating the inherent relationship between resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and PncA's activity. In the present study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods were performed to investigate the unbinding process of nicotinamide (NAM) from two PncA enzymes, which is the reverse of the corresponding binding process. The calculated potential of mean force (PMF) based on the steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations sheds light on an optimal binding/unbinding pathway of the ligand. The comparative analyses between two PncAs clearly exhibit the consistency of the binding/unbinding pathway in the two enzymes, implying the universality of the pathway in all kinds of PncAs. Several important residues dominating the pathway were also determined by the calculation of interaction energies. The structural change of the proteins induced by NAM's unbinding or binding shows the great extent interior motion in some homologous region adjacent to the active sites of the two PncAs. The structure comparison substantiates that this region should be very important for the ligand's binding in all PncAs. Additionally, MD simulations also show that the coordination position of the ligand is displaced by one water molecule in the unliganded enzymes. These results could provide the more penetrating understanding of drug resistance of M. tuberculosis and be helpful for the development of new antituberculosis drugs.

  15. LIGAND-BINDING SITES ON THE MYCOBACTERIUM TUBERCULOSIS UREASE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lisnyak Yu. V.

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of tuberculosis that remains a serious medical and social health problem. Despite intensive efforts have been made in the past decade, there are no new efficient anti-tuberculosis drugs today, and that need is growing due to the spread of drug-resistant strains of M.tuberculosis. M. tuberculosis urease (MTU, being an important factor of the bacterium viability and virulence, is an attractive target for anti-tuberculosis drugs acting by inhibition of urease activity. However, the commercially available urease inhibitors are toxic and unstable, that prevent their clinical use. Therefore, new more potent anti-tuberculosis drugs inhibiting new targets are urgently needed. A useful tool for the search of novel inhibitors is a computational drug design. The inhibitor design is significantly easier if binding sites on the enzyme are identified in advance. This paper aimed to determine the probable ligand binding sites on the surface of M. tuberculosis urease. Methods. To identify ligand binding sites on MTU surface, сomputational solvent mapping method FTSite was applied by the use of MTU homology model we have built earlier. The method places molecular probes (small organic molecules containing various functional groups on a dense grid defined around the enzyme, and for each probe finds favorable positions. The selected poses are refined by free energy minimization, the low energy conformations are clustered, and the clusters are ranked on the basis of the average free energy. FTSite server outputs the protein residues delineating a binding sites and the probe molecules representing each cluster. To predict allosteric pockets on MTU, AlloPred and AlloSite servers were applied. AlloPred uses the normal mode analysis (NMA and models how the dynamics of a protein would be altered in the presence of a modulator at a specific pocket. Pockets on the enzyme are predicted using the Fpocket

  16. Ligand binding to telomeric G-quadruplex DNA investigated by funnel-metadynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moraca, Federica; Amato, Jussara; Ortuso, Francesco; Artese, Anna; Pagano, Bruno; Novellino, Ettore; Alcaro, Stefano; Parrinello, Michele; Limongelli, Vittorio

    2017-03-14

    G-quadruplexes (G4s) are higher-order DNA structures typically present at promoter regions of genes and telomeres. Here, the G4 formation decreases the replicative DNA at each cell cycle, finally leading to apoptosis. The ability to control this mitotic clock, particularly in cancer cells, is fascinating and passes through a rational understanding of the ligand/G4 interaction. We demonstrate that an accurate description of the ligand/G4 binding mechanism is possible using an innovative free-energy method called funnel-metadynamics (FM), which we have recently developed to investigate ligand/protein interaction. Using FM simulations, we have elucidated the binding mechanism of the anticancer alkaloid berberine to the human telomeric G4 ( d [AG 3 (T 2 AG 3 ) 3 ]), computing also the binding free-energy landscape. Two ligand binding modes have been identified as the lowest energy states. Furthermore, we have found prebinding sites, which are preparatory to reach the final binding mode. In our simulations, the ions and the water molecules have been explicitly represented and the energetic contribution of the solvent during ligand binding evaluated. Our theoretical results provide an accurate estimate of the absolute ligand/DNA binding free energy ([Formula: see text] = -10.3 ± 0.5 kcal/mol) that we validated through steady-state fluorescence binding assays. The good agreement between the theoretical and experimental value demonstrates that FM is a most powerful method to investigate ligand/DNA interaction and can be a useful tool for the rational design also of G4 ligands.

  17. Distinct Iron-binding Ligands in the Upper Water Column at Station ALOHA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bundy, R.; Boiteau, R.; Repeta, D.

    2016-02-01

    The distribution and chemical properties of iron-binding organic ligands at station ALOHA were examined using a combination of solid phase extraction (SPE) followed by high pressure liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICPMS). HPLC-ICPMS ligand measurements were complemented by competitive ligand exchange adsorptive cathodic stripping voltammetry (CLE-ACSV) analysis using salicylaldoxime as the added ligand. By HPLC-ICPMS, we find enhanced concentrations of distinct naturally-occurring polar iron-binding ligands present at the surface and in the chlorophyll maximum. Lower concentrations were found in the subsurface, where a suite of non-polar ligands was detected. Siderophores were present at the deepest depths sampled at station ALOHA, down to 400m. Incubation studies provided evidence for the production of iron-binding ligands associated with nutrient amended phytoplankton growth in surface waters, and as a result of microbial particle remineralization in the subsurface water column. Ligands classes identified via SPE were then compared to CLE-ACSV ligand measurements, as well as the conditional stability constants measured from model polar and non-polar siderophores, yielding insight to the sources of iron-binding ligands throughout the water column at station ALOHA.

  18. Recent improvements to Binding MOAD: a resource for protein-ligand binding affinities and structures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmed, Aqeel; Smith, Richard D; Clark, Jordan J; Dunbar, James B; Carlson, Heather A

    2015-01-01

    For over 10 years, Binding MOAD (Mother of All Databases; http://www.BindingMOAD.org) has been one of the largest resources for high-quality protein-ligand complexes and associated binding affinity data. Binding MOAD has grown at the rate of 1994 complexes per year, on average. Currently, it contains 23,269 complexes and 8156 binding affinities. Our annual updates curate the data using a semi-automated literature search of the references cited within the PDB file, and we have recently upgraded our website and added new features and functionalities to better serve Binding MOAD users. In order to eliminate the legacy application server of the old platform and to accommodate new changes, the website has been completely rewritten in the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) environment. The improved user interface incorporates current third-party plugins for better visualization of protein and ligand molecules, and it provides features like sorting, filtering and filtered downloads. In addition to the field-based searching, Binding MOAD now can be searched by structural queries based on the ligand. In order to remove redundancy, Binding MOAD records are clustered in different families based on 90% sequence identity. The new Binding MOAD, with the upgraded platform, features and functionalities, is now equipped to better serve its users. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  19. Ligand deconstruction: Why some fragment binding positions are conserved and others are not

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozakov, Dima; Hall, David R.; Jehle, Stefan; Luo, Lingqi; Ochiana, Stefan O.; Jones, Elizabeth V.; Pollastri, Michael; Allen, Karen N.; Whitty, Adrian; Vajda, Sandor

    2015-01-01

    Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) relies on the premise that the fragment binding mode will be conserved on subsequent expansion to a larger ligand. However, no general condition has been established to explain when fragment binding modes will be conserved. We show that a remarkably simple condition can be developed in terms of how fragments coincide with binding energy hot spots—regions of the protein where interactions with a ligand contribute substantial binding free energy—the locations of which can easily be determined computationally. Because a substantial fraction of the free energy of ligand binding comes from interacting with the residues in the energetically most important hot spot, a ligand moiety that sufficiently overlaps with this region will retain its location even when other parts of the ligand are removed. This hypothesis is supported by eight case studies. The condition helps identify whether a protein is suitable for FBDD, predicts the size of fragments required for screening, and determines whether a fragment hit can be extended into a higher affinity ligand. Our results show that ligand binding sites can usefully be thought of in terms of an anchor site, which is the top-ranked hot spot and dominates the free energy of binding, surrounded by a number of weaker satellite sites that confer improved affinity and selectivity for a particular ligand and that it is the intrinsic binding potential of the protein surface that determines whether it can serve as a robust binding site for a suitably optimized ligand. PMID:25918377

  20. Ligand deconstruction: Why some fragment binding positions are conserved and others are not.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozakov, Dima; Hall, David R; Jehle, Stefan; Jehle, Sefan; Luo, Lingqi; Ochiana, Stefan O; Jones, Elizabeth V; Pollastri, Michael; Allen, Karen N; Whitty, Adrian; Vajda, Sandor

    2015-05-19

    Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) relies on the premise that the fragment binding mode will be conserved on subsequent expansion to a larger ligand. However, no general condition has been established to explain when fragment binding modes will be conserved. We show that a remarkably simple condition can be developed in terms of how fragments coincide with binding energy hot spots--regions of the protein where interactions with a ligand contribute substantial binding free energy--the locations of which can easily be determined computationally. Because a substantial fraction of the free energy of ligand binding comes from interacting with the residues in the energetically most important hot spot, a ligand moiety that sufficiently overlaps with this region will retain its location even when other parts of the ligand are removed. This hypothesis is supported by eight case studies. The condition helps identify whether a protein is suitable for FBDD, predicts the size of fragments required for screening, and determines whether a fragment hit can be extended into a higher affinity ligand. Our results show that ligand binding sites can usefully be thought of in terms of an anchor site, which is the top-ranked hot spot and dominates the free energy of binding, surrounded by a number of weaker satellite sites that confer improved affinity and selectivity for a particular ligand and that it is the intrinsic binding potential of the protein surface that determines whether it can serve as a robust binding site for a suitably optimized ligand.

  1. Automatic generation of bioinformatics tools for predicting protein-ligand binding sites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Komiyama, Yusuke; Banno, Masaki; Ueki, Kokoro; Saad, Gul; Shimizu, Kentaro

    2016-03-15

    Predictive tools that model protein-ligand binding on demand are needed to promote ligand research in an innovative drug-design environment. However, it takes considerable time and effort to develop predictive tools that can be applied to individual ligands. An automated production pipeline that can rapidly and efficiently develop user-friendly protein-ligand binding predictive tools would be useful. We developed a system for automatically generating protein-ligand binding predictions. Implementation of this system in a pipeline of Semantic Web technique-based web tools will allow users to specify a ligand and receive the tool within 0.5-1 day. We demonstrated high prediction accuracy for three machine learning algorithms and eight ligands. The source code and web application are freely available for download at http://utprot.net They are implemented in Python and supported on Linux. shimizu@bi.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

  2. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest ligand's binding to nicotinamidase/pyrazinamidase.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ji-Long Zhang

    Full Text Available The research on the binding process of ligand to pyrazinamidase (PncA is crucial for elucidating the inherent relationship between resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and PncA's activity. In the present study, molecular dynamics (MD simulation methods were performed to investigate the unbinding process of nicotinamide (NAM from two PncA enzymes, which is the reverse of the corresponding binding process. The calculated potential of mean force (PMF based on the steered molecular dynamics (SMD simulations sheds light on an optimal binding/unbinding pathway of the ligand. The comparative analyses between two PncAs clearly exhibit the consistency of the binding/unbinding pathway in the two enzymes, implying the universality of the pathway in all kinds of PncAs. Several important residues dominating the pathway were also determined by the calculation of interaction energies. The structural change of the proteins induced by NAM's unbinding or binding shows the great extent interior motion in some homologous region adjacent to the active sites of the two PncAs. The structure comparison substantiates that this region should be very important for the ligand's binding in all PncAs. Additionally, MD simulations also show that the coordination position of the ligand is displaced by one water molecule in the unliganded enzymes. These results could provide the more penetrating understanding of drug resistance of M. tuberculosis and be helpful for the development of new antituberculosis drugs.

  3. A tandem regression-outlier analysis of a ligand cellular system for key structural modifications around ligand binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Ying-Ting

    2013-04-30

    A tandem technique of hard equipment is often used for the chemical analysis of a single cell to first isolate and then detect the wanted identities. The first part is the separation of wanted chemicals from the bulk of a cell; the second part is the actual detection of the important identities. To identify the key structural modifications around ligand binding, the present study aims to develop a counterpart of tandem technique for cheminformatics. A statistical regression and its outliers act as a computational technique for separation. A PPARγ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma) agonist cellular system was subjected to such an investigation. Results show that this tandem regression-outlier analysis, or the prioritization of the context equations tagged with features of the outliers, is an effective regression technique of cheminformatics to detect key structural modifications, as well as their tendency of impact to ligand binding. The key structural modifications around ligand binding are effectively extracted or characterized out of cellular reactions. This is because molecular binding is the paramount factor in such ligand cellular system and key structural modifications around ligand binding are expected to create outliers. Therefore, such outliers can be captured by this tandem regression-outlier analysis.

  4. Estimation of kinetic and thermodynamic ligand-binding parameters using computational strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deganutti, Giuseppe; Moro, Stefano

    2017-04-01

    Kinetic and thermodynamic ligand-protein binding parameters are gaining growing importance as key information to consider in drug discovery. The determination of the molecular structures, using particularly x-ray and NMR techniques, is crucial for understanding how a ligand recognizes its target in the final binding complex. However, for a better understanding of the recognition processes, experimental studies of ligand-protein interactions are needed. Even though several techniques can be used to investigate both thermodynamic and kinetic profiles for a ligand-protein complex, these procedures are very often laborious, time consuming and expensive. In the last 10 years, computational approaches have enormous potential in providing insights into each of the above effects and in parsing their contributions to the changes in both kinetic and thermodynamic binding parameters. The main purpose of this review is to summarize the state of the art of computational strategies for estimating the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of a ligand-protein binding.

  5. Exploring the composition of protein-ligand binding sites on a large scale.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nickolay A Khazanov

    Full Text Available The residue composition of a ligand binding site determines the interactions available for diffusion-mediated ligand binding, and understanding general composition of these sites is of great importance if we are to gain insight into the functional diversity of the proteome. Many structure-based drug design methods utilize such heuristic information for improving prediction or characterization of ligand-binding sites in proteins of unknown function. The Binding MOAD database if one of the largest curated sets of protein-ligand complexes, and provides a source of diverse, high-quality data for establishing general trends of residue composition from currently available protein structures. We present an analysis of 3,295 non-redundant proteins with 9,114 non-redundant binding sites to identify residues over-represented in binding regions versus the rest of the protein surface. The Binding MOAD database delineates biologically-relevant "valid" ligands from "invalid" small-molecule ligands bound to the protein. Invalids are present in the crystallization medium and serve no known biological function. Contacts are found to differ between these classes of ligands, indicating that residue composition of biologically relevant binding sites is distinct not only from the rest of the protein surface, but also from surface regions capable of opportunistic binding of non-functional small molecules. To confirm these trends, we perform a rigorous analysis of the variation of residue propensity with respect to the size of the dataset and the content bias inherent in structure sets obtained from a large protein structure database. The optimal size of the dataset for establishing general trends of residue propensities, as well as strategies for assessing the significance of such trends, are suggested for future studies of binding-site composition.

  6. Thermodynamic fingerprints of ligand binding to human telomeric G-quadruplexes

    OpenAIRE

    Bon?ina, Matja?; Podlipnik, ?rtomir; Piantanida, Ivo; Eilmes, Julita; Teulade-Fichou, Marie-Paule; Vesnaver, Gorazd; Lah, Jurij

    2015-01-01

    Thermodynamic studies of ligand binding to human telomere (ht) DNA quadruplexes, as a rule, neglect the involvement of various ht-DNA conformations in the binding process. Therefore, the thermodynamic driving forces and the mechanisms of ht-DNA G-quadruplex-ligand recognition remain poorly understood. In this work we characterize thermodynamically and structurally binding of netropsin (Net), dibenzotetraaza[14]annulene derivatives (DP77, DP78), cationic porphyrin (TMPyP4) and two bisquinolini...

  7. Detection of site-specific binding and co-binding of ligands to macromolecules using 19F NMR

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jenkins, B.G.

    1991-01-01

    Study of ligand-macromolecular interactions by 19 F nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy affords many opportunities for obtaining molecular biochemical and pharmaceutical information. This is due to the absence of a background fluorine signal, as well as the relatively high sensitivity of 19 F NMR. Use of fluorine-labeled ligands enables one to probe not only binding and co-binding phenomena to macromolecules, but also can provide data on binding constants, stoichiometries, kinetics, and conformational properties of these complexes. Under conditions of slow exchange and macromolecule-induced chemical shifts, multiple 19 F NMR resonances can be observed for free and bound ligands. These shifted resonances are a direct correlate of the concentration of ligand bound in a specific state rather than the global concentrations of bound or free ligand which are usually determined using other techniques such as absorption spectroscopy or equilibrium dialysis. Examples of these interactions are demonstrated both from the literature and from interactions of 5-fluorotryptophan, 5-fluorosalicylic acid, flurbiprofen, and sulindac sulfide with human serum albumin. Other applications of 19 F NMR to study of these interactions in vivo, as well for receptor binding and metabolic tracing of fluorinated drugs and proteins are discussed

  8. The cholinergic ligand binding material of axonal membranes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mautner, H.G.; Coronado, R.; Jumblatt, J.E.

    1986-01-01

    Choline acetyltransferase and acetylcholinesterase, the enzymes responsible for the synthesis and hydrolysis of ACh, are present in nerve fibers. In crustacean peripheral nerves, release of ACh from cut nerve fibers has been demonstrated. Previously closed membrane vesicles have been prepared from lobster walking leg nerve plasma membrane and saturable binding of cholinergic agonsist and antagonists to such membranes have been demonstrated. This paper studies this axonal cholinergic binding material, and elucidates its functions. The binding of tritium-nicotine to lobster nerve plasma membranes was antagonized by a series of cholinergic ligands as well as by a series of local anesthetics. This preparation was capable of binding I 125-alpha-bungarotoxin, a ligand widely believed to be a specific label for nicotinic ACh receptor. The labelling of 50 K petide band with tritium-MBTA following disulfide reduction is illustrated

  9. Singular Value Decomposition and Ligand Binding Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    André Luiz Galo

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Singular values decomposition (SVD is one of the most important computations in linear algebra because of its vast application for data analysis. It is particularly useful for resolving problems involving least-squares minimization, the determination of matrix rank, and the solution of certain problems involving Euclidean norms. Such problems arise in the spectral analysis of ligand binding to macromolecule. Here, we present a spectral data analysis method using SVD (SVD analysis and nonlinear fitting to determine the binding characteristics of intercalating drugs to DNA. This methodology reduces noise and identifies distinct spectral species similar to traditional principal component analysis as well as fitting nonlinear binding parameters. We applied SVD analysis to investigate the interaction of actinomycin D and daunomycin with native DNA. This methodology does not require prior knowledge of ligand molar extinction coefficients (free and bound, which potentially limits binding analysis. Data are acquired simply by reconstructing the experimental data and by adjusting the product of deconvoluted matrices and the matrix of model coefficients determined by the Scatchard and McGee and von Hippel equation.

  10. Ligand binding and crystal structures of the substrate-binding domain of the ABC transporter OpuA.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Justina C Wolters

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available The ABC transporter OpuA from Lactococcus lactis transports glycine betaine upon activation by threshold values of ionic strength. In this study, the ligand binding characteristics of purified OpuA in a detergent-solubilized state and of its substrate-binding domain produced as soluble protein (OpuAC was characterized.The binding of glycine betaine to purified OpuA and OpuAC (K(D = 4-6 microM did not show any salt dependence or cooperative effects, in contrast to the transport activity. OpuAC is highly specific for glycine betaine and the related proline betaine. Other compatible solutes like proline and carnitine bound with affinities that were 3 to 4 orders of magnitude lower. The low affinity substrates were not noticeably transported by membrane-reconstituted OpuA. OpuAC was crystallized in an open (1.9 A and closed-liganded (2.3 A conformation. The binding pocket is formed by three tryptophans (Trp-prism coordinating the quaternary ammonium group of glycine betaine in the closed-liganded structure. Even though the binding site of OpuAC is identical to that of its B. subtilis homolog, the affinity for glycine betaine is 4-fold higher.Ionic strength did not affect substrate binding to OpuA, indicating that regulation of transport is not at the level of substrate binding, but rather at the level of translocation. The overlap between the crystal structures of OpuAC from L.lactis and B.subtilis, comprising the classical Trp-prism, show that the differences observed in the binding affinities originate from outside of the ligand binding site.

  11. PatchSurfers: Two methods for local molecular property-based binding ligand prediction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shin, Woong-Hee; Bures, Mark Gregory; Kihara, Daisuke

    2016-01-15

    Protein function prediction is an active area of research in computational biology. Function prediction can help biologists make hypotheses for characterization of genes and help interpret biological assays, and thus is a productive area for collaboration between experimental and computational biologists. Among various function prediction methods, predicting binding ligand molecules for a target protein is an important class because ligand binding events for a protein are usually closely intertwined with the proteins' biological function, and also because predicted binding ligands can often be directly tested by biochemical assays. Binding ligand prediction methods can be classified into two types: those which are based on protein-protein (or pocket-pocket) comparison, and those that compare a target pocket directly to ligands. Recently, our group proposed two computational binding ligand prediction methods, Patch-Surfer, which is a pocket-pocket comparison method, and PL-PatchSurfer, which compares a pocket to ligand molecules. The two programs apply surface patch-based descriptions to calculate similarity or complementarity between molecules. A surface patch is characterized by physicochemical properties such as shape, hydrophobicity, and electrostatic potentials. These properties on the surface are represented using three-dimensional Zernike descriptors (3DZD), which are based on a series expansion of a 3 dimensional function. Utilizing 3DZD for describing the physicochemical properties has two main advantages: (1) rotational invariance and (2) fast comparison. Here, we introduce Patch-Surfer and PL-PatchSurfer with an emphasis on PL-PatchSurfer, which is more recently developed. Illustrative examples of PL-PatchSurfer performance on binding ligand prediction as well as virtual drug screening are also provided. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Distinct roles of beta1 metal ion-dependent adhesion site (MIDAS), adjacent to MIDAS (ADMIDAS), and ligand-associated metal-binding site (LIMBS) cation-binding sites in ligand recognition by integrin alpha2beta1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valdramidou, Dimitra; Humphries, Martin J; Mould, A Paul

    2008-11-21

    Integrin-ligand interactions are regulated in a complex manner by divalent cations, and previous studies have identified ligand-competent, stimulatory, and inhibitory cation-binding sites. In collagen-binding integrins, such as alpha2beta1, ligand recognition takes place exclusively at the alpha subunit I domain. However, activation of the alphaI domain depends on its interaction with a structurally similar domain in the beta subunit known as the I-like or betaI domain. The top face of the betaI domain contains three cation-binding sites: the metal-ion dependent adhesion site (MIDAS), the ADMIDAS (adjacent to MIDAS), and LIMBS (ligand-associated metal-binding site). The role of these sites in controlling ligand binding to the alphaI domain has yet to be elucidated. Mutation of the MIDAS or LIMBS completely blocked collagen binding to alpha2beta1; in contrast mutation of the ADMIDAS reduced ligand recognition but this effect could be overcome by the activating monoclonal antibody TS2/16. Hence, the MIDAS and LIMBS appear to be essential for the interaction between alphaI and betaI, whereas occupancy of the ADMIDAS has an allosteric effect on the conformation of betaI. An activating mutation in the alpha2 I domain partially restored ligand binding to the MIDAS and LIMBS mutants. Analysis of the effects of Ca(2+), Mg(2+), and Mn(2+) on ligand binding to these mutants showed that the MIDAS is a ligand-competent site through which Mn(2+) stimulates ligand binding, whereas the LIMBS is a stimulatory Ca(2+)-binding site, occupancy of which increases the affinity of Mg(2+) for the MIDAS.

  13. Two unique ligand-binding clamps of Rhizopus oryzae starch binding domain for helical structure disruption of amylose.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ting-Ying Jiang

    Full Text Available The N-terminal starch binding domain of Rhizopus oryzae glucoamylase (RoSBD has a high binding affinity for raw starch. RoSBD has two ligand-binding sites, each containing a ligand-binding clamp: a polyN clamp residing near binding site I is unique in that it is expressed in only three members of carbohydrate binding module family 21 (CBM21 members, and a Y32/F58 clamp located at binding site II is conserved in several CBMs. Here we characterized different roles of these sites in the binding of insoluble and soluble starches using an amylose-iodine complex assay, atomic force microscopy, isothermal titration calorimetry, site-directed mutagenesis, and structural bioinformatics. RoSBD induced the release of iodine from the amylose helical cavity and disrupted the helical structure of amylose type III, thereby significantly diminishing the thickness and length of the amylose type III fibrils. A point mutation in the critical ligand-binding residues of sites I and II, however, reduced both the binding affinity and amylose helix disruption. This is the first molecular model for structure disruption of the amylose helix by a non-hydrolytic CBM21 member. RoSBD apparently twists the helical amylose strands apart to expose more ligand surface for further SBD binding. Repeating the process triggers the relaxation and unwinding of amylose helices to generate thinner and shorter amylose fibrils, which are more susceptible to hydrolysis by glucoamylase. This model aids in understanding the natural roles of CBMs in protein-glycan interactions and contributes to potential molecular engineering of CBMs.

  14. Thermodynamics of ligand binding to acyl-coenzyme A binding protein studied by titration calorimetry

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Færgeman, Nils J.; Sigurskjold, B W; Kragelund, B B

    1996-01-01

    Ligand binding to recombinant bovine acyl-CoA binding protein (ACBP) was examined using isothermal microcalorimetry. Microcalorimetric measurements confirm that the binding affinity of acyl-CoA esters for ACBP is strongly dependent on the length of the acyl chain with a clear preference for acyl-...

  15. The interrelationship between ligand binding and self-association of the folate binding protein

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holm, Jan; Schou, Christian; Babol, Linnea N.

    2011-01-01

    The folate binding protein (FBP) regulates homeostasis and intracellular trafficking of folic acid, a vitamin of decisive importance in cell division and growth. We analyzed whether interrelationship between ligand binding and self-association of FBP plays a significant role in the physiology of ...

  16. A sequence-based dynamic ensemble learning system for protein ligand-binding site prediction

    KAUST Repository

    Chen, Peng

    2015-12-03

    Background: Proteins have the fundamental ability to selectively bind to other molecules and perform specific functions through such interactions, such as protein-ligand binding. Accurate prediction of protein residues that physically bind to ligands is important for drug design and protein docking studies. Most of the successful protein-ligand binding predictions were based on known structures. However, structural information is not largely available in practice due to the huge gap between the number of known protein sequences and that of experimentally solved structures

  17. A sequence-based dynamic ensemble learning system for protein ligand-binding site prediction

    KAUST Repository

    Chen, Peng; Hu, ShanShan; Zhang, Jun; Gao, Xin; Li, Jinyan; Xia, Junfeng; Wang, Bing

    2015-01-01

    Background: Proteins have the fundamental ability to selectively bind to other molecules and perform specific functions through such interactions, such as protein-ligand binding. Accurate prediction of protein residues that physically bind to ligands is important for drug design and protein docking studies. Most of the successful protein-ligand binding predictions were based on known structures. However, structural information is not largely available in practice due to the huge gap between the number of known protein sequences and that of experimentally solved structures

  18. Progress on the application of ligand receptor binding assays in radiopharmaceuticals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhou Xue; Qian Jinping; Kong Aiying; Zhu Lin

    2010-01-01

    Receptor binding assay is an important drug screening method, which can quickly and inexpensively study the interactions between the targeted receptor and the potential ligands in vitro and provide the information of the relative binding affinity of ligand-receptor. The imaging of many radiopharmaceuticals is based on highly selective radioligand-receptor binding. The technique plays an important role in the design and screening of receptor-targeting radiopharmaceuticals. (authors)

  19. Thermodynamic fingerprints of ligand binding to human telomeric G-quadruplexes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bončina, Matjaž; Podlipnik, Črtomir; Piantanida, Ivo; Eilmes, Julita; Teulade-Fichou, Marie-Paule; Vesnaver, Gorazd; Lah, Jurij

    2015-12-02

    Thermodynamic studies of ligand binding to human telomere (ht) DNA quadruplexes, as a rule, neglect the involvement of various ht-DNA conformations in the binding process. Therefore, the thermodynamic driving forces and the mechanisms of ht-DNA G-quadruplex-ligand recognition remain poorly understood. In this work we characterize thermodynamically and structurally binding of netropsin (Net), dibenzotetraaza[14]annulene derivatives (DP77, DP78), cationic porphyrin (TMPyP4) and two bisquinolinium ligands (Phen-DC3, 360A-Br) to the ht-DNA fragment (Tel22) AGGG(TTAGGG)3 using isothermal titration calorimetry, CD and fluorescence spectroscopy, gel electrophoresis and molecular modeling. By global thermodynamic analysis of experimental data we show that the driving forces characterized by contributions of specific interactions, changes in solvation and conformation differ significantly for binding of ligands with low quadruplex selectivity over duplexes (Net, DP77, DP78, TMPyP4; KTel22 ≈ KdsDNA). These contributions are in accordance with the observed structural features (changes) and suggest that upon binding Net, DP77, DP78 and TMPyP4 select hybrid-1 and/or hybrid-2 conformation while Phen-DC3 and 360A-Br induce the transition of hybrid-1 and hybrid-2 to the structure with characteristics of antiparallel or hybrid-3 type conformation. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  20. Biosensors engineered from conditionally stable ligand-binding domains

    Science.gov (United States)

    Church, George M.; Feng, Justin; Mandell, Daniel J.; Baker, David; Fields, Stanley; Jester, Benjamin Ward; Tinberg, Christine Elaine

    2017-09-19

    Disclosed is a biosensor engineered to conditionally respond to the presence of specific small molecules, the biosensors including conditionally stable ligand-binding domains (LBDs) which respond to the presence of specific small molecules, wherein readout of binding is provided by reporter genes or transcription factors (TFs) fused to the LBDs.

  1. Cloud computing approaches for prediction of ligand binding poses and pathways.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawrenz, Morgan; Shukla, Diwakar; Pande, Vijay S

    2015-01-22

    We describe an innovative protocol for ab initio prediction of ligand crystallographic binding poses and highly effective analysis of large datasets generated for protein-ligand dynamics. We include a procedure for setup and performance of distributed molecular dynamics simulations on cloud computing architectures, a model for efficient analysis of simulation data, and a metric for evaluation of model convergence. We give accurate binding pose predictions for five ligands ranging in affinity from 7 nM to > 200 μM for the immunophilin protein FKBP12, for expedited results in cases where experimental structures are difficult to produce. Our approach goes beyond single, low energy ligand poses to give quantitative kinetic information that can inform protein engineering and ligand design.

  2. Using chemical shift perturbation to characterise ligand binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williamson, Mike P

    2013-08-01

    Chemical shift perturbation (CSP, chemical shift mapping or complexation-induced changes in chemical shift, CIS) follows changes in the chemical shifts of a protein when a ligand is added, and uses these to determine the location of the binding site, the affinity of the ligand, and/or possibly the structure of the complex. A key factor in determining the appearance of spectra during a titration is the exchange rate between free and bound, or more specifically the off-rate koff. When koff is greater than the chemical shift difference between free and bound, which typically equates to an affinity Kd weaker than about 3μM, then exchange is fast on the chemical shift timescale. Under these circumstances, the observed shift is the population-weighted average of free and bound, which allows Kd to be determined from measurement of peak positions, provided the measurements are made appropriately. (1)H shifts are influenced to a large extent by through-space interactions, whereas (13)Cα and (13)Cβ shifts are influenced more by through-bond effects. (15)N and (13)C' shifts are influenced both by through-bond and by through-space (hydrogen bonding) interactions. For determining the location of a bound ligand on the basis of shift change, the most appropriate method is therefore usually to measure (15)N HSQC spectra, calculate the geometrical distance moved by the peak, weighting (15)N shifts by a factor of about 0.14 compared to (1)H shifts, and select those residues for which the weighted shift change is larger than the standard deviation of the shift for all residues. Other methods are discussed, in particular the measurement of (13)CH3 signals. Slow to intermediate exchange rates lead to line broadening, and make Kd values very difficult to obtain. There is no good way to distinguish changes in chemical shift due to direct binding of the ligand from changes in chemical shift due to allosteric change. Ligand binding at multiple sites can often be characterised, by

  3. Regulation of Neurexin 1[beta] Tertiary Structure and Ligand Binding through Alternative Splicing

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Shen, Kaiser C.; Kuczynska, Dorota A.; Wu, Irene J.; Murray, Beverly H.; Sheckler, Lauren R.; Rudenko, Gabby (Michigan)

    2008-08-04

    Neurexins and neuroligins play an essential role in synapse function, and their alterations are linked to autistic spectrum disorder. Interactions between neurexins and neuroligins regulate inhibitory and excitatory synaptogenesis in vitro through a splice-insert signaling code. In particular, neurexin 1{beta} carrying an alternative splice insert at site SS{number_sign}4 interacts with neuroligin 2 (found predominantly at inhibitory synapses) but much less so with other neuroligins (those carrying an insert at site B and prevalent at excitatory synapses). The structure of neurexin 1{beta}+SS{number_sign}4 reveals dramatic rearrangements to the 'hypervariable surface', the binding site for neuroligins. The splice insert protrudes as a long helix into space, triggers conversion of loop {beta}10-{beta}11 into a helix rearranging the binding site for neuroligins, and rearranges the Ca{sup 2+}-binding site required for ligand binding, increasing its affinity. Our structures reveal the mechanism by which neurexin 1{beta} isoforms acquire neuroligin splice isoform selectivity.

  4. Structural basis for the ligand-binding specificity of fatty acid-binding proteins (pFABP4 and pFABP5) in gentoo penguin.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Chang Woo; Kim, Jung Eun; Do, Hackwon; Kim, Ryeo-Ok; Lee, Sung Gu; Park, Hyun Ho; Chang, Jeong Ho; Yim, Joung Han; Park, Hyun; Kim, Il-Chan; Lee, Jun Hyuck

    2015-09-11

    Fatty acid-binding proteins (FABPs) are involved in transporting hydrophobic fatty acids between various aqueous compartments of the cell by directly binding ligands inside their β-barrel cavities. Here, we report the crystal structures of ligand-unbound pFABP4, linoleate-bound pFABP4, and palmitate-bound pFABP5, obtained from gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua), at a resolution of 2.1 Å, 2.2 Å, and 2.3 Å, respectively. The pFABP4 and pFABP5 proteins have a canonical β-barrel structure with two short α-helices that form a cap region and fatty acid ligand binding sites in the hydrophobic cavity within the β-barrel structure. Linoleate-bound pFABP4 and palmitate-bound pFABP5 possess different ligand-binding modes and a unique ligand-binding pocket due to several sequence dissimilarities (A76/L78, T30/M32, underlining indicates pFABP4 residues) between the two proteins. Structural comparison revealed significantly different conformational changes in the β3-β4 loop region (residues 57-62) as well as the flipped Phe60 residue of pFABP5 than that in pFABP4 (the corresponding residue is Phe58). A ligand-binding study using fluorophore displacement assays shows that pFABP4 has a relatively strong affinity for linoleate as compared to pFABP5. In contrast, pFABP5 exhibits higher affinity for palmitate than that for pFABP4. In conclusion, our high-resolution structures and ligand-binding studies provide useful insights into the ligand-binding preferences of pFABPs based on key protein-ligand interactions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Cavity Versus Ligand Shape Descriptors: Application to Urokinase Binding Pockets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cerisier, Natacha; Regad, Leslie; Triki, Dhoha; Camproux, Anne-Claude; Petitjean, Michel

    2017-11-01

    We analyzed 78 binding pockets of the human urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) catalytic domain extracted from a data set of crystallized uPA-ligand complexes. These binding pockets were computed with an original geometric method that does NOT involve any arbitrary parameter, such as cutoff distances, angles, and so on. We measured the deviation from convexity of each pocket shape with the pocket convexity index (PCI). We defined a new pocket descriptor called distributional sphericity coefficient (DISC), which indicates to which extent the protein atoms of a given pocket lie on the surface of a sphere. The DISC values were computed with the freeware PCI. The pocket descriptors and their high correspondences with ligand descriptors are crucial for polypharmacology prediction. We found that the protein heavy atoms lining the urokinases binding pockets are either located on the surface of their convex hull or lie close to this surface. We also found that the radii of the urokinases binding pockets and the radii of their ligands are highly correlated (r = 0.9).

  6. Sampling protein motion and solvent effect during ligand binding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Limongelli, Vittorio; Marinelli, Luciana; Cosconati, Sandro; La Motta, Concettina; Sartini, Stefania; Mugnaini, Laura; Da Settimo, Federico; Novellino, Ettore; Parrinello, Michele

    2012-01-01

    An exhaustive description of the molecular recognition mechanism between a ligand and its biological target is of great value because it provides the opportunity for an exogenous control of the related process. Very often this aim can be pursued using high resolution structures of the complex in combination with inexpensive computational protocols such as docking algorithms. Unfortunately, in many other cases a number of factors, like protein flexibility or solvent effects, increase the degree of complexity of ligand/protein interaction and these standard techniques are no longer sufficient to describe the binding event. We have experienced and tested these limits in the present study in which we have developed and revealed the mechanism of binding of a new series of potent inhibitors of Adenosine Deaminase. We have first performed a large number of docking calculations, which unfortunately failed to yield reliable results due to the dynamical character of the enzyme and the complex role of the solvent. Thus, we have stepped up the computational strategy using a protocol based on metadynamics. Our approach has allowed dealing with protein motion and solvation during ligand binding and finally identifying the lowest energy binding modes of the most potent compound of the series, 4-decyl-pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidin-7-one. PMID:22238423

  7. Potential ligand-binding residues in rat olfactory receptors identified by correlated mutation analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singer, M. S.; Oliveira, L.; Vriend, G.; Shepherd, G. M.

    1995-01-01

    A family of G-protein-coupled receptors is believed to mediate the recognition of odor molecules. In order to identify potential ligand-binding residues, we have applied correlated mutation analysis to receptor sequences from the rat. This method identifies pairs of sequence positions where residues remain conserved or mutate in tandem, thereby suggesting structural or functional importance. The analysis supported molecular modeling studies in suggesting several residues in positions that were consistent with ligand-binding function. Two of these positions, dominated by histidine residues, may play important roles in ligand binding and could confer broad specificity to mammalian odor receptors. The presence of positive (overdominant) selection at some of the identified positions provides additional evidence for roles in ligand binding. Higher-order groups of correlated residues were also observed. Each group may interact with an individual ligand determinant, and combinations of these groups may provide a multi-dimensional mechanism for receptor diversity.

  8. Determination of ligand binding modes in weak protein–ligand complexes using sparse NMR data

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mohanty, Biswaranjan; Williams, Martin L.; Doak, Bradley C.; Vazirani, Mansha; Ilyichova, Olga [Monash University, Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Australia); Wang, Geqing [La Trobe University, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Bioscience (Australia); Bermel, Wolfgang [Bruker Biospin GmbH (Germany); Simpson, Jamie S.; Chalmers, David K. [Monash University, Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Australia); King, Glenn F. [The University of Queensland, Institute for Molecular Bioscience (Australia); Mobli, Mehdi, E-mail: m.mobli@uq.edu.au [The University of Queensland, Centre for Advanced Imaging (Australia); Scanlon, Martin J., E-mail: martin.scanlon@monash.edu [Monash University, Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Australia)

    2016-11-15

    We describe a general approach to determine the binding pose of small molecules in weakly bound protein–ligand complexes by deriving distance constraints between the ligand and methyl groups from all methyl-containing residues of the protein. We demonstrate that using a single sample, which can be prepared without the use of expensive precursors, it is possible to generate high-resolution data rapidly and obtain the resonance assignments of Ile, Leu, Val, Ala and Thr methyl groups using triple resonance scalar correlation data. The same sample may be used to obtain Met {sup ε}CH{sub 3} assignments using NOESY-based methods, although the superior sensitivity of NOESY using [U-{sup 13}C,{sup 15}N]-labeled protein makes the use of this second sample more efficient. We describe a structural model for a weakly binding ligand bound to its target protein, DsbA, derived from intermolecular methyl-to-ligand nuclear Overhauser enhancements, and demonstrate that the ability to assign all methyl resonances in the spectrum is essential to derive an accurate model of the structure. Once the methyl assignments have been obtained, this approach provides a rapid means to generate structural models for weakly bound protein–ligand complexes. Such weak complexes are often found at the beginning of programs of fragment based drug design and can be challenging to characterize using X-ray crystallography.

  9. Ligand binding by PDZ domains

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Chi, Celestine N.; Bach, Anders; Strømgaard, Kristian

    2012-01-01

    , for example, are particularly rich in these domains. The general function of PDZ domains is to bring proteins together within the appropriate cellular compartment, thereby facilitating scaffolding, signaling, and trafficking events. The many functions of PDZ domains under normal physiological as well...... as pathological conditions have been reviewed recently. In this review, we focus on the molecular details of how PDZ domains bind their protein ligands and their potential as drug targets in this context....

  10. Large-scale binding ligand prediction by improved patch-based method Patch-Surfer2.0.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Xiaolei; Xiong, Yi; Kihara, Daisuke

    2015-03-01

    Ligand binding is a key aspect of the function of many proteins. Thus, binding ligand prediction provides important insight in understanding the biological function of proteins. Binding ligand prediction is also useful for drug design and examining potential drug side effects. We present a computational method named Patch-Surfer2.0, which predicts binding ligands for a protein pocket. By representing and comparing pockets at the level of small local surface patches that characterize physicochemical properties of the local regions, the method can identify binding pockets of the same ligand even if they do not share globally similar shapes. Properties of local patches are represented by an efficient mathematical representation, 3D Zernike Descriptor. Patch-Surfer2.0 has significant technical improvements over our previous prototype, which includes a new feature that captures approximate patch position with a geodesic distance histogram. Moreover, we constructed a large comprehensive database of ligand binding pockets that will be searched against by a query. The benchmark shows better performance of Patch-Surfer2.0 over existing methods. http://kiharalab.org/patchsurfer2.0/ CONTACT: dkihara@purdue.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  11. Ligand Binding Induces Conformational Changes in Human Cellular Retinol-binding Protein 1 (CRBP1) Revealed by Atomic Resolution Crystal Structures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silvaroli, Josie A; Arne, Jason M; Chelstowska, Sylwia; Kiser, Philip D; Banerjee, Surajit; Golczak, Marcin

    2016-04-15

    Important in regulating the uptake, storage, and metabolism of retinoids, cellular retinol-binding protein 1 (CRBP1) is essential for trafficking vitamin A through the cytoplasm. However, the molecular details of ligand uptake and targeted release by CRBP1 remain unclear. Here we report the first structure of CRBP1 in a ligand-free form as well as ultra-high resolution structures of this protein bound to either all-trans-retinol or retinylamine, the latter a therapeutic retinoid that prevents light-induced retinal degeneration. Superpositioning of human apo- and holo-CRBP1 revealed major differences within segments surrounding the entrance to the retinoid-binding site. These included α-helix II and hairpin turns between β-strands βC-βD and βE-βF as well as several side chains, such as Phe-57, Tyr-60, and Ile-77, that change their orientations to accommodate the ligand. Additionally, we mapped hydrogen bond networks inside the retinoid-binding cavity and demonstrated their significance for the ligand affinity. Analyses of the crystallographic B-factors indicated several regions with higher backbone mobility in the apoprotein that became more rigid upon retinoid binding. This conformational flexibility of human apo-CRBP1 facilitates interaction with the ligands, whereas the more rigid holoprotein structure protects the labile retinoid moiety during vitamin A transport. These findings suggest a mechanism of induced fit upon ligand binding by mammalian cellular retinol-binding proteins. © 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  12. Quantifying high-affinity binding of hydrophobic ligands by isothermal titration calorimetry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krainer, Georg; Broecker, Jana; Vargas, Carolyn; Fanghänel, Jörg; Keller, Sandro

    2012-12-18

    A fast and reliable quantification of the binding thermodynamics of hydrophobic high-affinity ligands employing a new calorimetric competition experiment is described. Although isothermal titration calorimetry is the method of choice for a quantitative characterization of intermolecular interactions in solution, a reliable determination of a dissociation constant (K(D)) is typically limited to the range 100 μM > K(D) > 1 nM. Interactions displaying higher or lower K(D) values can be assessed indirectly, provided that a suitable competing ligand is available whose K(D) falls within the directly accessible affinity window. This established displacement assay, however, requires the high-affinity ligand to be soluble at high concentrations in aqueous buffer and, consequently, poses serious problems in the study of protein binding involving small-molecule ligands dissolved in organic solvents--a familiar case in many drug-discovery projects relying on compound libraries. The calorimetric competition assay introduced here overcomes this limitation, thus allowing for a detailed thermodynamic description of high-affinity receptor-ligand interactions involving poorly water-soluble compounds. Based on a single titration of receptor into a dilute mixture of the two competing ligands, this competition assay provides accurate and precise values for the dissociation constants and binding enthalpies of both high- and moderate-affinity ligands. We discuss the theoretical background underlying the approach, demonstrate its practical application to metal ion chelation and high-affinity protein-inhibitor interactions, and explore its potential and limitations with the aid of simulations and statistical analyses.

  13. Extreme sequence divergence but conserved ligand-binding specificity in Streptococcus pyogenes M protein.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    2006-05-01

    Full Text Available Many pathogenic microorganisms evade host immunity through extensive sequence variability in a protein region targeted by protective antibodies. In spite of the sequence variability, a variable region commonly retains an important ligand-binding function, reflected in the presence of a highly conserved sequence motif. Here, we analyze the limits of sequence divergence in a ligand-binding region by characterizing the hypervariable region (HVR of Streptococcus pyogenes M protein. Our studies were focused on HVRs that bind the human complement regulator C4b-binding protein (C4BP, a ligand that confers phagocytosis resistance. A previous comparison of C4BP-binding HVRs identified residue identities that could be part of a binding motif, but the extended analysis reported here shows that no residue identities remain when additional C4BP-binding HVRs are included. Characterization of the HVR in the M22 protein indicated that two relatively conserved Leu residues are essential for C4BP binding, but these residues are probably core residues in a coiled-coil, implying that they do not directly contribute to binding. In contrast, substitution of either of two relatively conserved Glu residues, predicted to be solvent-exposed, had no effect on C4BP binding, although each of these changes had a major effect on the antigenic properties of the HVR. Together, these findings show that HVRs of M proteins have an extraordinary capacity for sequence divergence and antigenic variability while retaining a specific ligand-binding function.

  14. Characterization of the Raf kinase inhibitory protein (RKIP) binding pocket: NMR-based screening identifies small-molecule ligands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shemon, Anne N; Heil, Gary L; Granovsky, Alexey E; Clark, Mathew M; McElheny, Dan; Chimon, Alexander; Rosner, Marsha R; Koide, Shohei

    2010-05-05

    Raf kinase inhibitory protein (RKIP), also known as phoshaptidylethanolamine binding protein (PEBP), has been shown to inhibit Raf and thereby negatively regulate growth factor signaling by the Raf/MAP kinase pathway. RKIP has also been shown to suppress metastasis. We have previously demonstrated that RKIP/Raf interaction is regulated by two mechanisms: phosphorylation of RKIP at Ser-153, and occupation of RKIP's conserved ligand binding domain with a phospholipid (2-dihexanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine; DHPE). In addition to phospholipids, other ligands have been reported to bind this domain; however their binding properties remain uncharacterized. In this study, we used high-resolution heteronuclear NMR spectroscopy to screen a chemical library and assay a number of potential RKIP ligands for binding to the protein. Surprisingly, many compounds previously postulated as RKIP ligands showed no detectable binding in near-physiological solution conditions even at millimolar concentrations. In contrast, we found three novel ligands for RKIP that specifically bind to the RKIP pocket. Interestingly, unlike the phospholipid, DHPE, these newly identified ligands did not affect RKIP binding to Raf-1 or RKIP phosphorylation. One out of the three ligands displayed off target biological effects, impairing EGF-induced MAPK and metabolic activity. This work defines the binding properties of RKIP ligands under near physiological conditions, establishing RKIP's affinity for hydrophobic ligands and the importance of bulky aliphatic chains for inhibiting its function. The common structural elements of these compounds defines a minimal requirement for RKIP binding and thus they can be used as lead compounds for future design of RKIP ligands with therapeutic potential.

  15. Characterization of the Raf kinase inhibitory protein (RKIP binding pocket: NMR-based screening identifies small-molecule ligands.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anne N Shemon

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Raf kinase inhibitory protein (RKIP, also known as phoshaptidylethanolamine binding protein (PEBP, has been shown to inhibit Raf and thereby negatively regulate growth factor signaling by the Raf/MAP kinase pathway. RKIP has also been shown to suppress metastasis. We have previously demonstrated that RKIP/Raf interaction is regulated by two mechanisms: phosphorylation of RKIP at Ser-153, and occupation of RKIP's conserved ligand binding domain with a phospholipid (2-dihexanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine; DHPE. In addition to phospholipids, other ligands have been reported to bind this domain; however their binding properties remain uncharacterized.In this study, we used high-resolution heteronuclear NMR spectroscopy to screen a chemical library and assay a number of potential RKIP ligands for binding to the protein. Surprisingly, many compounds previously postulated as RKIP ligands showed no detectable binding in near-physiological solution conditions even at millimolar concentrations. In contrast, we found three novel ligands for RKIP that specifically bind to the RKIP pocket. Interestingly, unlike the phospholipid, DHPE, these newly identified ligands did not affect RKIP binding to Raf-1 or RKIP phosphorylation. One out of the three ligands displayed off target biological effects, impairing EGF-induced MAPK and metabolic activity.This work defines the binding properties of RKIP ligands under near physiological conditions, establishing RKIP's affinity for hydrophobic ligands and the importance of bulky aliphatic chains for inhibiting its function. The common structural elements of these compounds defines a minimal requirement for RKIP binding and thus they can be used as lead compounds for future design of RKIP ligands with therapeutic potential.

  16. Ligand Binding Domain Protein in Tetracycline-Inducible Expression ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    binding domain proteins in E. coli using a tetracycline inducible system. To allow for ... development of molecular ligands with improved therapeutic windows. Keywords: Nuclear receptor ..... functional recombinant cannabinoid receptor CB2 in ...

  17. Solution structure of the twelfth cysteine-rich ligand-binding repeat in rat megalin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wolf, Christian A.; Dancea, Felician; Shi Meichen; Bade-Noskova, Veronika; Rueterjans, Heinz; Kerjaschki, Dontscho; Luecke, Christian

    2007-01-01

    Megalin, an approx. 600 kDa transmembrane glycoprotein that acts as multi-ligand transporter, is a member of the low density lipoprotein receptor gene family. Several cysteine-rich repeats, each consisting of about 40 residues, are responsible for the multispecific binding of ligands. The solution structure of the twelfth cysteine-rich ligand-binding repeat with class A motif found in megalin features two short β-strands and two helical turns, yielding the typical fold with a I-III, II-V and IV-VI disulfide bridge connectivity pattern and a calcium coordination site at the C-terminal end. The resulting differences in electrostatic surface potential compared to other ligand-binding modules of this gene family, however, may be responsible for the functional divergence

  18. Binding Ligand Prediction for Proteins Using Partial Matching of Local Surface Patches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lee Sael

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Functional elucidation of uncharacterized protein structures is an important task in bioinformatics. We report our new approach for structure-based function prediction which captures local surface features of ligand binding pockets. Function of proteins, specifically, binding ligands of proteins, can be predicted by finding similar local surface regions of known proteins. To enable partial comparison of binding sites in proteins, a weighted bipartite matching algorithm is used to match pairs of surface patches. The surface patches are encoded with the 3D Zernike descriptors. Unlike the existing methods which compare global characteristics of the protein fold or the global pocket shape, the local surface patch method can find functional similarity between non-homologous proteins and binding pockets for flexible ligand molecules. The proposed method improves prediction results over global pocket shape-based method which was previously developed by our group.

  19. Binding ligand prediction for proteins using partial matching of local surface patches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sael, Lee; Kihara, Daisuke

    2010-01-01

    Functional elucidation of uncharacterized protein structures is an important task in bioinformatics. We report our new approach for structure-based function prediction which captures local surface features of ligand binding pockets. Function of proteins, specifically, binding ligands of proteins, can be predicted by finding similar local surface regions of known proteins. To enable partial comparison of binding sites in proteins, a weighted bipartite matching algorithm is used to match pairs of surface patches. The surface patches are encoded with the 3D Zernike descriptors. Unlike the existing methods which compare global characteristics of the protein fold or the global pocket shape, the local surface patch method can find functional similarity between non-homologous proteins and binding pockets for flexible ligand molecules. The proposed method improves prediction results over global pocket shape-based method which was previously developed by our group.

  20. Anions mediate ligand binding in Adineta vaga glutamate receptor ion channels.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lomash, Suvendu; Chittori, Sagar; Brown, Patrick; Mayer, Mark L

    2013-03-05

    AvGluR1, a glutamate receptor ion channel from the primitive eukaryote Adineta vaga, is activated by alanine, cysteine, methionine, and phenylalanine, which produce lectin-sensitive desensitizing responses like those to glutamate, aspartate, and serine. AvGluR1 LBD crystal structures reveal an unusual scheme for binding dissimilar ligands that may be utilized by distantly related odorant/chemosensory receptors. Arginine residues in domain 2 coordinate the γ-carboxyl group of glutamate, whereas in the alanine, methionine, and serine complexes a chloride ion acts as a surrogate ligand, replacing the γ-carboxyl group. Removal of Cl(-) lowers affinity for these ligands but not for glutamate or aspartate nor for phenylalanine, which occludes the anion binding site and binds with low affinity. AvGluR1 LBD crystal structures and sedimentation analysis also provide insights into the evolutionary link between prokaryotic and eukaryotic iGluRs and reveal features unique to both classes, emphasizing the need for additional structure-based studies on iGluR-ligand interactions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. NMR studies of DNA oligomers and their interactions with minor groove binding ligands

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fagan, Patricia A. [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Chemistry

    1996-05-01

    The cationic peptide ligands distamycin and netropsin bind noncovalently to the minor groove of DNA. The binding site, orientation, stoichiometry, and qualitative affinity of distamycin binding to several short DNA oligomers were investigated by NMR spectroscopy. The oligomers studied contain A,T-rich or I,C-rich binding sites, where I = 2-desaminodeoxyguanosine. I•C base pairs are functional analogs of A•T base pairs in the minor groove. The different behaviors exhibited by distamycin and netropsin binding to various DNA sequences suggested that these ligands are sensitive probes of DNA structure. For sites of five or more base pairs, distamycin can form 1:1 or 2:1 ligand:DNA complexes. Cooperativity in distamycin binding is low in sites such as AAAAA which has narrow minor grooves, and is higher in sites with wider minor grooves such as ATATAT. The distamycin binding and base pair opening lifetimes of I,C-containing DNA oligomers suggest that the I,C minor groove is structurally different from the A,T minor groove. Molecules which direct chemistry to a specific DNA sequence could be used as antiviral compounds, diagnostic probes, or molecular biology tools. The author studied two ligands in which reactive groups were tethered to a distamycin to increase the sequence specificity of the reactive agent.

  2. Thermodynamics of ligand binding to histone deacetylase like amidohydrolase from Bordetella/Alcaligenes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meyners, Christian; Baud, Matthias G J; Fuchter, Matthew J; Meyer-Almes, Franz-Josef

    2014-03-01

    Thermodynamic studies on ligand-protein binding have become increasingly important in the process of drug design. In combination with structural data and molecular dynamics simulations, thermodynamic studies provide relevant information about the mode of interaction between compounds and their target proteins and therefore build a sound basis for further drug optimization. Using the example of histone deacetylases (HDACs), particularly the histone deacetylase like amidohydrolase (HDAH) from Bordetella/Alcaligenes, a novel sensitive competitive fluorescence resonance energy transfer-based binding assay was developed and the thermodynamics of interaction of both fluorescent ligands and inhibitors to histone deacetylase like amidohydrolase were investigated. The assay consumes only small amounts of valuable target proteins and is suitable for fast kinetic and mechanistic studies as well as high throughput screening applications. Binding affinity increased with increasing length of aliphatic spacers (n = 4-7) between the hydroxamate moiety and the dansyl head group of ligand probes. Van't Hoff plots revealed an optimum in enthalpy contribution to the free energy of binding for the dansyl-ligand with hexyl spacer. The selectivity in the series of dansyl-ligands against human class I HDAC1 but not class II HDACs 4 and 6 increased with the ratio of ΔH(0)/ΔG(0). The data clearly emphasize the importance of thermodynamic signatures as useful general guidance for the optimization of ligands or rational drug design. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  3. Identification in the mu-opioid receptor of cysteine residues responsible for inactivation of ligand binding by thiol alkylating and reducing agents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaibelet, G; Capeyrou, R; Dietrich, G; Emorine, L J

    1997-05-19

    Inactivation by thiol reducing and alkylating agents of ligand binding to the human mu-opioid receptor was examined. Dithiothreitol reduced the number of [3H]diprenorphine binding sites. Replacement by seryl residues of either C142 or C219 in extracellular loops 1 and 2 of the mu receptor resulted in a complete loss of opioid binding. A disulfide bound linking C142 to C219 may thus be essential to maintain a functional conformation of the receptor. We also demonstrated that inactivation of ligand binding upon alkylation by N-ethylmaleimide occurred at two sites. Alteration of the more sensitive (IC50 = 20 microM) did not modify antagonists binding but decreased agonist affinity almost 10-fold. Modification of the less reactive site (IC50 = 2 mM) decreased the number of both agonist and antagonist binding sites. The alkylation site of higher sensitivity to N-ethylmaleimide was shown by mutagenesis experiments to be constituted of both C81 and C332 in transmembrane domains 1 and 7 of the mu-opioid receptor.

  4. Rapid, radiochemical-ligand binding assay for methotrexate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Caston, J.D.

    1976-01-01

    A radiochemical ligand binding assay for methotrexate is provided. A binder factor comprising a partially purified dihydrofolic acid reductase preparation is employed. The binder factor is conveniently prepared by homogenizing a factor containing animal organ such as liver, and extracting with isotonic saline and ammonium sulfate. A binder cofactor, NADPH 2 , is also employed in the binding reaction. The procedure contemplates both direct and sequential assay techniques, and it is not interfered with by vast excesses of many natural folate derivatives. 12 claims, 6 drawing figures

  5. Consensus of sample-balanced classifiers for identifying ligand-binding residue by co-evolutionary physicochemical characteristics of amino acids

    KAUST Repository

    Chen, Peng

    2013-01-01

    Protein-ligand binding is an important mechanism for some proteins to perform their functions, and those binding sites are the residues of proteins that physically bind to ligands. So far, the state-of-the-art methods search for similar, known structures of the query and predict the binding sites based on the solved structures. However, such structural information is not commonly available. In this paper, we propose a sequence-based approach to identify protein-ligand binding residues. Due to the highly imbalanced samples between the ligand-binding sites and non ligand-binding sites, we constructed several balanced data sets, for each of which a random forest (RF)-based classifier was trained. The ensemble of these RF classifiers formed a sequence-based protein-ligand binding site predictor. Experimental results on CASP9 targets demonstrated that our method compared favorably with the state-of-the-art. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.

  6. Thermodynamics of Ligand Binding to a Heterogeneous RNA Population in the Malachite Green Aptamer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sokoloski, Joshua E.; Dombrowski, Sarah E.; Bevilacqua, Philip C.

    2011-01-01

    The malachite green aptamer binds two closely related ligands, malachite green (MG) and tetramethylrosamine (TMR), with near equal affinity. The MG ligand consists of three phenyl rings emanating from a central carbon, while TMR has two of the three rings connected by an ether linkage. The binding pockets for MG and TMR in the aptamer, known from high-resolution structure, differ only in the conformation of a few nucleotides. Herein, we applied isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) to compare the thermodynamics for binding of MG and TMR to the aptamer. Binding heat capacities were obtained from ITC titrations over the temperature range of 15 to 60 °C. Two temperature regimes were found for MG binding: one from 15 to 45 °C where MG bound with a large negative heat capacity and an apparent stoichiometry (n) of ~0.4, and another from 50 to 60 °C where MG bound with positive heat capacity and n~1.1. The binding of TMR, on the other hand, revealed only one temperature regime for binding, with a more modest negative heat capacity and n~1.2. The large difference in heat capacity between the two ligands suggests that significantly more conformational rearrangement occurs upon the binding of MG than TMR, which is consistent with differences in solvent accessible surface area calculated for available ligand-bound structures. Lastly, we note that binding stoichiometry of MG was improved not only by raising the temperature, but also by lowering the concentration of Mg2+ or increasing the time between ITC injections. These studies suggest that binding of a dynamical ligand to a functional RNA requires the RNA itself to have significant dynamics. PMID:22192051

  7. Single-molecule photobleaching reveals increased MET receptor dimerization upon ligand binding in intact cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dietz, Marina S; Haße, Daniel; Ferraris, Davide M; Göhler, Antonia; Niemann, Hartmut H; Heilemann, Mike

    2013-01-01

    The human receptor tyrosine kinase MET and its ligand hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor are essential during embryonic development and play an important role during cancer metastasis and tissue regeneration. In addition, it was found that MET is also relevant for infectious diseases and is the target of different bacteria, amongst them Listeria monocytogenes that induces bacterial uptake through the surface protein internalin B. Binding of ligand to the MET receptor is proposed to lead to receptor dimerization. However, it is also discussed whether preformed MET dimers exist on the cell membrane. To address these issues we used single-molecule fluorescence microscopy techniques. Our photobleaching experiments show that MET exists in dimers on the membrane of cells in the absence of ligand and that the proportion of MET dimers increases significantly upon ligand binding. Our results indicate that partially preformed MET dimers may play a role in ligand binding or MET signaling. The addition of the bacterial ligand internalin B leads to an increase of MET dimers which is in agreement with the model of ligand-induced dimerization of receptor tyrosine kinases.

  8. Engineering cofactor and ligand binding in an artificial neuroglobin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Lei

    HP-7 is one artificial mutated oxygen transport protein, which operates via a mechanism akin to human neuroglobin and cytoglobin. This protein destabilizes one of two heme-ligating histidine residues by coupling histidine side chain ligation with the burial of three charged glutamate residues on the same helix. Replacement of these glutamate residues with alanine, which has a neutral hydrophobicity, slows gaseous ligand binding 22-fold, increases the affinity of the distal histidine ligand by a factor of thirteen, and decreases the binding affinity of carbon monoxide, a nonreactive oxygen analogue, three-fold. Paradoxically, it also decreases heme binding affinity by a factor of three in the reduced state and six in the oxidized state. Application of a two-state binding model, in which an initial pentacoordinate binding event is followed by a protein conformational change to hexacoordinate, provides insight into the mechanism of this seemingly counterintuitive result: the initial pentacoordinate encounter complex is significantly destabilized by the loss of the glutamate side chains, and the increased affinity for the distal histidine only partially compensates. These results point to the importance of considering each oxidation and conformational state in the design of functional artificial proteins. We have also examined the effects these mutations have on function. The K d of the nonnreactive oxygen analogue carbon monoxide (CO) is only decreased three-fold, despite the large increase in distal histidine affinity engendered by the 22-fold decrease in the histidine ligand off-rate. This is a result of the four-fold increase in affinity for CO binding to the pentacoordinate state. Oxygen binds to HP7 with a Kd of 117 µM, while the mutant rapidly oxidizes when exposed to oxygen. EPR analysis of both ferric hemoproteins demonstrates that the mutation increases disorder at the heme binding site. NMR-detected deuterium exchange demonstrates that the mutation causes a

  9. Computational Approaches to the Chemical Equilibrium Constant in Protein-ligand Binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montalvo-Acosta, Joel José; Cecchini, Marco

    2016-12-01

    The physiological role played by protein-ligand recognition has motivated the development of several computational approaches to the ligand binding affinity. Some of them, termed rigorous, have a strong theoretical foundation but involve too much computation to be generally useful. Some others alleviate the computational burden by introducing strong approximations and/or empirical calibrations, which also limit their general use. Most importantly, there is no straightforward correlation between the predictive power and the level of approximation introduced. Here, we present a general framework for the quantitative interpretation of protein-ligand binding based on statistical mechanics. Within this framework, we re-derive self-consistently the fundamental equations of some popular approaches to the binding constant and pinpoint the inherent approximations. Our analysis represents a first step towards the development of variants with optimum accuracy/efficiency ratio for each stage of the drug discovery pipeline. © 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  10. Microassay for measurement of binding of radiolabelled ligands to cell surface molecules

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Woof, J.M.; Burton, D.R.

    1988-01-01

    An improved technique for measuring the binding of radiolabelled ligands to cell surface molecules has been developed by modification of a procedure using centrifugation through a water-immiscible oil to separate free and cell-bound ligand. It maximises the percentage of ligand bound since cell-bound and free ligand can be separated easily and reproducibly even when very small reaction volumes are used. This permits low levels of ligand radiolabelling and relatively low numbers of cells to be used

  11. GluR2 ligand-binding core complexes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kasper, C; Lunn, M-L; Liljefors, T

    2002-01-01

    X-ray structures of the GluR2 ligand-binding core in complex with (S)-Des-Me-AMPA and in the presence and absence of zinc ions have been determined. (S)-Des-Me-AMPA, which is devoid of a substituent in the 5-position of the isoxazolol ring, only has limited interactions with the partly hydrophobic...

  12. Detecting local ligand-binding site similarity in nonhomologous proteins by surface patch comparison.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sael, Lee; Kihara, Daisuke

    2012-04-01

    Functional elucidation of proteins is one of the essential tasks in biology. Function of a protein, specifically, small ligand molecules that bind to a protein, can be predicted by finding similar local surface regions in binding sites of known proteins. Here, we developed an alignment free local surface comparison method for predicting a ligand molecule which binds to a query protein. The algorithm, named Patch-Surfer, represents a binding pocket as a combination of segmented surface patches, each of which is characterized by its geometrical shape, the electrostatic potential, the hydrophobicity, and the concaveness. Representing a pocket by a set of patches is effective to absorb difference of global pocket shape while capturing local similarity of pockets. The shape and the physicochemical properties of surface patches are represented using the 3D Zernike descriptor, which is a series expansion of mathematical 3D function. Two pockets are compared using a modified weighted bipartite matching algorithm, which matches similar patches from the two pockets. Patch-Surfer was benchmarked on three datasets, which consist in total of 390 proteins that bind to one of 21 ligands. Patch-Surfer showed superior performance to existing methods including a global pocket comparison method, Pocket-Surfer, which we have previously introduced. Particularly, as intended, the accuracy showed large improvement for flexible ligand molecules, which bind to pockets in different conformations. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  13. Ligand Binding and Crystal Structures of the Substrate-Binding Domain of the ABC Transporter OpuA

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wolters, Justina C.; Berntsson, Ronnie P-A.; Gul, Nadia; Karasawa, Akira; Thunnissen, Andy-Mark W. H.; Slotboom, Dirk-Jan; Poolman, Bert

    2010-01-01

    The ABC transporter OpuA from Lactococcus lactis transports glycine betaine upon activation by threshold values of ionic strength. In this study, the ligand binding characteristics of purified OpuA in a detergent-solubilized state and of its substrate-binding domain produced as soluble protein

  14. Secbase: database module to retrieve secondary structure elements with ligand binding motifs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koch, Oliver; Cole, Jason; Block, Peter; Klebe, Gerhard

    2009-10-01

    Secbase is presented as a novel extension module of Relibase. It integrates the information about secondary structure elements into the retrieval facilities of Relibase. The data are accessible via the extended Relibase user interface, and integrated retrieval queries can be addressed using an extended version of Reliscript. The primary information about alpha-helices and beta-sheets is used as provided by the PDB. Furthermore, a uniform classification of all turn families, based on recent clustering methods, and a new helix assignment that is based on this turn classification has been included. Algorithms to analyze the geometric features of helices and beta-strands were also implemented. To demonstrate the performance of the Secbase implementation, some application examples are given. They provide new insights into the involvement of secondary structure elements in ligand binding. A survey of water molecules detected next to the N-terminus of helices is analyzed to show their involvement in ligand binding. Additionally, the parallel oriented NH groups at the alpha-helix N-termini provide special binding motifs to bind particular ligand functional groups with two adjacent oxygen atoms, e.g., as found in negatively charged carboxylate or phosphate groups, respectively. The present study also shows that the specific structure of the first turn of alpha-helices provides a suitable explanation for stabilizing charged structures. The magnitude of the overall helix macrodipole seems to have no or only a minor influence on binding. Furthermore, an overview of the involvement of secondary structure elements with the recognition of some important endogenous ligands such as cofactors shows some distinct preference for particular binding motifs and amino acids.

  15. β-lactoglobulin's conformational requirements for ligand binding at the calyx and the dimer interphase: a flexible docking study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lenin Domínguez-Ramírez

    Full Text Available β-lactoglobulin (BLG is an abundant milk protein relevant for industry and biotechnology, due significantly to its ability to bind a wide range of polar and apolar ligands. While hydrophobic ligand sites are known, sites for hydrophilic ligands such as the prevalent milk sugar, lactose, remain undetermined. Through the use of molecular docking we first, analyzed the known fatty acid binding sites in order to dissect their atomistic determinants and second, predicted the interaction sites for lactose with monomeric and dimeric BLG. We validated our approach against BLG structures co-crystallized with ligands and report a computational setup with a reduced number of flexible residues that is able to reproduce experimental results with high precision. Blind dockings with and without flexible side chains on BLG showed that: i 13 experimentally-determined ligands fit the calyx requiring minimal movement of up to 7 residues out of the 23 that constitute this binding site. ii Lactose does not bind the calyx despite conformational flexibility, but binds the dimer interface and an alternate Site C. iii Results point to a probable lactolation site in the BLG dimer interface, at K141, consistent with previous biochemical findings. In contrast, no accessible lysines are found near Site C. iv lactose forms hydrogen bonds with residues from both monomers stabilizing the dimer through a claw-like structure. Overall, these results improve our understanding of BLG's binding sites, importantly narrowing down the calyx residues that control ligand binding. Moreover, our results emphasize the importance of the dimer interface as an insufficiently explored, biologically relevant binding site of particular importance for hydrophilic ligands. Furthermore our analyses suggest that BLG is a robust scaffold for multiple ligand-binding, suitable for protein design, and advance our molecular understanding of its ligand sites to a point that allows manipulation to control

  16. Reversibly Switchable, pH-Dependent Peptide Ligand Binding via 3,5-Diiodotyrosine Substitutions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ngambenjawong, Chayanon; Sylvestre, Meilyn; Gustafson, Heather H; Pineda, Julio Marco B; Pun, Suzie H

    2018-04-20

    Cell type-specific targeting ligands utilized in drug delivery applications typically recognize receptors that are overexpressed on the cells of interest. Nonetheless, these receptors may also be expressed, to varying extents, on off-target cells, contributing to unintended side effects. For the selectivity profile of targeting ligands in cancer therapy to be improved, stimuli-responsive masking of these ligands with acid-, redox-, or enzyme-cleavable molecules has been reported, whereby the targeting ligands are exposed in specific environments, e.g., acidic tumor hypoxia. One possible drawback of these systems lies in their one-time, permanent trigger, which enables the "demasked" ligands to bind off-target cells if released back into the systemic circulation. A promising strategy to address the aforementioned problem is to design ligands that show selective binding based on ionization state, which may be microenvironment-dependent. In this study, we report a systematic strategy to engineer low pH-selective targeting peptides using an M2 macrophage-targeting peptide (M2pep) as an example. 3,5-Diiodotyrosine mutagenesis into native tyrosine residues of M2pep confers pH-dependent binding behavior specific to acidic environment (pH 6) when the amino acid is protonated into the native tyrosine-like state. At physiological pH of 7.4, the hydroxyl group of 3,5-diiodotyrosine on the peptide is deprotonated leading to interruption of the peptide native binding property. Our engineered pH-responsive M2pep (Ac-Y-Î-Î) binds target M2 macrophages more selectively at pH 6 than at pH 7.4. In addition, 3,5-diiodotyrosine substitutions also improve serum stability of the peptide. Finally, we demonstrate pH-dependent reversibility in target binding via a postbinding peptide elution study. The strategy presented here should be applicable for engineering pH-dependent functionality of other targeting peptides with potential applications in physiology-dependent in vivo targeting

  17. Free energy calculations offer insights into the influence of receptor flexibility on ligand-receptor binding affinities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dolenc, Jožica; Riniker, Sereina; Gaspari, Roberto; Daura, Xavier; van Gunsteren, Wilfred F

    2011-08-01

    Docking algorithms for computer-aided drug discovery and design often ignore or restrain the flexibility of the receptor, which may lead to a loss of accuracy of the relative free enthalpies of binding. In order to evaluate the contribution of receptor flexibility to relative binding free enthalpies, two host-guest systems have been examined: inclusion complexes of α-cyclodextrin (αCD) with 1-chlorobenzene (ClBn), 1-bromobenzene (BrBn) and toluene (MeBn), and complexes of DNA with the minor-groove binding ligands netropsin (Net) and distamycin (Dist). Molecular dynamics simulations and free energy calculations reveal that restraining of the flexibility of the receptor can have a significant influence on the estimated relative ligand-receptor binding affinities as well as on the predicted structures of the biomolecular complexes. The influence is particularly pronounced in the case of flexible receptors such as DNA, where a 50% contribution of DNA flexibility towards the relative ligand-DNA binding affinities is observed. The differences in the free enthalpy of binding do not arise only from the changes in ligand-DNA interactions but also from changes in ligand-solvent interactions as well as from the loss of DNA configurational entropy upon restraining.

  18. Interaction Entropy: A New Paradigm for Highly Efficient and Reliable Computation of Protein-Ligand Binding Free Energy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duan, Lili; Liu, Xiao; Zhang, John Z H

    2016-05-04

    Efficient and reliable calculation of protein-ligand binding free energy is a grand challenge in computational biology and is of critical importance in drug design and many other molecular recognition problems. The main challenge lies in the calculation of entropic contribution to protein-ligand binding or interaction systems. In this report, we present a new interaction entropy method which is theoretically rigorous, computationally efficient, and numerically reliable for calculating entropic contribution to free energy in protein-ligand binding and other interaction processes. Drastically different from the widely employed but extremely expensive normal mode method for calculating entropy change in protein-ligand binding, the new method calculates the entropic component (interaction entropy or -TΔS) of the binding free energy directly from molecular dynamics simulation without any extra computational cost. Extensive study of over a dozen randomly selected protein-ligand binding systems demonstrated that this interaction entropy method is both computationally efficient and numerically reliable and is vastly superior to the standard normal mode approach. This interaction entropy paradigm introduces a novel and intuitive conceptual understanding of the entropic effect in protein-ligand binding and other general interaction systems as well as a practical method for highly efficient calculation of this effect.

  19. Improving binding mode and binding affinity predictions of docking by ligand-based search of protein conformations: evaluation in D3R grand challenge 2015

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Xianjin; Yan, Chengfei; Zou, Xiaoqin

    2017-08-01

    The growing number of protein-ligand complex structures, particularly the structures of proteins co-bound with different ligands, in the Protein Data Bank helps us tackle two major challenges in molecular docking studies: the protein flexibility and the scoring function. Here, we introduced a systematic strategy by using the information embedded in the known protein-ligand complex structures to improve both binding mode and binding affinity predictions. Specifically, a ligand similarity calculation method was employed to search a receptor structure with a bound ligand sharing high similarity with the query ligand for the docking use. The strategy was applied to the two datasets (HSP90 and MAP4K4) in recent D3R Grand Challenge 2015. In addition, for the HSP90 dataset, a system-specific scoring function (ITScore2_hsp90) was generated by recalibrating our statistical potential-based scoring function (ITScore2) using the known protein-ligand complex structures and the statistical mechanics-based iterative method. For the HSP90 dataset, better performances were achieved for both binding mode and binding affinity predictions comparing with the original ITScore2 and with ensemble docking. For the MAP4K4 dataset, although there were only eight known protein-ligand complex structures, our docking strategy achieved a comparable performance with ensemble docking. Our method for receptor conformational selection and iterative method for the development of system-specific statistical potential-based scoring functions can be easily applied to other protein targets that have a number of protein-ligand complex structures available to improve predictions on binding.

  20. Identification of amino acid residues in the ligand-binding domain of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor causing the species-specific response to omeprazole: possible determinants for binding putative endogenous ligands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shiizaki, Kazuhiro; Ohsako, Seiichiroh; Kawanishi, Masanobu; Yagi, Takashi

    2014-02-01

    Omeprazole (OME) induces the expression of genes encoding drug-metabolizing enzymes, such as CYP1A1, via activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) both in vivo and in vitro. However, the precise mechanism of OME-mediated AhR activation is still under investigation. While elucidating species-specific susceptibility to dioxin, we found that OME-mediated AhR activation was mammalian species specific. Moreover, we previously reported that OME has inhibitory activity toward CYP1A1 enzymes. From these observations, we speculated that OME-mediated AhR target gene transcription is due to AhR activation by increasing amounts of putative AhR ligands in serum by inhibition of CYP1A1 activity. We compared the amino acid sequences of OME-sensitive rabbit AhR and nonsensitive mouse AhR to identify the residues responsible for the species-specific response. Chimeric AhRs were constructed by exchanging domains between mouse and rabbit AhRs to define the region required for the response to OME. OME-mediated transactivation was observed only with the chimeric AhR that included the ligand-binding domain (LBD) of the rabbit AhR. Site-directed mutagenesis revealed three amino acids (M328, T353, and F367) in the rabbit AhR that were responsible for OME-mediated transactivation. Replacing these residues with those of the mouse AhR abolished the response of the rabbit AhR. In contrast, substitutions of these amino acids with those of the rabbit AhR altered nonsensitive mouse AhR to become sensitive to OME. These results suggest that OME-mediated AhR activation requires a specific structure within LBD that is probably essential for binding with enigmatic endogenous ligands.

  1. Detecting Local Ligand-Binding Site Similarity in Non-Homologous Proteins by Surface Patch Comparison

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sael, Lee; Kihara, Daisuke

    2012-01-01

    Functional elucidation of proteins is one of the essential tasks in biology. Function of a protein, specifically, small ligand molecules that bind to a protein, can be predicted by finding similar local surface regions in binding sites of known proteins. Here, we developed an alignment free local surface comparison method for predicting a ligand molecule which binds to a query protein. The algorithm, named Patch-Surfer, represents a binding pocket as a combination of segmented surface patches, each of which is characterized by its geometrical shape, the electrostatic potential, the hydrophobicity, and the concaveness. Representing a pocket by a set of patches is effective to absorb difference of global pocket shape while capturing local similarity of pockets. The shape and the physicochemical properties of surface patches are represented using the 3D Zernike descriptor, which is a series expansion of mathematical 3D function. Two pockets are compared using a modified weighted bipartite matching algorithm, which matches similar patches from the two pockets. Patch-Surfer was benchmarked on three datasets, which consist in total of 390 proteins that bind to one of 21 ligands. Patch-Surfer showed superior performance to existing methods including a global pocket comparison method, Pocket-Surfer, which we have previously introduced. Particularly, as intended, the accuracy showed large improvement for flexible ligand molecules, which bind to pockets in different conformations. PMID:22275074

  2. Molecular characterization of the haptoglobin.hemoglobin receptor CD163. Ligand binding properties of the scavenger receptor cysteine-rich domain region

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Madsen, Mette; Møller, Holger J; Nielsen, Marianne Jensby

    2004-01-01

    binding to SRCR domain 3 exhibited effective inhibition of ligand binding. Furthermore, analysis of purified native CD163 revealed that proteolytic cleavage in SRCR domain 3 inactivates ligand binding. Calcium protects against cleavage in this domain. Analysis of the calcium sensitivity of ligand binding...... to CD163 demonstrated that optimal ligand binding requires physiological plasma calcium concentrations, and an immediate ligand release occurs at the low calcium concentrations measured in acidifying endosomes. In conclusion, SRCR domain 3 of CD163 is an exposed domain and a critical determinant...... for the calcium-sensitive coupling of haptoglobin.hemoglobin complexes....

  3. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor ligand interactions: structural cross talk between ligands and the extracellular domain.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Graham M West

    Full Text Available Activation of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R in pancreatic β-cells potentiates insulin production and is a current therapeutic target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM. Like other class B G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs, the GLP-1R contains an N-terminal extracellular ligand binding domain. N-terminal truncations on the peptide agonist generate antagonists capable of binding to the extracellular domain, but not capable of activating full length receptor. The main objective of this study was to use Hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HDX to identify how the amide hydrogen bonding network of peptide ligands and the extracellular domain of GLP-1R (nGLP-1R were altered by binding interactions and to then use this platform to validate direct binding events for putative GLP-1R small molecule ligands. The HDX studies presented here for two glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R peptide ligands indicates that the antagonist exendin-4[9-39] is significantly destabilized in the presence of nonionic detergents as compared to the agonist exendin-4. Furthermore, HDX can detect stabilization of exendin-4 and exendin-4[9-39] hydrogen bonding networks at the N-terminal helix [Val19 to Lys27] upon binding to the N-terminal extracellular domain of GLP-1R (nGLP-1R. In addition we show hydrogen bonding network stabilization on nGLP-1R in response to ligand binding, and validate direct binding events with the extracellular domain of the receptor for putative GLP-1R small molecule ligands.

  4. Ligand binding turns moth pheromone-binding protein into a pH sensor: effect on the Antheraea polyphemus PBP1 conformation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katre, Uma V; Mazumder, Suman; Prusti, Rabi K; Mohanty, Smita

    2009-11-13

    In moths, pheromone-binding proteins (PBPs) are responsible for the transport of the hydrophobic pheromones to the membrane-bound receptors across the aqueous sensillar lymph. We report here that recombinant Antheraea polyphemus PBP1 (ApolPBP1) picks up hydrophobic molecule(s) endogenous to the Escherichia coli expression host that keeps the protein in the "open" (bound) conformation at high pH but switches to the "closed" (free) conformation at low pH. This finding has bearing on the solution structures of undelipidated lepidopteran moth PBPs determined thus far. Picking up a hydrophobic molecule from the host expression system could be a common feature for lipid-binding proteins. Thus, delipidation is critical for bacterially expressed lipid-binding proteins. We have shown for the first time that the delipidated ApolPBP1 exists primarily in the closed form at all pH levels. Thus, current views on the pH-induced conformational switch of PBPs hold true only for the ligand-bound open conformation of the protein. Binding of various ligands to delipidated ApolPBP1 studied by solution NMR revealed that the protein in the closed conformation switches to the open conformation only at or above pH 6.0 with a protein to ligand stoichiometry of approximately 1:1. Mutation of His(70) and His(95) to alanine drives the equilibrium toward the open conformation even at low pH for the ligand-bound protein by eliminating the histidine-dependent pH-induced conformational switch. Thus, the delipidated double mutant can bind ligand even at low pH in contrast to the wild type protein as revealed by fluorescence competitive displacement assay using 1-aminoanthracene and solution NMR.

  5. Fc-Binding Ligands of Immunoglobulin G: An Overview of High Affinity Proteins and Peptides

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Weonu Choe

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The rapidly increasing application of antibodies has inspired the development of several novel methods to isolate and target antibodies using smart biomaterials that mimic the binding of Fc-receptors to antibodies. The Fc-binding domain of antibodies is the primary binding site for e.g., effector proteins and secondary antibodies, whereas antigens bind to the Fab region. Protein A, G, and L, surface proteins expressed by pathogenic bacteria, are well known to bind immunoglobulin and have been widely exploited in antibody purification strategies. Several difficulties are encountered when bacterial proteins are used in antibody research and application. One of the major obstacles hampering the use of bacterial proteins is sample contamination with trace amounts of these proteins, which can invoke an immune response in the host. Many research groups actively develop synthetic ligands that are able to selectively and strongly bind to antibodies. Among the reported ligands, peptides that bind to the Fc-domain of antibodies are attractive tools in antibody research. Besides their use as high affinity ligands in antibody purification chromatography, Fc-binding peptides are applied e.g., to localize antibodies on nanomaterials and to increase the half-life of proteins in serum. In this review, recent developments of Fc-binding peptides are presented and their binding characteristics and diverse applications are discussed.

  6. Structural characterization of natural nickel and copper binding ligands along the US GEOTRACES Eastern Pacific Zonal transect

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rene M Boiteau

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Organic ligands form strong complexes with many trace elements in seawater. Various metals can compete for the same ligand chelation sites, and the final speciation of bound metals is determined by relative binding affinities, concentrations of binding sites, uncomplexed metal concentrations, and association/dissociation kinetics. Different ligands have a wide range of metal affinities and specificities. However, the chemical composition of these ligands in the marine environment remains poorly constrained, which has hindered progress in modeling marine metal speciation. In this study, we detected and characterized natural ligands that bind copper (Cu and nickel (Ni in the eastern South Pacific Ocean with liquid chromatography tandem inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LC-ICPMS, and high resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESIMS. Dissolved Cu, Ni, and ligand concentrations were highest near the coast. Chromatographically unresolved polar compounds dominated ligands isolated near the coast by solid phase extraction. Offshore, metal and ligand concentrations decreased, but several new ligands appeared. One major ligand was detected that bound both Cu2+ and Ni2+. Based on accurate mass and fragmentation measurements, this compound has a molecular formula of C20H21N4O8S2 + M+ (M = metal isotope and contains several azole-like metal binding groups. Additional lipophilic Ni complexes were also present only in oligotrophic waters, with masses of 649, 698, and 712 m/z (corresponding to the 58Ni metal complex. Molecular formulae of C32H54N3O6S2Ni+ and C33H56N3O6S2Ni+ were determined for two of these compounds. Addition of Cu and Ni to the samples also revealed the presence of additional compounds that can bind both Ni and Cu. Although these specific compounds represent a small fraction of the total dissolved Cu and Ni pool, they highlight the compositional diversity and spatial heterogeneity of marine Ni and Cu ligands, as

  7. A molecular dynamics investigation of CDK8/CycC and ligand binding: conformational flexibility and implication in drug discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cholko, Timothy; Chen, Wei; Tang, Zhiye; Chang, Chia-en A.

    2018-05-01

    Abnormal activity of cyclin-dependent kinase 8 (CDK8) along with its partner protein cyclin C (CycC) is a common feature of many diseases including colorectal cancer. Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, this study determined the dynamics of the CDK8-CycC system and we obtained detailed breakdowns of binding energy contributions for four type-I and five type-II CDK8 inhibitors. We revealed system motions and conformational changes that will affect ligand binding, confirmed the essentialness of CycC for inclusion in future computational studies, and provide guidance in development of CDK8 binders. We employed unbiased all-atom MD simulations for 500 ns on twelve CDK8-CycC systems, including apoproteins and protein-ligand complexes, then performed principal component analysis (PCA) and measured the RMSF of key regions to identify protein dynamics. Binding pocket volume analysis identified conformational changes that accompany ligand binding. Next, H-bond analysis, residue-wise interaction calculations, and MM/PBSA were performed to characterize protein-ligand interactions and find the binding energy. We discovered that CycC is vital for maintaining a proper conformation of CDK8 to facilitate ligand binding and that the system exhibits motion that should be carefully considered in future computational work. Surprisingly, we found that motion of the activation loop did not affect ligand binding. Type-I and type-II ligand binding is driven by van der Waals interactions, but electrostatic energy and entropic penalties affect type-II binding as well. Binding of both ligand types affects protein flexibility. Based on this we provide suggestions for development of tighter-binding CDK8 inhibitors and offer insight that can aid future computational studies.

  8. Classification of Beta-lactamases and penicillin binding proteins using ligand-centric network models.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hakime Öztürk

    Full Text Available β-lactamase mediated antibiotic resistance is an important health issue and the discovery of new β-lactam type antibiotics or β-lactamase inhibitors is an area of intense research. Today, there are about a thousand β-lactamases due to the evolutionary pressure exerted by these ligands. While β-lactamases hydrolyse the β-lactam ring of antibiotics, rendering them ineffective, Penicillin-Binding Proteins (PBPs, which share high structural similarity with β-lactamases, also confer antibiotic resistance to their host organism by acquiring mutations that allow them to continue their participation in cell wall biosynthesis. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to include ligand sharing information for classifying and clustering β-lactamases and PBPs in an effort to elucidate the ligand induced evolution of these β-lactam binding proteins. We first present a detailed summary of the β-lactamase and PBP families in the Protein Data Bank, as well as the compounds they bind to. Then, we build two different types of networks in which the proteins are represented as nodes, and two proteins are connected by an edge with a weight that depends on the number of shared identical or similar ligands. These models are analyzed under three different edge weight settings, namely unweighted, weighted, and normalized weighted. A detailed comparison of these six networks showed that the use of ligand sharing information to cluster proteins resulted in modules comprising proteins with not only sequence similarity but also functional similarity. Consideration of ligand similarity highlighted some interactions that were not detected in the identical ligand network. Analysing the β-lactamases and PBPs using ligand-centric network models enabled the identification of novel relationships, suggesting that these models can be used to examine other protein families to obtain information on their ligand induced evolutionary paths.

  9. SKF 525-A and cytochrome P-450 ligands inhibit with high affinity the binding of [3H]dextromethorphan and σligands to guinea pig brain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Klein, M.; Canoll, P.D.; Musacchio, J.M.

    1991-01-01

    The DM 1 /σ 1 site binds dextromethorphan (DM) and σ receptor ligands. The broad binding specificity of this site and its peculiar subcellular distribution prompted us to explore the possibility that this site is a member of the cytochrome P-450 superfamily of enzymes. We tested the effects of the liver microsomal monooxygenase inhibitor SKF 525-A (Proadifen), and other P-450 substrates on the binding of [ 3 H]dextromethorphan, [ 3 H]3-(3-Hydroxyphenyl)-N-(1-propyl)piperidine and (+)-[ 3 H]1,3-Di-o-tolyl-guanidine ([ 3 H]DTG) to the guinea pig brain. SKF 525-A, l-lobeline and GBR-12909 inhibited the binding of the three labeled ligands with nM affinity. Each drug has identical nM K i values for the high-affinity site labeled by the three ligands. This indicated that they displaced the labeled ligands from the common DM 1 σ 1 site. Debrisoquine and sparteine, prototypical substrates for liver debrisoquine 4-hydroxylase, displayed K i values of 9-13 and 3-4 μM respectively against the three labeled ligands. These results, the broad specificity of the DM 1 /σ 1 binding site, and its peculiar subcellular distribution, raises the possibility that this binding site is a member of the cytochrome P-450 superfamily of isozymes, rather than a neurotransmitter receptor

  10. Is the isolated ligand binding domain a good model of the domain in the native receptor?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deming, Dustin; Cheng, Qing; Jayaraman, Vasanthi

    2003-05-16

    Numerous studies have used the atomic level structure of the isolated ligand binding domain of the glutamate receptor to elucidate the agonist-induced activation and desensitization processes in this group of proteins. However, no study has demonstrated the structural equivalence of the isolated ligand binding fragments and the protein in the native receptor. In this report, using visible absorption spectroscopy we show that the electronic environment of the antagonist 6-cyano-7-nitro-2,3-dihydroxyquinoxaline is identical for the isolated protein and the native glutamate receptors expressed in cells. Our results hence establish that the local structure of the ligand binding site is the same in the two proteins and validate the detailed structure-function relationships that have been developed based on a comparison of the structure of the isolated ligand binding domain and electrophysiological consequences in the native receptor.

  11. Structure and ligand-binding properties of the biogenic amine-binding protein from the saliva of a blood-feeding insect vector of Trypanosoma cruzi

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Xu, Xueqing; Chang, Bianca W. [NIH/NIAID, 12735 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville, MD 20852 (United States); Mans, Ben J. [NIH/NIAID, 12735 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville, MD 20852 (United States); Agricultural Research Council, Onderstepoort 0110 (South Africa); Ribeiro, Jose M. C.; Andersen, John F., E-mail: jandersen@niaid.nih.gov [NIH/NIAID, 12735 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville, MD 20852 (United States)

    2013-01-01

    Biogenic amine-binding proteins mediate the anti-inflammatory and antihemostatic activities of blood-feeding insect saliva. The structure of the amine-binding protein from R. prolixus reveals the interaction of biogenic amine ligands with the protein. Proteins that bind small-molecule mediators of inflammation and hemostasis are essential for blood-feeding by arthropod vectors of infectious disease. In ticks and triatomine insects, the lipocalin protein family is greatly expanded and members have been shown to bind biogenic amines, eicosanoids and ADP. These compounds are potent mediators of platelet activation, inflammation and vascular tone. In this paper, the structure of the amine-binding protein (ABP) from Rhodnius prolixus, a vector of the trypanosome that causes Chagas disease, is described. ABP binds the biogenic amines serotonin and norepinephrine with high affinity. A complex with tryptamine shows the presence of a binding site for a single ligand molecule in the central cavity of the β-barrel structure. The cavity contains significant additional volume, suggesting that this protein may have evolved from the related nitrophorin proteins, which bind a much larger heme ligand in the central cavity.

  12. Structure and ligand-binding properties of the biogenic amine-binding protein from the saliva of a blood-feeding insect vector of Trypanosoma cruzi

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xu, Xueqing; Chang, Bianca W.; Mans, Ben J.; Ribeiro, Jose M. C.; Andersen, John F.

    2013-01-01

    Biogenic amine-binding proteins mediate the anti-inflammatory and antihemostatic activities of blood-feeding insect saliva. The structure of the amine-binding protein from R. prolixus reveals the interaction of biogenic amine ligands with the protein. Proteins that bind small-molecule mediators of inflammation and hemostasis are essential for blood-feeding by arthropod vectors of infectious disease. In ticks and triatomine insects, the lipocalin protein family is greatly expanded and members have been shown to bind biogenic amines, eicosanoids and ADP. These compounds are potent mediators of platelet activation, inflammation and vascular tone. In this paper, the structure of the amine-binding protein (ABP) from Rhodnius prolixus, a vector of the trypanosome that causes Chagas disease, is described. ABP binds the biogenic amines serotonin and norepinephrine with high affinity. A complex with tryptamine shows the presence of a binding site for a single ligand molecule in the central cavity of the β-barrel structure. The cavity contains significant additional volume, suggesting that this protein may have evolved from the related nitrophorin proteins, which bind a much larger heme ligand in the central cavity

  13. Bifunctional avidin with covalently modifiable ligand binding site.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jenni Leppiniemi

    Full Text Available The extensive use of avidin and streptavidin in life sciences originates from the extraordinary tight biotin-binding affinity of these tetrameric proteins. Numerous studies have been performed to modify the biotin-binding affinity of (streptavidin to improve the existing applications. Even so, (streptavidin greatly favours its natural ligand, biotin. Here we engineered the biotin-binding pocket of avidin with a single point mutation S16C and thus introduced a chemically active thiol group, which could be covalently coupled with thiol-reactive molecules. This approach was applied to the previously reported bivalent dual chain avidin by modifying one binding site while preserving the other one intact. Maleimide was then coupled to the modified binding site resulting in a decrease in biotin affinity. Furthermore, we showed that this thiol could be covalently coupled to other maleimide derivatives, for instance fluorescent labels, allowing intratetrameric FRET. The bifunctional avidins described here provide improved and novel tools for applications such as the biofunctionalization of surfaces.

  14. Synthesis and binding properties of new selective ligands for the nucleobase opposite the AP site.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abe, Yukiko; Nakagawa, Osamu; Yamaguchi, Rie; Sasaki, Shigeki

    2012-06-01

    DNA is continuously damaged by endogenous and exogenous factors such as oxidative stress or DNA alkylating agents. These damaged nucleobases are removed by DNA N-glycosylase and form apurinic/apyrimidinic sites (AP sites) as intermediates in the base excision repair (BER) pathway. AP sites are also representative DNA damages formed by spontaneous hydrolysis. The AP sites block DNA polymerase and a mismatch nucleobase is inserted opposite the AP sites by polymerization to cause acute toxicities and mutations. Thus, AP site specific compounds have attracted much attention for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. In this study, we have developed nucleobase-polyamine conjugates as the AP site binding ligand by expecting that the nucleobase part would play a role in the specific recognition of the nucleobase opposite the AP site by the Watson-Crick base pair formation and that the polyamine part should contribute to the access of the ligand to the AP site by a non-specific interaction to the DNA phosphate backbone. The nucleobase conjugated with 3,3'-diaminodipropylamine (A-ligand, G-ligand, C-ligand, T-ligand and U-ligand) showed a specific stabilization of the duplex containing the AP site depending on the complementary combination with the nucleobase opposite the AP site; that is A-ligand to T, G-ligand to C, C-ligand to G, T- and U-ligand to A. The thermodynamic binding parameters clearly indicated that the specific stabilization is due to specific binding of the ligands to the complementary AP site. These results have suggested that the complementary base pairs of the Watson-Crick type are formed at the AP site. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Consensus of sample-balanced classifiers for identifying ligand-binding residue by co-evolutionary physicochemical characteristics of amino acids

    KAUST Repository

    Chen, Peng

    2013-01-01

    Protein-ligand binding is an important mechanism for some proteins to perform their functions, and those binding sites are the residues of proteins that physically bind to ligands. So far, the state-of-the-art methods search for similar, known

  16. Mechanism of selective VEGF-A binding by neuropilin-1 reveals a basis for specific ligand inhibition.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthew W Parker

    Full Text Available Neuropilin (Nrp receptors function as essential cell surface receptors for the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF family of proangiogenic cytokines and the semaphorin 3 (Sema3 family of axon guidance molecules. There are two Nrp homologues, Nrp1 and Nrp2, which bind to both overlapping and distinct members of the VEGF and Sema3 family of molecules. Nrp1 specifically binds the VEGF-A(164/5 isoform, which is essential for developmental angiogenesis. We demonstrate that VEGF-A specific binding is governed by Nrp1 residues in the b1 coagulation factor domain surrounding the invariant Nrp C-terminal arginine binding pocket. Further, we show that Sema3F does not display the Nrp-specific binding to the b1 domain seen with VEGF-A. Engineered soluble Nrp receptor fragments that selectively sequester ligands from the active signaling complex are an attractive modality for selectively blocking the angiogenic and chemorepulsive functions of Nrp ligands. Utilizing the information on Nrp ligand binding specificity, we demonstrate Nrp constructs that specifically sequester Sema3 in the presence of VEGF-A. This establishes that unique mechanisms are used by Nrp receptors to mediate specific ligand binding and that these differences can be exploited to engineer soluble Nrp receptors with specificity for Sema3.

  17. Magnetic levitation as a platform for competitive protein-ligand binding assays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shapiro, Nathan D; Soh, Siowling; Mirica, Katherine A; Whitesides, George M

    2012-07-17

    This paper describes a method based on magnetic levitation (MagLev) that is capable of indirectly measuring the binding of unlabeled ligands to unlabeled protein. We demonstrate this method by measuring the affinity of unlabeled bovine carbonic anhydrase (BCA) for a variety of ligands (most of which are benzene sulfonamide derivatives). This method utilizes porous gel beads that are functionalized with a common aryl sulfonamide ligand. The beads are incubated with BCA and allowed to reach an equilibrium state in which the majority of the immobilized ligands are bound to BCA. Since the beads are less dense than the protein, protein binding to the bead increases the overall density of the bead. This change in density can be monitored using MagLev. Transferring the beads to a solution containing no protein creates a situation where net protein efflux from the bead is thermodynamically favorable. The rate at which protein leaves the bead for the solution can be calculated from the rate at which the levitation height of the bead changes. If another small molecule ligand of BCA is dissolved in the solution, the rate of protein efflux is accelerated significantly. This paper develops a reaction-diffusion (RD) model to explain both this observation, and the physical-organic chemistry that underlies it. Using this model, we calculate the dissociation constants of several unlabeled ligands from BCA, using plots of levitation height versus time. Notably, although this method requires no electricity, and only a single piece of inexpensive equipment, it can measure accurately the binding of unlabeled proteins to small molecules over a wide range of dissociation constants (K(d) values within the range from ~10 nM to 100 μM are measured easily). Assays performed using this method generally can be completed within a relatively short time period (20 min-2 h). A deficiency of this system is that it is not, in its present form, applicable to proteins with molecular weight greater

  18. DISTINCT ROLES OF β1 MIDAS, ADMIDAS AND LIMBS CATION-BINDING SITES IN LIGAND RECOGNITION BY INTEGRIN α2β1*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valdramidou, Dimitra; Humphries, Martin J.; Mould, A. Paul

    2012-01-01

    Integrin-ligand interactions are regulated in a complex manner by divalent cations, and previous studies have identified ligand-competent, stimulatory, and inhibitory cation-binding sites. In collagen-binding integrins, such as α2β1, ligand recognition takes place exclusively at the α subunit I domain. However, activation of the αI domain depends on its interaction with a structurally similar domain in the β subunit known as the I-like or βI domain. The top face of the βI domain contains three cation-binding sites: the metal-ion dependent adhesion site (MIDAS), the ADMIDAS (adjacent to MIDAS) and LIMBS (ligand-associated metal binding site). The role of these sites in controlling ligand binding to the αI domain has yet to be elucidated. Mutation of the MIDAS or LIMBS completely blocked collagen binding to α2β1; in contrast mutation of the ADMIDAS reduced ligand recognition but this effect could be overcome by the activating mAb TS2/16. Hence, the MIDAS and LIMBS appear to be essential for the interaction between αI and βI whereas occupancy of the ADMIDAS has an allosteric effect on the conformation of βI. An activating mutation in the α2 I domain partially restored ligand binding to the MIDAS and LIMBS mutants. Analysis of the effects of Ca2+, Mg2+ and Mn2+ on ligand binding to these mutants showed that the MIDAS is a ligand-competent site through which Mn2+ stimulates ligand binding, whereas the LIMBS is a stimulatory Ca2+-binding site, occupancy of which increases the affinity of Mg2+ for the MIDAS. PMID:18820259

  19. Evaluating the binding efficiency of pheromone binding protein with its natural ligand using molecular docking and fluorescence analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ilayaraja, Renganathan; Rajkumar, Ramalingam; Rajesh, Durairaj; Muralidharan, Arumugam Ramachandran; Padmanabhan, Parasuraman; Archunan, Govindaraju

    2014-06-01

    Chemosignals play a crucial role in social and sexual communication among inter- and intra-species. Chemical cues are bound with protein that is present in the pheromones irrespective of sex are commonly called as pheromone binding protein (PBP). In rats, the pheromone compounds are bound with low molecular lipocalin protein α2u-globulin (α2u). We reported farnesol is a natural endogenous ligand (compound) present in rat preputial gland as a bound volatile compound. In the present study, an attempt has been made through computational method to evaluating the binding efficiency of α2u with the natural ligand (farnesol) and standard fluorescent molecule (2-naphthol). The docking analysis revealed that the binding energy of farnesol and 2-naphthol was almost equal and likely to share some binding pocket of protein. Further, to extrapolate the results generated through computational approach, the α2u protein was purified and subjected to fluorescence titration and binding assay. The results showed that the farnesol is replaced by 2-naphthol with high hydrophobicity of TYR120 in binding sites of α2u providing an acceptable dissociation constant indicating the binding efficiency of α2u. The obtained results are in corroboration with the data made through computational approach.

  20. Key structural features of nonsteroidal ligands for binding and activation of the androgen receptor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yin, Donghua; He, Yali; Perera, Minoli A; Hong, Seoung Soo; Marhefka, Craig; Stourman, Nina; Kirkovsky, Leonid; Miller, Duane D; Dalton, James T

    2003-01-01

    The purposes of the present studies were to examine the androgen receptor (AR) binding ability and in vitro functional activity of multiple series of nonsteroidal compounds derived from known antiandrogen pharmacophores and to investigate the structure-activity relationships (SARs) of these nonsteroidal compounds. The AR binding properties of sixty-five nonsteroidal compounds were assessed by a radioligand competitive binding assay with the use of cytosolic AR prepared from rat prostates. The AR agonist and antagonist activities of high-affinity ligands were determined by the ability of the ligand to regulate AR-mediated transcriptional activation in cultured CV-1 cells, using a cotransfection assay. Nonsteroidal compounds with diverse structural features demonstrated a wide range of binding affinity for the AR. Ten compounds, mainly from the bicalutamide-related series, showed a binding affinity superior to the structural pharmacophore from which they were derived. Several SARs regarding nonsteroidal AR binding were revealed from the binding data, including stereoisomeric conformation, steric effect, and electronic effect. The functional activity of high-affinity ligands ranged from antagonist to full agonist for the AR. Several structural features were found to be determinative of agonist and antagonist activities. The nonsteroidal AR agonists identified from the present studies provided a pool of candidates for further development of selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) for androgen therapy. Also, these studies uncovered or confirmed numerous important SARs governing AR binding and functional properties by nonsteroidal molecules, which would be valuable in the future structural optimization of SARMs.

  1. Calculation of protein-ligand binding affinities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilson, Michael K; Zhou, Huan-Xiang

    2007-01-01

    Accurate methods of computing the affinity of a small molecule with a protein are needed to speed the discovery of new medications and biological probes. This paper reviews physics-based models of binding, beginning with a summary of the changes in potential energy, solvation energy, and configurational entropy that influence affinity, and a theoretical overview to frame the discussion of specific computational approaches. Important advances are reported in modeling protein-ligand energetics, such as the incorporation of electronic polarization and the use of quantum mechanical methods. Recent calculations suggest that changes in configurational entropy strongly oppose binding and must be included if accurate affinities are to be obtained. The linear interaction energy (LIE) and molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM-PBSA) methods are analyzed, as are free energy pathway methods, which show promise and may be ready for more extensive testing. Ultimately, major improvements in modeling accuracy will likely require advances on multiple fronts, as well as continued validation against experiment.

  2. Neurotensin receptor binding levels in basal ganglia are not altered in Huntington's chorea or schizophrenia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Palacios, J.M.; Chinaglia, G.; Rigo, M.; Ulrich, J.; Probst, A.

    1991-01-01

    Autoradiographic techniques were used to examine the distribution and levels of neurotensin receptor binding sites in the basal ganglia and related regions of the human brain. Monoiodo ( 125 I-Tyr3)neurotensin was used as a ligand. High amounts of neurotensin receptor binding sites were found in the substantia nigra pars compacta. Lower but significant quantities of neurotensin receptor binding sites characterized the caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens, while very low quantities were seen in both medial and lateral segments of the globus pallidus. In Huntington's chorea, the levels of neurotensin receptor binding sites were found to be comparable to those of control cases. Only slight but not statistically significant decreases in amounts of receptor binding sites were detected in the dorsal part of the head and in the body of caudate nucleus. No alterations in the levels of neurotensin receptor binding sites were observed in the substantia nigra pars compacta and reticulata. These results suggest that a large proportion of neurotensin receptor binding sites in the basal ganglia are located on intrinsic neurons and on extrinsic afferent fibers that do not degenerate in Huntington's disease

  3. Structural analysis of protein-ligand interactions: the binding of endogenous compounds and of synthetic drugs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallina, Anna M; Bork, Peer; Bordo, Domenico

    2014-02-01

    The large number of macromolecular structures deposited with the Protein Data Bank (PDB) describing complexes between proteins and either physiological compounds or synthetic drugs made it possible a systematic analysis of the interactions occurring between proteins and their ligands. In this work, the binding pockets of about 4000 PDB protein-ligand complexes were investigated and amino acid and interaction types were analyzed. The residues observed with lowest frequency in protein sequences, Trp, His, Met, Tyr, and Phe, turned out to be the most abundant in binding pockets. Significant differences between drug-like and physiological compounds were found. On average, physiological compounds establish with respect to drugs about twice as many hydrogen bonds with protein atoms, whereas drugs rely more on hydrophobic interactions to establish target selectivity. The large number of PDB structures describing homologous proteins in complex with the same ligand made it possible to analyze the conservation of binding pocket residues among homologous protein structures bound to the same ligand, showing that Gly, Glu, Arg, Asp, His, and Thr are more conserved than other amino acids. Also in the cases in which the same ligand is bound to unrelated proteins, the binding pockets showed significant conservation in the residue types. In this case, the probability of co-occurrence of the same amino acid type in the binding pockets could be up to thirteen times higher than that expected on a random basis. The trends identified in this study may provide an useful guideline in the process of drug design and lead optimization. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  4. eMatchSite: sequence order-independent structure alignments of ligand binding pockets in protein models.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michal Brylinski

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Detecting similarities between ligand binding sites in the absence of global homology between target proteins has been recognized as one of the critical components of modern drug discovery. Local binding site alignments can be constructed using sequence order-independent techniques, however, to achieve a high accuracy, many current algorithms for binding site comparison require high-quality experimental protein structures, preferably in the bound conformational state. This, in turn, complicates proteome scale applications, where only various quality structure models are available for the majority of gene products. To improve the state-of-the-art, we developed eMatchSite, a new method for constructing sequence order-independent alignments of ligand binding sites in protein models. Large-scale benchmarking calculations using adenine-binding pockets in crystal structures demonstrate that eMatchSite generates accurate alignments for almost three times more protein pairs than SOIPPA. More importantly, eMatchSite offers a high tolerance to structural distortions in ligand binding regions in protein models. For example, the percentage of correctly aligned pairs of adenine-binding sites in weakly homologous protein models is only 4-9% lower than those aligned using crystal structures. This represents a significant improvement over other algorithms, e.g. the performance of eMatchSite in recognizing similar binding sites is 6% and 13% higher than that of SiteEngine using high- and moderate-quality protein models, respectively. Constructing biologically correct alignments using predicted ligand binding sites in protein models opens up the possibility to investigate drug-protein interaction networks for complete proteomes with prospective systems-level applications in polypharmacology and rational drug repositioning. eMatchSite is freely available to the academic community as a web-server and a stand-alone software distribution at http://www.brylinski.org/ematchsite.

  5. The thermodynamic principles of ligand binding in chromatography and biology

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mollerup, Jørgen

    2007-01-01

    the general thermodynamic principles of ligand binding. Models of the multi-component adsorption in ion-exchange and hydrophobic chromatography, HIC and RPLC, are developed. The parameters in the models have a well-defined physical significance. The models are compared to the Langmuir model...

  6. Large scale free energy calculations for blind predictions of protein-ligand binding: the D3R Grand Challenge 2015.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deng, Nanjie; Flynn, William F; Xia, Junchao; Vijayan, R S K; Zhang, Baofeng; He, Peng; Mentes, Ahmet; Gallicchio, Emilio; Levy, Ronald M

    2016-09-01

    We describe binding free energy calculations in the D3R Grand Challenge 2015 for blind prediction of the binding affinities of 180 ligands to Hsp90. The present D3R challenge was built around experimental datasets involving Heat shock protein (Hsp) 90, an ATP-dependent molecular chaperone which is an important anticancer drug target. The Hsp90 ATP binding site is known to be a challenging target for accurate calculations of ligand binding affinities because of the ligand-dependent conformational changes in the binding site, the presence of ordered waters and the broad chemical diversity of ligands that can bind at this site. Our primary focus here is to distinguish binders from nonbinders. Large scale absolute binding free energy calculations that cover over 3000 protein-ligand complexes were performed using the BEDAM method starting from docked structures generated by Glide docking. Although the ligand dataset in this study resembles an intermediate to late stage lead optimization project while the BEDAM method is mainly developed for early stage virtual screening of hit molecules, the BEDAM binding free energy scoring has resulted in a moderate enrichment of ligand screening against this challenging drug target. Results show that, using a statistical mechanics based free energy method like BEDAM starting from docked poses offers better enrichment than classical docking scoring functions and rescoring methods like Prime MM-GBSA for the Hsp90 data set in this blind challenge. Importantly, among the three methods tested here, only the mean value of the BEDAM binding free energy scores is able to separate the large group of binders from the small group of nonbinders with a gap of 2.4 kcal/mol. None of the three methods that we have tested provided accurate ranking of the affinities of the 147 active compounds. We discuss the possible sources of errors in the binding free energy calculations. The study suggests that BEDAM can be used strategically to discriminate

  7. Comparison of the ligand binding properties of two homologous rat apocellular retinol-binding proteins expressed in Escherichia coli.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levin, M S; Locke, B; Yang, N C; Li, E; Gordon, J I

    1988-11-25

    Cellular retinol-binding protein (CRBP) and cellular retinol-binding protein II (CRBP II) are 132-residue cytosolic proteins which have 56% amino acid sequence identity and bind all-trans-retinol as their endogenous ligand. They belong to a family of cytoplasmic proteins which have evolved to bind distinct hydrophobic ligands. Their patterns of tissue-specific and developmental regulation are distinct. We have compared the ligand binding properties of rat apo-CRBP and apo-CRBP II that have been expressed in Escherichia coli. Several observations indicate that the E. coli-derived apoproteins are structurally similar to the native rat proteins: they co-migrate on isoelectric focusing gels; and when complexed with all-trans-retinol, their absorption and excitation/emission spectra are nearly identical to those of the authentic rat holoproteins. Comparative lifetime and acrylamide quenching studies suggest that there are differences in the conformations of apo-CRBP and apo-CRBP II. The interaction of E. coli-derived apo-CRBP and apo-CRBP II with a variety of retinoids was analyzed using spectroscopic techniques. Both apoproteins formed high affinity complexes with all-trans-retinol (K'd approximately 10 nM). In direct binding assays, all-trans-retinal bound to both apoproteins (K'd approximately 50 nM for CRBP; K'd approximately 90 nM for CRBP II). However, all-trans-retinal could displace all-trans-retinol bound to CRBP II but not to CRBP. These observations suggests that there is a specific yet distinct interaction between these two proteins and all-trans-retinal. Apo-CRBP and apo-CRBP II did not demonstrate significant binding to either retinoic acid or methyl retinoate, an uncharged derivative of all-trans-retinoic acid. This indicates that the carboxymethyl group of methyl retinoate cannot be sterically accommodated in their binding pockets and that failure to bind retinoic acid probably is not simply due to the negative charge of its C-15 carboxylate group

  8. Structural insights into human peroxisome proliferator activated receptor delta (PPAR-delta selective ligand binding.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernanda A H Batista

    Full Text Available Peroxisome proliferator activated receptors (PPARs δ, α and γ are closely related transcription factors that exert distinct effects on fatty acid and glucose metabolism, cardiac disease, inflammatory response and other processes. Several groups developed PPAR subtype specific modulators to trigger desirable effects of particular PPARs without harmful side effects associated with activation of other subtypes. Presently, however, many compounds that bind to one of the PPARs cross-react with others and rational strategies to obtain highly selective PPAR modulators are far from clear. GW0742 is a synthetic ligand that binds PPARδ more than 300-fold more tightly than PPARα or PPARγ but the structural basis of PPARδ:GW0742 interactions and reasons for strong selectivity are not clear. Here we report the crystal structure of the PPARδ:GW0742 complex. Comparisons of the PPARδ:GW0742 complex with published structures of PPARs in complex with α and γ selective agonists and pan agonists suggests that two residues (Val312 and Ile328 in the buried hormone binding pocket play special roles in PPARδ selective binding and experimental and computational analysis of effects of mutations in these residues confirms this and suggests that bulky substituents that line the PPARα and γ ligand binding pockets as structural barriers for GW0742 binding. This analysis suggests general strategies for selective PPARδ ligand design.

  9. Dextran as a Generally Applicable Multivalent Scaffold for Improving Immunoglobulin-Binding Affinities of Peptide and Peptidomimetic Ligands

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-01-01

    Molecules able to bind the antigen-binding sites of antibodies are of interest in medicine and immunology. Since most antibodies are bivalent, higher affinity recognition can be achieved through avidity effects in which a construct containing two or more copies of the ligand engages both arms of the immunoglobulin simultaneously. This can be achieved routinely by immobilizing antibody ligands at high density on solid surfaces, such as ELISA plates, but there is surprisingly little literature on scaffolds that routinely support bivalent binding of antibody ligands in solution, particularly for the important case of human IgG antibodies. Here we show that the simple strategy of linking two antigens with a polyethylene glycol (PEG) spacer long enough to span the two arms of an antibody results in higher affinity binding in some, but not all, cases. However, we found that the creation of multimeric constructs in which several antibody ligands are displayed on a dextran polymer reliably provides much higher affinity binding than is observed with the monomer in all cases tested. Since these dextran conjugates are simple to construct, they provide a general and convenient strategy to transform modest affinity antibody ligands into high affinity probes. An additional advantage is that the antibody ligands occupy only a small number of the reactive sites on the dextran, so that molecular cargo can be attached easily, creating molecules capable of delivering this cargo to cells displaying antigen-specific receptors. PMID:25073654

  10. The Role of Protein-Ligand Contacts in Allosteric Regulation of the Escherichia coli Catabolite Activator Protein*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Townsend, Philip D.; Rodgers, Thomas L.; Glover, Laura C.; Korhonen, Heidi J.; Richards, Shane A.; Colwell, Lucy J.; Pohl, Ehmke; Wilson, Mark R.; Hodgson, David R. W.; McLeish, Tom C. B.; Cann, Martin J.

    2015-01-01

    Allostery is a fundamental process by which ligand binding to a protein alters its activity at a distant site. Both experimental and theoretical evidence demonstrate that allostery can be communicated through altered slow relaxation protein dynamics without conformational change. The catabolite activator protein (CAP) of Escherichia coli is an exemplar for the analysis of such entropically driven allostery. Negative allostery in CAP occurs between identical cAMP binding sites. Changes to the cAMP-binding pocket can therefore impact the allosteric properties of CAP. Here we demonstrate, through a combination of coarse-grained modeling, isothermal calorimetry, and structural analysis, that decreasing the affinity of CAP for cAMP enhances negative cooperativity through an entropic penalty for ligand binding. The use of variant cAMP ligands indicates the data are not explained by structural heterogeneity between protein mutants. We observe computationally that altered interaction strength between CAP and cAMP variously modifies the change in allosteric cooperativity due to second site CAP mutations. As the degree of correlated motion between the cAMP-contacting site and a second site on CAP increases, there is a tendency for computed double mutations at these sites to drive CAP toward noncooperativity. Naturally occurring pairs of covarying residues in CAP do not display this tendency, suggesting a selection pressure to fine tune allostery on changes to the CAP ligand-binding pocket without a drive to a noncooperative state. In general, we hypothesize an evolutionary selection pressure to retain slow relaxation dynamics-induced allostery in proteins in which evolution of the ligand-binding site is occurring. PMID:26187469

  11. The binding cavity of mouse major urinary protein is optimised for a variety of ligand binding modes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pertinhez, Thelma A.; Ferrari, Elena; Casali, Emanuela [Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Parma, Via Volturno, 39, 43100 Parma (Italy); Patel, Jital A. [Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QR (United Kingdom); Spisni, Alberto, E-mail: alberto.spisni@unipr.it [Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Parma, Via Volturno, 39, 43100 Parma (Italy); Smith, Lorna J., E-mail: lorna.smith@chem.ox.ac.uk [Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QR (United Kingdom)

    2009-12-25

    {sup 15}N and {sup 1}HN chemical shift data and {sup 15}N relaxation studies have been used to characterise the binding of N-phenyl-naphthylamine (NPN) to mouse major urinary protein (MUP). NPN binds in the {beta}-barrel cavity of MUP, hydrogen bonding to Tyr120 and making extensive non-bonded contacts with hydrophobic side chains. In contrast to the natural pheromone 2-sec-butyl-4,5-dihydrothiazole, NPN binding gives no change to the overall mobility of the protein backbone of MUP. Comparison with 11 different ligands that bind to MUP shows a range of binding modes involving 16 different residues in the {beta}-barrel cavity. These finding justify why MUP is able to adapt to allow for many successful binding partners.

  12. CW EPR parameters reveal cytochrome P450 ligand binding modes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lockart, Molly M; Rodriguez, Carlo A; Atkins, William M; Bowman, Michael K

    2018-06-01

    Cytochrome P450 (CYP) monoxygenses utilize heme cofactors to catalyze oxidation reactions. They play a critical role in metabolism of many classes of drugs, are an attractive target for drug development, and mediate several prominent drug interactions. Many substrates and inhibitors alter the spin state of the ferric heme by displacing the heme's axial water ligand in the resting enzyme to yield a five-coordinate iron complex, or they replace the axial water to yield a nitrogen-ligated six-coordinate iron complex, which are traditionally assigned by UV-vis spectroscopy. However, crystal structures and recent pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) studies find a few cases where molecules hydrogen bond to the axial water. The water-bridged drug-H 2 O-heme has UV-vis spectra similar to nitrogen-ligated, six-coordinate complexes, but are closer to "reverse type I" complexes described in older liteature. Here, pulsed and continuous wave (CW) EPR demonstrate that water-bridged complexes are remarkably common among a range of nitrogenous drugs or drug fragments that bind to CYP3A4 or CYP2C9. Principal component analysis reveals a distinct clustering of CW EPR spectral parameters for water-bridged complexes. CW EPR reveals heterogeneous mixtures of ligated states, including multiple directly-coordinated complexes and water-bridged complexes. These results suggest that water-bridged complexes are under-represented in CYP structural databases and can have energies similar to other ligation modes. The data indicates that water-bridged binding modes can be identified and distinguished from directly-coordinated binding by CW EPR. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. Characterization of ligand binding to melanocortin 4 receptors using fluorescent peptides with improved kinetic properties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Link, Reet; Veiksina, Santa; Rinken, Ago; Kopanchuk, Sergei

    2017-03-15

    Melanocortin 4 (MC 4 ) receptors are important drug targets as they regulate energy homeostasis, eating behaviour and sexual functions. The ligand binding process to these G protein-coupled receptors is subject to considerable complexity. Different steps in the complex dynamic regulation can be characterized by ligand binding kinetics. Optimization of these kinetic parameters in terms of on-rate and residence time can increase the rapid onset of drug action and reduce off-target effects. Fluorescence anisotropy (FA) is one of the homogeneous fluorescence-based assays that enable continuous online monitoring of ligand binding kinetics. FA has been implemented for the kinetic study of melanocortin MC 4 receptors expressed on budded baculoviruses. However, the slow dissociation of the fluorescently labelled peptide NDP-α-MSH does not enable reaching equilibrium nor enable more in-depth study of the binding mechanisms. To overcome this problem, two novel red-shifted fluorescent ligands were designed. These cyclized heptapeptide derivatives (UTBC101 and UTBC102) exhibited nanomolar affinity toward melanocortin MC 4 receptors but had relatively different kinetic properties. The dissociation half-lives of UTBC101 (τ 1/2 =160min) and UTBC102 (τ 1/2 =7min) were shorter compared to that what was previously reported for Cy3B-NDP-α-MSH (τ 1/2 =224min). The significantly shorter dissociation half-life of UTBC102 enables equilibrium in screening assays, whereas the higher affinity of UTBC101 helps to resolve a wider range of competitor potencies. These two ligands are suitable for further kinetic screening of novel melanocortin MC 4 receptor specific ligands and could complement each other in these studies. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Nuclear receptor ligand-binding domains: reduction of helix H12 dynamics to favour crystallization

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nahoum, Virginie; Lipski, Alexandra; Quillard, Fabien; Guichou, Jean-François [INSERM, U554, 34090 Montpellier (France); Université de Montpellier, CNRS, UMR5048, Centre de Biochimie Structurale (CBS), 34090 Montpellier (France); Boublik, Yvan [CNRS, UMR5237, Centre de Recherche de Biochimie Macromoléculaire (CRBM), 34293 Montpellier (France); Pérez, Efrèn [Universidade de Vigo, Departamento de Quimica Organica, Facultad de Química, 36310 Vigo (Spain); Germain, Pierre [Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC), BP 10142, 67404 Illkirch CEDEX (France); Lera, Angel R. de [Universidade de Vigo, Departamento de Quimica Organica, Facultad de Química, 36310 Vigo (Spain); Bourguet, William, E-mail: bourguet@cbs.cnrs.fr [INSERM, U554, 34090 Montpellier (France); Université de Montpellier, CNRS, UMR5048, Centre de Biochimie Structurale (CBS), 34090 Montpellier (France)

    2008-07-01

    Attempts have been made to crystallize the ligand-binding domain of the human retinoid X receptor in complex with a variety of newly synthesized ligands. An inverse correlation was observed between the ‘crystallizability’ and the structural dynamics of the various receptor–ligand complexes. Crystallization trials of the human retinoid X receptor α ligand-binding domain (RXRα LBD) in complex with various ligands have been carried out. Using fluorescence anisotropy, it has been found that when compared with agonists these small-molecule effectors enhance the dynamics of the RXRα LBD C-terminal helix H12. In some cases, the mobility of this helix could be dramatically reduced by the addition of a 13-residue co-activator fragment (CoA). In keeping with these observations, crystals have been obtained of the corresponding ternary RXRα LBD–ligand–CoA complexes. In contrast, attempts to crystallize complexes with a highly mobile H12 remained unsuccessful. These experimental observations substantiate the previously recognized role of co-regulator fragments in facilitating the crystallization of nuclear receptor LBDs.

  15. Synthesis and binding studies of Alzheimer ligands on solid support.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rzepecki, Petra; Geib, Nina; Peifer, Manuel; Biesemeier, Frank; Schrader, Thomas

    2007-05-11

    Aminopyrazole derivatives constitute the first class of nonpeptidic rationally designed beta-sheet ligands. Here we describe a double solid-phase protocol for both synthesis and affinity testing. The presented solid-phase synthesis of four types of hybrid compounds relies on the Fmoc strategy and circumvents subsequent HPLC purification by precipitating the final product from organic solution in pure form. Hexa- and octapeptide pendants with internal di- and tetrapeptide bridges are now amenable in high yields to combinatorial synthesis of compound libraries for high-throughput screening purposes. Solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) on an acid-resistant PAM allows us, after PMB deprotection, to subject the free aminopyrazole binding sites in an immobilized state to on-bead assays with fluorescence-labeled peptides. From the fluorescence emission intensity decrease, individual binding constants can be calculated via reference curves by simple application of the law of mass action. Gratifyingly, host/guest complexation can be monitored quantitatively even for those ligands, which are almost insoluble in water.

  16. Ligand binding and thermostability of different allosteric states of the insulin zinc-hexamer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Huus, Kasper; Havelund, Svend; Olsen, Helle B

    2006-01-01

    The influence of ligand binding and conformation state on the thermostability of hexameric zinc-insulin was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The insulin hexamer exists in equilibrium between the forms T6, T3R3, and R6. Phenolic ligands induce and stabilize the T3R3- and R6-stat...

  17. Comparison of the kinetics of different Markov models for ligand binding under varying conditions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Martini, Johannes W. R.; Habeck, Michael

    2015-01-01

    We recently derived a Markov model for macromolecular ligand binding dynamics from few physical assumptions and showed that its stationary distribution is the grand canonical ensemble [J. W. R. Martini, M. Habeck, and M. Schlather, J. Math. Chem. 52, 665 (2014)]. The transition probabilities of the proposed Markov process define a particular Glauber dynamics and have some similarity to the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Here, we illustrate that this model is the stochastic analog of (pseudo) rate equations and the corresponding system of differential equations. Moreover, it can be viewed as a limiting case of general stochastic simulations of chemical kinetics. Thus, the model links stochastic and deterministic approaches as well as kinetics and equilibrium described by the grand canonical ensemble. We demonstrate that the family of transition matrices of our model, parameterized by temperature and ligand activity, generates ligand binding kinetics that respond to changes in these parameters in a qualitatively similar way as experimentally observed kinetics. In contrast, neither the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm nor the Glauber heat bath reflects changes in the external conditions correctly. Both converge rapidly to the stationary distribution, which is advantageous when the major interest is in the equilibrium state, but fail to describe the kinetics of ligand binding realistically. To simulate cellular processes that involve the reversible stochastic binding of multiple factors, our pseudo rate equation model should therefore be preferred to the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and the Glauber heat bath, if the stationary distribution is not of only interest

  18. Comparison of the kinetics of different Markov models for ligand binding under varying conditions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Martini, Johannes W. R., E-mail: jmartin2@gwdg.de [Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen (Germany); Felix Bernstein Institute for Mathematical Statistics in the Biosciences, University of Göttingen, Göttingen (Germany); Habeck, Michael, E-mail: mhabeck@gwdg.de [Felix Bernstein Institute for Mathematical Statistics in the Biosciences, University of Göttingen, Göttingen (Germany); Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen (Germany)

    2015-03-07

    We recently derived a Markov model for macromolecular ligand binding dynamics from few physical assumptions and showed that its stationary distribution is the grand canonical ensemble [J. W. R. Martini, M. Habeck, and M. Schlather, J. Math. Chem. 52, 665 (2014)]. The transition probabilities of the proposed Markov process define a particular Glauber dynamics and have some similarity to the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Here, we illustrate that this model is the stochastic analog of (pseudo) rate equations and the corresponding system of differential equations. Moreover, it can be viewed as a limiting case of general stochastic simulations of chemical kinetics. Thus, the model links stochastic and deterministic approaches as well as kinetics and equilibrium described by the grand canonical ensemble. We demonstrate that the family of transition matrices of our model, parameterized by temperature and ligand activity, generates ligand binding kinetics that respond to changes in these parameters in a qualitatively similar way as experimentally observed kinetics. In contrast, neither the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm nor the Glauber heat bath reflects changes in the external conditions correctly. Both converge rapidly to the stationary distribution, which is advantageous when the major interest is in the equilibrium state, but fail to describe the kinetics of ligand binding realistically. To simulate cellular processes that involve the reversible stochastic binding of multiple factors, our pseudo rate equation model should therefore be preferred to the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and the Glauber heat bath, if the stationary distribution is not of only interest.

  19. Predicting binding affinities of protein ligands from three-dimensional models: application to peptide binding to class I major histocompatibility proteins

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rognan, D; Lauemoller, S L; Holm, A

    1999-01-01

    A simple and fast free energy scoring function (Fresno) has been developed to predict the binding free energy of peptides to class I major histocompatibility (MHC) proteins. It differs from existing scoring functions mainly by the explicit treatment of ligand desolvation and of unfavorable protein...... coordinates of the MHC-bound peptide have first been determined with an accuracy of about 1-1.5 A. Furthermore, it may be easily recalibrated for any protein-ligand complex.......) and of a series of 16 peptides to H-2K(k). Predictions were more accurate for HLA-A2-binding peptides as the training set had been built from experimentally determined structures. The average error in predicting the binding free energy of the test peptides was 3.1 kJ/mol. For the homology model-derived equation...

  20. Selectivity in ligand binding to uranyl compounds: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Arnold, John [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

    2015-01-21

    The uranyl cation (UO₂²⁺) is the most abundant form of uranium on the planet. It is estimated that 4.5 billion tons of uranium in this form exist in sea water. The ability to bind and extract the uranyl cation from aqueous solution while separating it from other elements would provide a limitless source of nuclear fuel. A large body of research concerns the selective recognition and extraction of uranyl. A stable molecule, the cation has a linear O=U=O geometry. The short U-O bonds (1.78 Å) arise from the combination of uranium 5f/6d and oxygen 2p orbitals. Due to the oxygen moieties being multiply bonded, these sites were not thought to be basic enough for Lewis acidic coordination to be a viable approach to sequestration. The goal of this research is thus to broaden the coordination chemistry of the uranyl ion by studying new ligand systems via synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational methods. It is anticipated that this fundamental science will find use beyond actinide separation technologies in areas such as nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. The focus of this study is to synthesize uranyl complexes incorporating amidinate and guanidinate ligands. Both synthetic and computational methods are used to investigate novel equatorial ligand coordination and how this affects the basicity of the oxo ligands. Such an understanding will later apply to designing ligands incorporating functionalities that can bind uranyl both equatorially and axially for highly selective sequestration. Efficient and durable chromatography supports for lanthanide separation will be generated by (1) identifying robust peptoid-based ligands capable of binding different lanthanides with variable affinities, and (2) developing practical synthetic methods for the attachment of these ligands to Dowex ion exchange resins.

  1. Selectivity in ligand binding to uranyl compounds: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Arnold, John

    2015-01-01

    The uranyl cation (UO 2 2+ ) is the most abundant form of uranium on the planet. It is estimated that 4.5 billion tons of uranium in this form exist in sea water. The ability to bind and extract the uranyl cation from aqueous solution while separating it from other elements would provide a limitless source of nuclear fuel. A large body of research concerns the selective recognition and extraction of uranyl. A stable molecule, the cation has a linear O=U=O geometry. The short U-O bonds (1.78 Å) arise from the combination of uranium 5f/6d and oxygen 2p orbitals. Due to the oxygen moieties being multiply bonded, these sites were not thought to be basic enough for Lewis acidic coordination to be a viable approach to sequestration. The goal of this research is thus to broaden the coordination chemistry of the uranyl ion by studying new ligand systems via synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational methods. It is anticipated that this fundamental science will find use beyond actinide separation technologies in areas such as nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. The focus of this study is to synthesize uranyl complexes incorporating amidinate and guanidinate ligands. Both synthetic and computational methods are used to investigate novel equatorial ligand coordination and how this affects the basicity of the oxo ligands. Such an understanding will later apply to designing ligands incorporating functionalities that can bind uranyl both equatorially and axially for highly selective sequestration. Efficient and durable chromatography supports for lanthanide separation will be generated by (1) identifying robust peptoid-based ligands capable of binding different lanthanides with variable affinities, and (2) developing practical synthetic methods for the attachment of these ligands to Dowex ion exchange resins.

  2. In silico identification of anthropogenic chemicals as ligands of zebrafish sex hormone binding globulin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thorsteinson, Nels; Ban, Fuqiang; Santos-Filho, Osvaldo; Tabaei, Seyed M.H.; Miguel-Queralt, Solange; Underhill, Caroline; Cherkasov, Artem; Hammond, Geoffrey L.

    2009-01-01

    Anthropogenic compounds with the capacity to interact with the steroid-binding site of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) pose health risks to humans and other vertebrates including fish. Building on studies of human SHBG, we have applied in silico drug discovery methods to identify potential binders for SHBG in zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model aquatic organism. Computational methods, including; homology modeling, molecular dynamics simulations, virtual screening, and 3D QSAR analysis, successfully identified 6 non-steroidal substances from the ZINC chemical database that bind to zebrafish SHBG (zfSHBG) with low-micromolar to nanomolar affinities, as determined by a competitive ligand-binding assay. We also screened 80,000 commercial substances listed by the European Chemicals Bureau and Environment Canada, and 6 non-steroidal hits from this in silico screen were tested experimentally for zfSHBG binding. All 6 of these compounds displaced the [ 3 H]5α-dihydrotestosterone used as labeled ligand in the zfSHBG screening assay when tested at a 33 μM concentration, and 3 of them (hexestrol, 4-tert-octylcatechol, and dihydrobenzo(a)pyren-7(8H)-one) bind to zfSHBG in the micromolar range. The study demonstrates the feasibility of large-scale in silico screening of anthropogenic compounds that may disrupt or highjack functionally important protein:ligand interactions. Such studies could increase the awareness of hazards posed by existing commercial chemicals at relatively low cost

  3. SPOT-ligand 2: improving structure-based virtual screening by binding-homology search on an expanded structural template library.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Litfin, Thomas; Zhou, Yaoqi; Yang, Yuedong

    2017-04-15

    The high cost of drug discovery motivates the development of accurate virtual screening tools. Binding-homology, which takes advantage of known protein-ligand binding pairs, has emerged as a powerful discrimination technique. In order to exploit all available binding data, modelled structures of ligand-binding sequences may be used to create an expanded structural binding template library. SPOT-Ligand 2 has demonstrated significantly improved screening performance over its previous version by expanding the template library 15 times over the previous one. It also performed better than or similar to other binding-homology approaches on the DUD and DUD-E benchmarks. The server is available online at http://sparks-lab.org . yaoqi.zhou@griffith.edu.au or yuedong.yang@griffith.edu.au. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

  4. Ligand Binding Affinities of Arctigenin and Its Demethylated Metabolites to Estrogen Receptor Alpha

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Masao Hattori

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Phytoestrogens are defined as plant-derived compounds with estrogen-like activities according to their chemical structures and activities. Plant lignans are generally categorized as phytoestrogens. It was reported that (−-arctigenin, the aglycone of arctiin, was demethylated to (−-dihydroxyenterolactone (DHENL by Eubacterium (E. sp. ARC-2. Through stepwise demethylation, E. sp. ARC-2 produced six intermediates, three mono-desmethylarctigenins and three di-desmethylarctigenins. In the present study, ligand binding affinities of (−-arctigenin and its seven metabolites, including DHENL, were investigated for an estrogen receptor alpha, and found that demethylated metabolites had stronger binding affinities than (−-arctigenin using a ligand binding screen assay method. The IC50 value of (2R,3R-2-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzyl-3-(3,4-dihydroxybenzyl-butyrolactone was 7.9 × 10−4 M.

  5. Direct detection of ligand binding to Sepharose-immobilised protein using saturation transfer double difference (STDD) NMR spectroscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Haselhorst, Thomas; Muenster-Kuehnel, Anja K.; Oschlies, Melanie; Tiralongo, Joe; Gerardy-Schahn, Rita; Itzstein, Mark von

    2007-01-01

    We report an easy and direct application of 'Saturation Transfer Double Difference' (STDD) NMR spectroscopy to identify ligands that bind to a Sepharose-immobilised target protein. The model protein, cytidine 5'-monophosphate sialic acid (CMP-Sia) synthetase, was expressed as a Strep-Tag II fusion protein and immobilised on Strep-Tactin Sepharose. STD NMR experiments of the protein-enriched Sepharose matrix in the presence of a binding ligand (cytidine 5'-triphosphate, CTP) and a non-binding ligand (α/β-glucose) clearly show that CTP binds to the immobilised enzyme, whereas glucose has no affinity. This approach has three major advantages: (a) only low quantities of protein are required, (b) no specialised NMR technology or the application of additional data analysis by non-routine methods is required, and (c) easy multiple use of the immobilised protein is available

  6. CARF and WYL domains: ligand-binding regulators of prokaryotic defense systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kira eMakarova

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available CRISPR-Cas adaptive immunity systems of bacteria and archaea insert fragments of virus or plasmid DNA as spacer sequences into CRISPR repeat loci. Processed transcripts encompassing these spacers guide the cleavage of the cognate foreign DNA or RNA. Most CRISPR-Cas loci, in addition to recognized cas genes, also include genes that are not directly implicated in spacer acquisition, CRISPR transcript processing or interference. Here we comprehensively analyze sequences, structures and genomic neighborhoods of one of the most widespread groups of such genes that encode proteins containing a predicted nucleotide-binding domain with a Rossmann-like fold, which we denote CARF (CRISPR-associated Rossmann fold. Several CARF protein structures have been determined but functional characterization of these proteins is lacking. The CARF domain is most frequently combined with a C-terminal winged helix-turn-helix DNA-binding domain and effector domains most of which are predicted to possess DNase or RNase activity. Divergent CARF domains are also found in RtcR proteins, sigma-54 dependent regulators of the rtc RNA repair operon. CARF genes frequently co-occur with those coding for proteins containing the WYL domain with the Sm-like SH3 β-barrel fold, which is also predicted to bind ligands. CRISPR-Cas and possibly other defense systems are predicted to be transcriptionally regulated by multiple ligand-binding proteins containing WYL and CARF domains which sense modified nucleotides and nucleotide derivatives generated during virus infection. We hypothesize that CARF domains also transmit the signal from the bound ligand to the fused effector domains which attack either alien or self nucleic acids, resulting, respectively, in immunity complementing the CRISPR-Cas action or in dormancy/programmed cell death.

  7. Delineation of pulmonary airway fluid protein fractions with HRPO binding-avidity by far-Western ligand blot and mass spectrometry analyses: a model methodology for detecting mannose-binding protein expression profiles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coyne, Cody P; Rashmir-Raven, Ann; Jones, Toni; Mochal, Cathleen; Linford, Robert L; Brashier, Michael; Eddy, Alison

    2009-01-01

    Limited research to date has characterized the potential for HRPO to function as a primary molecular probe. Pulmonary airway fluid was developed by non-reducing far-Western (ligand) blot analyses utilizing conjugated HRPO-strepavidin or non-conjugated HRPO without the presence of primary immunoglobulin. Endogenous esterase-like biochemical activity of fractions within pulmonary airway fluid was inactivated to determine if they were capable of biochemically converting HRPO chemiluminescent substrate. Complementary analyses modified pulmonary fluid and HRPO with beta-galactosidase and alpha-mannosidase respectively, in addition to determining the influence of mannose and maltose competitive binding on HRPO far-Western (ligand) blot analyses. Identification of pulmonary fluid fractions detected by HRPO far-Western blot analyses was determined by mass spectrometry. Modification of pulmonary fluid with beta-galactosidase, and HRPO with alpha-mannosidase in concert with maltose and mannose competitive binding analyses altered the intensity and spectrum of pulmonary fluid fractions detected by HRPO far-Western blot analysis. Identity of pulmonary airway fluid fractions detected by HRPO far-Western (ligand) blot analysis were transferrin, dynein, albumin precursor, and two 156 kDa equine peptide fragments. HRPO can function as a partially-selective primary molecular probe when applied in either a conjugated or non-conjugated form. Some protein fractions can form complexes with HRPO through molecular mechanisms that involve physical interactions at the terminal alpha-mannose-rich regions of HRPO glycan side-chains. Based on its known molecular composition and structure, HRPO provides an opportunity for the development of diagnostics methodologies relevant to disease biomarkers that possess mannose-binding avidity.

  8. The Role of Protein-Ligand Contacts in Allosteric Regulation of the Escherichia coli Catabolite Activator Protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Townsend, Philip D; Rodgers, Thomas L; Glover, Laura C; Korhonen, Heidi J; Richards, Shane A; Colwell, Lucy J; Pohl, Ehmke; Wilson, Mark R; Hodgson, David R W; McLeish, Tom C B; Cann, Martin J

    2015-09-04

    Allostery is a fundamental process by which ligand binding to a protein alters its activity at a distant site. Both experimental and theoretical evidence demonstrate that allostery can be communicated through altered slow relaxation protein dynamics without conformational change. The catabolite activator protein (CAP) of Escherichia coli is an exemplar for the analysis of such entropically driven allostery. Negative allostery in CAP occurs between identical cAMP binding sites. Changes to the cAMP-binding pocket can therefore impact the allosteric properties of CAP. Here we demonstrate, through a combination of coarse-grained modeling, isothermal calorimetry, and structural analysis, that decreasing the affinity of CAP for cAMP enhances negative cooperativity through an entropic penalty for ligand binding. The use of variant cAMP ligands indicates the data are not explained by structural heterogeneity between protein mutants. We observe computationally that altered interaction strength between CAP and cAMP variously modifies the change in allosteric cooperativity due to second site CAP mutations. As the degree of correlated motion between the cAMP-contacting site and a second site on CAP increases, there is a tendency for computed double mutations at these sites to drive CAP toward noncooperativity. Naturally occurring pairs of covarying residues in CAP do not display this tendency, suggesting a selection pressure to fine tune allostery on changes to the CAP ligand-binding pocket without a drive to a noncooperative state. In general, we hypothesize an evolutionary selection pressure to retain slow relaxation dynamics-induced allostery in proteins in which evolution of the ligand-binding site is occurring. © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  9. G-LoSA for Prediction of Protein-Ligand Binding Sites and Structures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Hui Sun; Im, Wonpil

    2017-01-01

    Recent advances in high-throughput structure determination and computational protein structure prediction have significantly enriched the universe of protein structure. However, there is still a large gap between the number of available protein structures and that of proteins with annotated function in high accuracy. Computational structure-based protein function prediction has emerged to reduce this knowledge gap. The identification of a ligand binding site and its structure is critical to the determination of a protein's molecular function. We present a computational methodology for predicting small molecule ligand binding site and ligand structure using G-LoSA, our protein local structure alignment and similarity measurement tool. All the computational procedures described here can be easily implemented using G-LoSA Toolkit, a package of standalone software programs and preprocessed PDB structure libraries. G-LoSA and G-LoSA Toolkit are freely available to academic users at http://compbio.lehigh.edu/GLoSA . We also illustrate a case study to show the potential of our template-based approach harnessing G-LoSA for protein function prediction.

  10. Binding mechanisms for histamine and agmatine ligands in plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid purifications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sousa, Ângela; Pereira, Patrícia; Sousa, Fani; Queiroz, João A

    2014-10-31

    Histamine and agmatine amino acid derivatives were immobilized into monolithic disks, in order to combine the specificity and selectivity of the ligand with the high mass transfer and binding capacity offered by monolithic supports, to purify potential plasmid DNA biopharmaceuticals. Different elution strategies were explored by changing the type and salt concentration, as well as the pH, in order to understand the retention pattern of different plasmids isoforms The pVAX1-LacZ supercoiled isoform was isolated from a mixture of pDNA isoforms by using NaCl increasing stepwise gradient and also by ammonium sulfate decreasing stepwise gradient, in both histamine and agmatine monoliths. Acidic pH in the binding buffer mainly strengthened ionic interactions with both ligands in the presence of sodium chloride. Otherwise, for histamine ligand, pH values higher than 7 intensified hydrophobic interactions in the presence of ammonium sulfate. In addition, circular dichroism spectroscopy studies revealed that the binding and elution chromatographic conditions, such as the combination of high ionic strength with extreme pH values can reversibly influence the structural stability of the target nucleic acid. Therefore, ascending sodium chloride gradients with pH manipulation can be preferable chromatographic conditions to be explored in the purification of plasmid DNA biopharmaceuticals, in order to avoid the environmental impact of ammonium sulfate. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  11. A microscopic insight from conformational thermodynamics to functional ligand binding in proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sikdar, Samapan; Chakrabarti, J; Ghosh, Mahua

    2014-12-01

    We show that the thermodynamics of metal ion-induced conformational changes aid to understand the functions of protein complexes. This is illustrated in the case of a metalloprotein, alpha-lactalbumin (aLA), a divalent metal ion binding protein. We use the histograms of dihedral angles of the protein, generated from all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, to calculate conformational thermodynamics. The thermodynamically destabilized and disordered residues in different conformational states of a protein are proposed to serve as binding sites for ligands. This is tested for β-1,4-galactosyltransferase (β4GalT) binding to the Ca(2+)-aLA complex, in which the binding residues are known. Among the binding residues, the C-terminal residues like aspartate (D) 116, glutamine (Q) 117, tryptophan (W) 118 and leucine (L) 119 are destabilized and disordered and can dock β4GalT onto Ca(2+)-aLA. No such thermodynamically favourable binding residues can be identified in the case of the Mg(2+)-aLA complex. We apply similar analysis to oleic acid binding and predict that the Ca(2+)-aLA complex can bind to oleic acid through the basic histidine (H) 32 of the A2 helix and the hydrophobic residues, namely, isoleucine (I) 59, W60 and I95, of the interfacial cleft. However, the number of destabilized and disordered residues in Mg(2+)-aLA are few, and hence, the oleic acid binding to Mg(2+)-bound aLA is less stable than that to the Ca(2+)-aLA complex. Our analysis can be generalized to understand the functionality of other ligand bound proteins.

  12. Gentamicin binds to the megalin receptor as a competitive inhibitor using the common ligand binding motif of complement type repeats

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dagil, Robert; O'Shea, Charlotte; Nykjær, Anders

    2013-01-01

    megalin and investigated its interaction with gentamicin. Using NMR titration data in HADDOCK, we have generated a three-dimensional model describing the complex between megalin and gentamicin. Gentamicin binds to megalin with low affinity and exploits the common ligand binding motif previously described...... to megalin is highly similar to gentamicin binding to calreticulin. We discuss the impact of this novel insight for the future structure-based design of gentamicin antagonists....

  13. Ligand binding reduces SUMOylation of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ activation function 1 (AF1 domain.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rolf Diezko

    Full Text Available Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ is a ligand-activated nuclear receptor regulating adipogenesis, glucose homeostasis and inflammatory responses. The activity of PPARγ is controlled by post-translational modifications including SUMOylation and phosphorylation that affects its biological and molecular functions. Several important aspects of PPARγ SUMOylation including SUMO isoform-specificity and the impact of ligand binding on SUMOylation remain unresolved or contradictory. Here, we present a comprehensive study of PPARγ1 SUMOylation. We show that PPARγ1 can be modified by SUMO1 and SUMO2. Mutational analyses revealed that SUMOylation occurs exclusively within the N-terminal activation function 1 (AF1 domain predominantly at lysines 33 and 77. Ligand binding to the C-terminal ligand-binding domain (LBD of PPARγ1 reduces SUMOylation of lysine 33 but not of lysine 77. SUMOylation of lysine 33 and lysine 77 represses basal and ligand-induced activation by PPARγ1. We further show that lysine 365 within the LBD is not a target for SUMOylation as suggested in a previous report, but it is essential for full LBD activity. Our results suggest that PPARγ ligands negatively affect SUMOylation by interdomain communication between the C-terminal LBD and the N-terminal AF1 domain. The ability of the LBD to regulate the AF1 domain may have important implications for the evaluation and mechanism of action of therapeutic ligands that bind PPARγ.

  14. Misuse of thermodynamics in the interpretation of isothermal titration calorimetry data for ligand binding to proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pethica, Brian A

    2015-03-01

    Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) has given a mass of data on the binding of small molecules to proteins and other biopolymers, with particular interest in drug binding to proteins chosen as therapeutic indicators. Interpretation of the enthalpy data usually follows an unsound protocol that uses thermodynamic relations in circumstances where they do not apply. Errors of interpretation include incomplete definitions of ligand binding and equilibrium constants and neglect of the non-ideality of the solutions under study, leading to unreliable estimates of standard free energies and entropies of binding. The mass of reported thermodynamic functions for ligand binding to proteins estimated from ITC enthalpies alone is consequently of uncertain thermodynamic significance and utility. ITC and related experiments to test the protocol assumptions are indicated. A thermodynamic procedure avoiding equilibrium constants or other reaction models and not requiring protein activities is given. The discussion draws attention to the fundamental but neglected relation between the thermodynamic activity and bioactivity of drugs and to the generally unknown thermodynamic status of ligand solutions, which for drugs relates directly to effective therapeutic dosimetry. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Serotoninergic receptors in brain tissue: properties and identification of various 3H-ligand binding sites in vitro

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leysen, J.E.

    1981-01-01

    In vitro binding studies to serotoninergic receptors were performed using 3 H-LSD, 3 H-5-HT and 3 H-spiperone. An overwiew is given on findings using these three ligands with respect to the following: localization of specific binding sites, in various animal species, the regional distribution in the brain and periphery, the subcellular and cellular distribution. Properties of the binding sites, influence of the composition of the assay medium, binding kinetic properties, receptor regulation in vivo. Identity of the binding sites, differences between site for various 3 H-ligands, pharmacological specificity of the membranous binding sites, chemical composition of the macromolecular complex constituting the binding site. Function of the receptor. Binding affinities of 44 compounds were measured in binding assays using 3 H-spiperone and 3 H-LSD with rat frontal cortex membrane preparations and using 3 H-5-HT and 3 H-LSD with rat hippocampal membrane preparations

  16. An altered gp100 peptide ligand with decreased binding by TCR and CD8alpha dissects T cell cytotoxicity from production of cytokines and activation of NFAT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Niels eSchaft

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Altered peptide ligands (APLs provide useful tools to study T cell activation and potentially direct immune responses to improve treatment of cancer patients. To better understand and exploit APLs, we studied the relationship between APLs and T cell function in more detail. Here, we tested a broad panel of gp100(280-288 APLs with respect to T cell cytotoxicity, production of cytokines and activation of Nuclear Factor of Activated T cells (NFAT by human T cells gene-engineered with a gp100-HLA-A2-specific TCRalpha/beta. We demonstrated that gp100-specific cytotoxicity, production of cytokines, and activation of NFAT were not affected by APLs with single amino acid substitutions, except for an APL with an amino acid substitution at position 3 (APL A3, which did not elicit any T cell response. A gp100 peptide with a double amino acid mutation (APL S4S6 elicited T cell cytotoxicity and production of IFNgamma, and to a lesser extent TNFalpha, IL-4, and IL-5, but not production of IL-2 and IL-10, or activation of NFAT. Notably, TCR-mediated functions showed decreases in sensitivities for S4S6 versus gp100 wt peptide, which were minor for cytotoxicity but at least a 1000-fold more prominent for the production of cytokines. TCR-engineered T cells did not bind A3-HLA-A2, but did bind S4S6-HLA-A2 although to a lowered extent compared to wt peptide-HLA-A2. Moreover, S4S6-induced T cell function demonstrated an enhanced dependency on CD8alpha. Taken together, most gp100 APLs functioned as agonists, but A3 and S4S6 peptides acted as a null ligand and partial agonist, respectively. Our results further suggest that TCR-mediated cytotoxicity can be dissected from production of cytokines and activation of NFAT, and that the agonist potential of peptide mutants relates to the extent of binding by TCR and CD8alpha. These findings may facilitate the design of APLs to advance the study of T cell activation and their use for therapeutic applications.

  17. Towards accurate free energy calculations in ligand protein-binding studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steinbrecher, Thomas; Labahn, Andreas

    2010-01-01

    Cells contain a multitude of different chemical reaction paths running simultaneously and quite independently next to each other. This amazing feat is enabled by molecular recognition, the ability of biomolecules to form stable and specific complexes with each other and with their substrates. A better understanding of this process, i.e. of the kinetics, structures and thermodynamic properties of biomolecule binding, would be invaluable in the study of biological systems. In addition, as the mode of action of many pharmaceuticals is based upon their inhibition or activation of biomolecule targets, predictive models of small molecule receptor binding are very helpful tools in rational drug design. Since the goal here is normally to design a new compound with a high inhibition strength, one of the most important thermodynamic properties is the binding free energy DeltaG(0). The prediction of binding constants has always been one of the major goals in the field of computational chemistry, because the ability to reliably assess a hypothetical compound's binding properties without having to synthesize it first would save a tremendous amount of work. The different approaches to this question range from fast and simple empirical descriptor methods to elaborate simulation protocols aimed at putting the computation of free energies onto a solid foundation of statistical thermodynamics. While the later methods are still not suited for the screenings of thousands of compounds that are routinely performed in computational drug design studies, they are increasingly put to use for the detailed study of protein ligand interactions. This review will focus on molecular mechanics force field based free energy calculations and their application to the study of protein ligand interactions. After a brief overview of other popular methods for the calculation of free energies, we will describe recent advances in methodology and a variety of exemplary studies of molecular dynamics

  18. Potential New Ligand Systems for Binding Uranyl Ions in Seawater Environments

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Arnold, John [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

    2014-12-13

    Work began this quarter on a new project involving a combined computational and biosynthetic approach to selective recognition of uranyl ion in aqueous solution. This project exploits the results of computational studies to discover new ligand classes. Synthetic studies will follow to generate target systems for uranyl binding and determination of binding constants. The process will be iterative, with results from computation informing synthesis, and vice versa. The theme of the ligand classes to be examined initially will be biologically based. New phosphonate-containing α-amino acid N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) monomers were used recently to prepare well-defined phosphonate-containing poly-peptides and block copolypeptides. Our first approach is to utilize these phosphate- and phosphonate-containing NCAs for the coordination of uranyl. The work includes the laboratory-scale preparation of a series of NCAs and the full thermodynamic and spectroscopic characterization of the resulting uranyl complexes. We are also evaluating the sequestering activity in different physiological and environmental conditions of these copolymers as well as their biodegradability.

  19. On the analysis and comparison of conformer-specific essential dynamics upon ligand binding to a protein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Grosso, Marcos; Kalstein, Adrian; Parisi, Gustavo; Fernandez-Alberti, Sebastian; Roitberg, Adrian E.

    2015-01-01

    The native state of a protein consists of an equilibrium of conformational states on an energy landscape rather than existing as a single static state. The co-existence of conformers with different ligand-affinities in a dynamical equilibrium is the basis for the conformational selection model for ligand binding. In this context, the development of theoretical methods that allow us to analyze not only the structural changes but also changes in the fluctuation patterns between conformers will contribute to elucidate the differential properties acquired upon ligand binding. Molecular dynamics simulations can provide the required information to explore these features. Its use in combination with subsequent essential dynamics analysis allows separating large concerted conformational rearrangements from irrelevant fluctuations. We present a novel procedure to define the size and composition of essential dynamics subspaces associated with ligand-bound and ligand-free conformations. These definitions allow us to compare essential dynamics subspaces between different conformers. Our procedure attempts to emphasize the main similarities and differences between the different essential dynamics in an unbiased way. Essential dynamics subspaces associated to conformational transitions can also be analyzed. As a test case, we study the glutaminase interacting protein (GIP), composed of a single PDZ domain. Both GIP ligand-free state and glutaminase L peptide-bound states are analyzed. Our findings concerning the relative changes in the flexibility pattern upon binding are in good agreement with experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance data

  20. On the analysis and comparison of conformer-specific essential dynamics upon ligand binding to a protein

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grosso, Marcos; Kalstein, Adrian; Parisi, Gustavo; Fernandez-Alberti, Sebastian, E-mail: sfalberti@gmail.com [Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Roque Saenz Peña 352, B1876BXD Bernal (Argentina); Roitberg, Adrian E. [Departments of Physics and Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611 (United States)

    2015-06-28

    The native state of a protein consists of an equilibrium of conformational states on an energy landscape rather than existing as a single static state. The co-existence of conformers with different ligand-affinities in a dynamical equilibrium is the basis for the conformational selection model for ligand binding. In this context, the development of theoretical methods that allow us to analyze not only the structural changes but also changes in the fluctuation patterns between conformers will contribute to elucidate the differential properties acquired upon ligand binding. Molecular dynamics simulations can provide the required information to explore these features. Its use in combination with subsequent essential dynamics analysis allows separating large concerted conformational rearrangements from irrelevant fluctuations. We present a novel procedure to define the size and composition of essential dynamics subspaces associated with ligand-bound and ligand-free conformations. These definitions allow us to compare essential dynamics subspaces between different conformers. Our procedure attempts to emphasize the main similarities and differences between the different essential dynamics in an unbiased way. Essential dynamics subspaces associated to conformational transitions can also be analyzed. As a test case, we study the glutaminase interacting protein (GIP), composed of a single PDZ domain. Both GIP ligand-free state and glutaminase L peptide-bound states are analyzed. Our findings concerning the relative changes in the flexibility pattern upon binding are in good agreement with experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance data.

  1. A novel signal transduction protein: Combination of solute binding and tandem PAS-like sensor domains in one polypeptide chain: Periplasmic Ligand Binding Protein Dret_0059

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wu, R. [Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Wilton, R. [Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Cuff, M. E. [Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Structural Biology Center, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Endres, M. [Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Babnigg, G. [Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Edirisinghe, J. N. [Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Computation Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago Illinois 60637; Henry, C. S. [Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Computation Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago Illinois 60637; Joachimiak, A. [Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Structural Biology Center, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago Illinois 60637; Schiffer, M. [Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439; Pokkuluri, P. R. [Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois 60439

    2017-03-06

    We report the structural and biochemical characterization of a novel periplasmic ligand-binding protein, Dret_0059, from Desulfohalobium retbaense DSM 5692, an organism isolated from the Salt Lake Retba in Senegal. The structure of the protein consists of a unique combination of a periplasmic solute binding protein (SBP) domain at the N-terminal and a tandem PAS-like sensor domain at the C-terminal region. SBP domains are found ubiquitously and their best known function is in solute transport across membranes. PAS-like sensor domains are commonly found in signal transduction proteins. These domains are widely observed as parts of many protein architectures and complexes but have not been observed previously within the same polypeptide chain. In the structure of Dret_0059, a ketoleucine moiety is bound to the SBP, whereas a cytosine molecule is bound in the distal PAS-like domain of the tandem PAS-like domain. Differential scanning flourimetry support the binding of ligands observed in the crystal structure. There is significant interaction between the SBP and tandem PAS-like domains, and it is possible that the binding of one ligand could have an effect on the binding of the other. We uncovered three other proteins with this structural architecture in the non-redundant sequence data base, and predict that they too bind the same substrates. The genomic context of this protein did not offer any clues for its function. We did not find any biological process in which the two observed ligands are coupled. The protein Dret_0059 could be involved in either signal transduction or solute transport.

  2. Statistical Estimation of the Protein-Ligand Binding Free Energy Based On Direct Protein-Ligand Interaction Obtained by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haruki Nakamura

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available We have developed a method for estimating protein-ligand binding free energy (DG based on the direct protein-ligand interaction obtained by a molecular dynamics simulation. Using this method, we estimated the DG value statistically by the average values of the van der Waals and electrostatic interactions between each amino acid of the target protein and the ligand molecule. In addition, we introduced fluctuations in the accessible surface area (ASA and dihedral angles of the protein-ligand complex system as the entropy terms of the DG estimation. The present method included the fluctuation term of structural change of the protein and the effective dielectric constant. We applied this method to 34 protein-ligand complex structures. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the experimental and calculated DG values was 0.81, and the average error of DG was 1.2 kcal/mol with the use of the fixed parameters. These results were obtained from a 2 nsec molecular dynamics simulation.

  3. Measuring binding of protein to gel-bound ligands using magnetic levitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shapiro, Nathan D; Mirica, Katherine A; Soh, Siowling; Phillips, Scott T; Taran, Olga; Mace, Charles R; Shevkoplyas, Sergey S; Whitesides, George M

    2012-03-28

    This paper describes the use of magnetic levitation (MagLev) to measure the association of proteins and ligands. The method starts with diamagnetic gel beads that are functionalized covalently with small molecules (putative ligands). Binding of protein to the ligands within the bead causes a change in the density of the bead. When these beads are suspended in a paramagnetic aqueous buffer and placed between the poles of two NbFeB magnets with like poles facing, the changes in the density of the bead on binding of protein result in changes in the levitation height of the bead that can be used to quantify the amount of protein bound. This paper uses a reaction-diffusion model to examine the physical principles that determine the values of rate and equilibrium constants measured by this system, using the well-defined model system of carbonic anhydrase and aryl sulfonamides. By tuning the experimental protocol, the method is capable of quantifying either the concentration of protein in a solution, or the binding affinities of a protein to several resin-bound small molecules simultaneously. Since this method requires no electricity and only a single piece of inexpensive equipment, it may find use in situations where portability and low cost are important, such as in bioanalysis in resource-limited settings, point-of-care diagnosis, veterinary medicine, and plant pathology. It still has several practical disadvantages. Most notably, the method requires relatively long assay times and cannot be applied to large proteins (>70 kDa), including antibodies. The design and synthesis of beads with improved characteristics (e.g., larger pore size) has the potential to resolve these problems.

  4. Optimizing Stem Length To Improve Ligand Selectivity in a Structure-Switching Cocaine-Binding Aptamer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neves, Miguel A D; Shoara, Aron A; Reinstein, Oren; Abbasi Borhani, Okty; Martin, Taylor R; Johnson, Philip E

    2017-10-27

    Understanding how aptamer structure and function are related is crucial in the design and development of aptamer-based biosensors. We have analyzed a series of cocaine-binding aptamers with different lengths of their stem 1 in order to understand the role that this stem plays in the ligand-induced structure-switching binding mechanism utilized in many of the sensor applications of this aptamer. In the cocaine-binding aptamer, the length of stem 1 controls whether the structure-switching binding mechanism for this aptamer occurs or not. We varied the length of stem 1 from being one to seven base pairs long and found that the structural transition from unfolded to folded in the unbound aptamer is when the aptamer elongates from 3 to 4 base pairs in stem 1. We then used this knowledge to achieve new binding selectivity of this aptamer for quinine over cocaine by using an aptamer with a stem 1 two base pairs long. This selectivity is achieved by means of the greater affinity quinine has for the aptamer compared with cocaine. Quinine provides enough free energy to both fold and bind the 2-base pair-long aptamer while cocaine does not. This tuning of binding selectivity of an aptamer by reducing its stability is likely a general mechanism that could be used to tune aptamer specificity for tighter binding ligands.

  5. Spectroscopic and Computational Investigations of Ligand Binding to IspH: Discovery of Non-diphosphate Inhibitors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    O' Dowd, Bing [Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois, 600 South Mathews Avenue Urbana IL 61801 USA; Williams, Sarah [Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093 USA; Wang, Hongxin [Department of Chemistry, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue Davis CA 95616 USA; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road Berkeley CA 94720 USA; No, Joo Hwan [Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, Urbana, IL (United States); Rao, Guodong [Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois, 600 South Mathews Avenue Urbana IL 61801 USA; Wang, Weixue [Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, Urbana, IL (United States); McCammon, J. Andrew [Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093 USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093 USA; National Biomedical Computation Resource, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093 USA; Cramer, Stephen P. [Department of Chemistry, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue Davis CA 95616 USA; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road Berkeley CA 94720 USA; Oldfield, Eric [Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois, 600 South Mathews Avenue Urbana IL 61801 USA

    2017-04-07

    Isoprenoid biosynthesis is an important area for anti-infective drug development. One isoprenoid target described is (E)-1-hydroxy-2-methyl-but-2-enyl 4-diphosphate (HMBPP) reductase (IspH), which forms isopentenyl diphosphate and dimethylallyl diphosphate from HMBPP in a 2H + /2e - reduction. IspH contains a 4 Fe-4 S cluster, and in this work, we first investigated how small molecules bound to the cluster by using HYSCORE and NRVS spectroscopies. The results of these, as well as other structural and spectroscopic investigations, led to the conclusion that, in most cases, ligands bound to IspH 4 Fe-4 S clusters by η 1 coordination, forming tetrahedral geometries at the unique fourth Fe, ligand side chains preventing further ligand (e.g., H 2 O, O 2 ) binding. Based on these ideas, we used in silico methods to find drug-like inhibitors that might occupy the HMBPP substrate binding pocket and bind to Fe, leading to the discovery of a barbituric acid analogue with a K i value of ≈500 nm against Pseudomonas aeruginosa IspH.

  6. SVM prediction of ligand-binding sites in bacterial lipoproteins employing shape and physio-chemical descriptors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kadam, Kiran; Prabhakar, Prashant; Jayaraman, V K

    2012-11-01

    Bacterial lipoproteins play critical roles in various physiological processes including the maintenance of pathogenicity and numbers of them are being considered as potential candidates for generating novel vaccines. In this work, we put forth an algorithm to identify and predict ligand-binding sites in bacterial lipoproteins. The method uses three types of pocket descriptors, namely fpocket descriptors, 3D Zernike descriptors and shell descriptors, and combines them with Support Vector Machine (SVM) method for the classification. The three types of descriptors represent shape-based properties of the pocket as well as its local physio-chemical features. All three types of descriptors, along with their hybrid combinations are evaluated with SVM and to improve classification performance, WEKA-InfoGain feature selection is applied. Results obtained in the study show that the classifier successfully differentiates between ligand-binding and non-binding pockets. For the combination of three types of descriptors, 10 fold cross-validation accuracy of 86.83% is obtained for training while the selected model achieved test Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) of 0.534. Individually or in combination with new and existing methods, our model can be a very useful tool for the prediction of potential ligand-binding sites in bacterial lipoproteins.

  7. Using physics-based pose predictions and free energy perturbation calculations to predict binding poses and relative binding affinities for FXR ligands in the D3R Grand Challenge 2

    Science.gov (United States)

    Athanasiou, Christina; Vasilakaki, Sofia; Dellis, Dimitris; Cournia, Zoe

    2018-01-01

    Computer-aided drug design has become an integral part of drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, and is nowadays extensively used in the lead identification and lead optimization phases. The drug design data resource (D3R) organizes challenges against blinded experimental data to prospectively test computational methodologies as an opportunity for improved methods and algorithms to emerge. We participated in Grand Challenge 2 to predict the crystallographic poses of 36 Farnesoid X Receptor (FXR)-bound ligands and the relative binding affinities for two designated subsets of 18 and 15 FXR-bound ligands. Here, we present our methodology for pose and affinity predictions and its evaluation after the release of the experimental data. For predicting the crystallographic poses, we used docking and physics-based pose prediction methods guided by the binding poses of native ligands. For FXR ligands with known chemotypes in the PDB, we accurately predicted their binding modes, while for those with unknown chemotypes the predictions were more challenging. Our group ranked #1st (based on the median RMSD) out of 46 groups, which submitted complete entries for the binding pose prediction challenge. For the relative binding affinity prediction challenge, we performed free energy perturbation (FEP) calculations coupled with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. FEP/MD calculations displayed a high success rate in identifying compounds with better or worse binding affinity than the reference (parent) compound. Our studies suggest that when ligands with chemical precedent are available in the literature, binding pose predictions using docking and physics-based methods are reliable; however, predictions are challenging for ligands with completely unknown chemotypes. We also show that FEP/MD calculations hold predictive value and can nowadays be used in a high throughput mode in a lead optimization project provided that crystal structures of

  8. Differential alterations of cortical glutamatergic binding sites in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chalmers, D.T.; Dewar, D.; Graham, D.I.; Brooks, D.N.; McCulloch, J.

    1990-01-01

    Involvement of cortical glutamatergic mechanisms in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) has been investigated with quantitative ligand-binding autoradiography. The distribution and density of Na(+)-dependent glutamate uptake sites and glutamate receptor subtypes--kainate, quisqualate, and N-methyl-D-aspartate--were measured in adjacent sections of frontal cortex obtained postmortem from six patients with SDAT and six age-matched controls. The number of senile plaques was determined in the same brain region. Binding of D-[3H]aspartate to Na(+)-dependent uptake sites was reduced by approximately 40% throughout SDAT frontal cortex relative to controls, indicating a general loss of glutamatergic presynaptic terminals. [3H]Kainate receptor binding was significantly increased by approximately 70% in deep layers of SDAT frontal cortex compared with controls, whereas this binding was unaltered in superficial laminae. There was a positive correlation (r = 0.914) between kainate binding and senile plaque number in deep cortical layers. Quisqualate receptors, as assessed by 2-amino-3-hydroxy-5-[3H]methylisoxazole-4-propionic acid binding, were unaltered in SDAT frontal cortex compared with controls. There was a small reduction (25%) in N-methyl-D-aspartate-sensitive [3H]glutamate binding only in superficial cortical layers of SDAT brains relative to control subjects. [3H]Glutamate binding in SDAT subjects was unrelated to senile plaque number in superficial cortical layers (r = 0.104). These results indicate that in the presence of cortical glutamatergic terminal loss in SDAT plastic alterations occur in some glutamate receptor subtypes but not in others

  9. Variation in one residue associated with the metal ion-dependent adhesion site regulates αIIbβ3 integrin ligand binding affinity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joel Raborn

    Full Text Available The Asp of the RGD motif of the ligand coordinates with the β I domain metal ion dependent adhesion site (MIDAS divalent cation, emphasizing the importance of the MIDAS in ligand binding. There appears to be two distinct groups of integrins that differ in their ligand binding affinity and adhesion ability. These differences may be due to a specific residue associated with the MIDAS, particularly the β3 residue Ala(252 and corresponding Ala in the β1 integrin compared to the analogous Asp residue in the β2 and β7 integrins. Interestingly, mutations in the adjacent to MIDAS (ADMIDAS of integrins α4β7 and αLβ2 increased the binding and adhesion abilities compared to the wild-type, while the same mutations in the α2β1, α5β1, αVβ3, and αIIbβ3 integrins demonstrated decreased ligand binding and adhesion. We introduced a mutation in the αIIbβ3 to convert this MIDAS associated Ala(252 to Asp. By combination of this mutant with mutations of one or two ADMIDAS residues, we studied the effects of this residue on ligand binding and adhesion. Then, we performed molecular dynamics simulations on the wild-type and mutant αIIbβ3 integrin β I domains, and investigated the dynamics of metal ion binding sites in different integrin-RGD complexes. We found that the tendency of calculated binding free energies was in excellent agreement with the experimental results, suggesting that the variation in this MIDAS associated residue accounts for the differences in ligand binding and adhesion among different integrins, and it accounts for the conflicting results of ADMIDAS mutations within different integrins. This study sheds more light on the role of the MIDAS associated residue pertaining to ligand binding and adhesion and suggests that this residue may play a pivotal role in integrin-mediated cell rolling and firm adhesion.

  10. Thermodynamic dissection of the binding energetics of proline-rich peptides to the Abl-SH3 domain: implications for rational ligand design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palencia, Andrés; Cobos, Eva S; Mateo, Pedro L; Martínez, Jose C; Luque, Irene

    2004-02-13

    The inhibition of the interactions between SH3 domains and their targets is emerging as a promising therapeutic strategy. To date, rational design of potent ligands for these domains has been hindered by the lack of understanding of the origins of the binding energy. We present here a complete thermodynamic analysis of the binding energetics of the p41 proline-rich decapeptide (APSYSPPPPP) to the SH3 domain of the c-Abl oncogene. Isothermal titration calorimetry experiments have revealed a thermodynamic signature for this interaction (very favourable enthalpic contributions opposed by an unfavourable binding entropy) inconsistent with the highly hydrophobic nature of the p41 ligand and the Abl-SH3 binding site. Our structural and thermodynamic analyses have led us to the conclusion, having once ruled out any possible ionization events or conformational changes coupled to the association, that the establishment of a complex hydrogen-bond network mediated by water molecules buried at the binding interface is responsible for the observed thermodynamic behaviour. The origin of the binding energetics for proline-rich ligands to the Abl-SH3 domain is further investigated by a comparative calorimetric analysis of a set of p41-related ligands. The striking effects upon the enthalpic and entropic contributions provoked by conservative substitutions at solvent-exposed positions in the ligand confirm the complexity of the interaction. The implications of these results for rational ligand design are discussed.

  11. Investigation of the Copper Binding Site And the Role of Histidine As a Ligand in Riboflavin Binding Protein

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Smith, S.R.; Bencze, K.Z.; Russ, K.A.; Wasiukanis, K.; Benore-Parsons, M.; Stemmler, T.L.

    2009-05-26

    Riboflavin Binding Protein (RBP) binds copper in a 1:1 molar ratio, forming a distinct well-ordered type II site. The nature of this site has been examined using X-ray absorption and pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopies, revealing a four coordinate oxygen/nitrogen rich environment. On the basis of analysis of the Cambridge Structural Database, the average protein bound copper-ligand bond length of 1.96 {angstrom}, obtained by extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), is consistent with four coordinate Cu(I) and Cu(II) models that utilize mixed oxygen and nitrogen ligand distributions. These data suggest a Cu-O{sub 3}N coordination state for copper bound to RBP. While pulsed EPR studies including hyperfine sublevel correlation spectroscopy and electron nuclear double resonance show clear spectroscopic evidence for a histidine bound to the copper, inclusion of a histidine in the EXAFS simulation did not lead to any significant improvement in the fit.

  12. A2A adenosine receptor ligand binding and signalling is allosterically modulated by adenosine deaminase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gracia, Eduard; Pérez-Capote, Kamil; Moreno, Estefanía; Barkešová, Jana; Mallol, Josefa; Lluís, Carme; Franco, Rafael; Cortés, Antoni; Casadó, Vicent; Canela, Enric I

    2011-05-01

    A2ARs (adenosine A2A receptors) are highly enriched in the striatum, which is the main motor control CNS (central nervous system) area. BRET (bioluminescence resonance energy transfer) assays showed that A2AR homomers may act as cell-surface ADA (adenosine deaminase; EC 3.5.4.4)-binding proteins. ADA binding affected the quaternary structure of A2ARs present on the cell surface. ADA binding to adenosine A2ARs increased both agonist and antagonist affinity on ligand binding to striatal membranes where these proteins are co-expressed. ADA also increased receptor-mediated ERK1/2 (extracellular-signal-regulated kinase 1/2) phosphorylation. Collectively, the results of the present study show that ADA, apart from regulating the concentration of extracellular adenosine, may behave as an allosteric modulator that markedly enhances ligand affinity and receptor function. This powerful regulation may have implications for the physiology and pharmacology of neuronal A2ARs.

  13. Computational prediction of binding affinity for CYP1A2-ligand complexes using empirical free energy calculations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poongavanam, Vasanthanathan; Olsen, Lars; Jørgensen, Flemming Steen

    2010-01-01

    , and methods based on statistical mechanics. In the present investigation, we started from an LIE model to predict the binding free energy of structurally diverse compounds of cytochrome P450 1A2 ligands, one of the important human metabolizing isoforms of the cytochrome P450 family. The data set includes both...... substrates and inhibitors. It appears that the electrostatic contribution to the binding free energy becomes negligible in this particular protein and a simple empirical model was derived, based on a training set of eight compounds. The root mean square error for the training set was 3.7 kJ/mol. Subsequent......Predicting binding affinities for receptor-ligand complexes is still one of the challenging processes in computational structure-based ligand design. Many computational methods have been developed to achieve this goal, such as docking and scoring methods, the linear interaction energy (LIE) method...

  14. Ligand Binding Site Detection by Local Structure Alignment and Its Performance Complementarity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Hui Sun; Im, Wonpil

    2013-01-01

    Accurate determination of potential ligand binding sites (BS) is a key step for protein function characterization and structure-based drug design. Despite promising results of template-based BS prediction methods using global structure alignment (GSA), there is a room to improve the performance by properly incorporating local structure alignment (LSA) because BS are local structures and often similar for proteins with dissimilar global folds. We present a template-based ligand BS prediction method using G-LoSA, our LSA tool. A large benchmark set validation shows that G-LoSA predicts drug-like ligands’ positions in single-chain protein targets more precisely than TM-align, a GSA-based method, while the overall success rate of TM-align is better. G-LoSA is particularly efficient for accurate detection of local structures conserved across proteins with diverse global topologies. Recognizing the performance complementarity of G-LoSA to TM-align and a non-template geometry-based method, fpocket, a robust consensus scoring method, CMCS-BSP (Complementary Methods and Consensus Scoring for ligand Binding Site Prediction), is developed and shows improvement on prediction accuracy. The G-LoSA source code is freely available at http://im.bioinformatics.ku.edu/GLoSA. PMID:23957286

  15. Dynamic Factors Affecting Gaseous Ligand Binding in an Artificial Oxygen Transport Protein‡

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Lei; Andersen, Eskil M.E.; Khajo, Abdelahad; Magliozzo, Richard S.; Koder, Ronald L.

    2013-01-01

    We report the functional analysis of an artificial hexacoordinate oxygen transport protein, HP7, which operates via a mechanism similar to that of human neuroglobin and cytoglobin: the destabilization of one of two heme-ligating histidine residues. In the case of HP7 this is the result of the coupling of histidine side chain ligation with the burial of three charged glutamate residues on the same helix. Here we compare gaseous ligand binding, including rates, affinities and oxyferrous state lifetimes, of both heme binding sites in HP7. We find that despite the identical sequence of helices in both binding sites, there are differences in oxygen affinity and oxyferrous state lifetime which may be the result of differences in the freedom of motion imposed by the candelabra fold on the two sites of the protein. We further examine the effect of mutational removal of the buried glutamates on function. Heme iron in the ferrous state of this mutant is rapidly oxidized when when exposed to oxygen. Compared to HP7, distal histidine affinity is increased by a 22-fold decrease in the histidine ligand off-rate. EPR comparison of these ferric hemoproteins demonstrates that the mutation increases disorder at the heme binding site. NMR-detected deuterium exchange demonstrates that the mutation greatly increases water penetration into the protein core. The inability of the mutant protein to bind oxygen may be due to increased water penetration, the large decrease in binding rate caused by the increase in distal histidine affinity, or a combination of the two factors. Together these data underline the importance of the control of protein dynamics in the design of functional artificial proteins. PMID:23249163

  16. Thermodynamic Characterization of New Positive Allosteric Modulators Binding to the Glutamate Receptor A2 Ligand-Binding Domain

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørholm, Ann-Beth; Francotte, Pierre; Goffin, Eric

    2014-01-01

    , and 5a (5-F) and 5b (6-F) are entropy driven. For 5d (8-F), both quantities were equal in size. Thermodynamic integration (TI) and one-step perturbation (OSP) were used to calculate the relative binding affinity of the modulators. The OSP calculations had a higher predictive power than those from TI......,4-dihydro-2H-1,2,4-benzothiadiazine 1,1-dioxides. Measurements of ligand binding by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) showed similar binding affinities for the modulator series at the GluA2 LBD but differences in the thermodynamic driving forces. Binding of 5c (7-F) and 6 (no-F) is enthalpy driven......, and combined with the shorter total simulation time, we found the OSP method to be more effective for this setup. Furthermore, from the molecular dynamics simulations, we extracted the enthalpies and entropies, and along with the ITC data, this suggested that the differences in binding free energies...

  17. Expression and Purification of Functional Ligand-binding Domains of T1R3 Taste Receptors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nie,Y.; Hobbs, J.; Vigues, S.; Olson, W.; Conn, G.; Munger, S.

    2006-01-01

    Chemosensory receptors, including odor, taste, and vomeronasal receptors, comprise the largest group of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the mammalian genome. However, little is known about the molecular determinants that are critical for the detection and discrimination of ligands by most of these receptors. This dearth of understanding is due in part to difficulties in preparing functional receptors suitable for biochemical and biophysical analyses. Here we describe in detail two strategies for the expression and purification of the ligand-binding domain of T1R taste receptors, which are constituents of the sweet and umami taste receptors. These class C GPCRs contain a large extracellular N-terminal domain (NTD) that is the site of interaction with most ligands and that is amenable to expression as a separate polypeptide in heterologous cells. The NTD of mouse T1R3 was expressed as two distinct fusion proteins in Escherichia coli and purified by column chromatography. Spectroscopic analysis of the purified NTD proteins shows them to be properly folded and capable of binding ligands. This methodology should not only facilitate the characterization of T1R ligand interactions but may also be useful for dissecting the function of other class C GPCRs such as the large family of orphan V2R vomeronasal receptors.

  18. The ligand-binding profile of HARE: hyaluronan and chondroitin sulfates A, C, and D bind to overlapping sites distinct from the sites for heparin, acetylated low-density lipoprotein, dermatan sulfate, and CS-E.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harris, Edward N; Weigel, Paul H

    2008-08-01

    The hyaluronic acid receptor for endocytosis (HARE)/ Stabilin-2 is the primary systemic scavenger receptor for hyaluronan (HA), the chondroitin sulfates (CS), dermatan sulfate (DS), and nonglycosaminoglycan (GAG) ligands such as acetylated low-density lipoprotein (AcLDL), pro-collagen propeptides, and advanced glycation end products. We recently discovered that HARE is also a systemic scavenger receptor for heparin (Hep) (Harris EN, Weigel JA, Weigel PH. 2008. The human hyaluronan receptor for endocytosis [HARE/Stabilin-2] is a systemic clearance receptor for heparin. J Biol Chem. 283:17341-17350). Our goal was to map the binding sites of eight different ligands within HARE. We used biotinylated GAGs and radio-iodinated streptavidin or AcLDL to assess the binding activities of ligands directly or indirectly (by competition with unlabeled ligands) in endocytosis assays using stable cell lines expressing the 315 or 190 kDa HA receptor for endocytosis (315- or 190-HARE) isoforms, and ELISA-like assays, with purified recombinant soluble 190-HARE ecto-domain. For example, Hep binding to HARE was competed by DS, CS-E, AcLDL, and dextran sulfate, but not by other CS types, HA, dextran, or heparosan. (125)I-AcLDL binding to HARE was partially competed by Hep and dextran sulfate, but not competed by HA. Two ligands, DS and CS-E, competed with both Hep and HA to some degree. Hep and HA binding or endocytosis is mutually inclusive; binding of these two GAGs occurs with functionally separate, noncompetitive, and apparently noninteracting domains. Thus, HARE binds to HA and Hep simultaneously. Although the domain(s) responsible for Hep binding remains unknown, the Link domain was required for HARE binding to HA, CS-A, CS-C, and CS-D. These results enable us to outline, for the first time, a binding activity map for multiple ligands of HARE.

  19. Multiple ligand-binding modes in bacterial R67 dihydrofolate reductase

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alonso, Hernán; Gillies, Malcolm B.; Cummins, Peter L.; Bliznyuk, Andrey A.; Gready, Jill E.

    2005-03-01

    R67 dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), a bacterial plasmid-encoded enzyme associated with resistance to the drug trimethoprim, shows neither sequence nor structural homology with the chromosomal DHFR. It presents a highly symmetrical toroidal structure, where four identical monomers contribute to the unique central active-site pore. Two reactants (dihydrofolate, DHF), two cofactors (NADPH) or one of each (R67•DHF•NADPH) can be found simultaneously within the active site, the last one being the reactive ternary complex. As the positioning of the ligands has proven elusive to empirical determination, we addressed the problem from a theoretical perspective. Several potential structures of the ternary complex were generated using the docking programs AutoDock and FlexX. The variability among the final poses, many of which conformed to experimental data, prompted us to perform a comparative scoring analysis and molecular dynamics simulations to assess the stability of the complexes. Analysis of ligand-ligand and ligand-protein interactions along the 4 ns trajectories of eight different structures allowed us to identify important inter-ligand contacts and key protein residues. Our results, combined with published empirical data, clearly suggest that multipe binding modes of the ligands are possible within R67 DHFR. While the pterin ring of DHF and the nicotinamide ring of NADPH assume a stacked endo-conformation at the centre of the pore, probably assisted by V66, Q67 and I68, the tails of the molecules extend towards opposite ends of the cavity, adopting multiple configurations in a solvent rich-environment where hydrogen-bond interactions with K32 and Y69 may play important roles.

  20. Predicting Ligand Binding Sites on Protein Surfaces by 3-Dimensional Probability Density Distributions of Interacting Atoms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jian, Jhih-Wei; Elumalai, Pavadai; Pitti, Thejkiran; Wu, Chih Yuan; Tsai, Keng-Chang; Chang, Jeng-Yih; Peng, Hung-Pin; Yang, An-Suei

    2016-01-01

    Predicting ligand binding sites (LBSs) on protein structures, which are obtained either from experimental or computational methods, is a useful first step in functional annotation or structure-based drug design for the protein structures. In this work, the structure-based machine learning algorithm ISMBLab-LIG was developed to predict LBSs on protein surfaces with input attributes derived from the three-dimensional probability density maps of interacting atoms, which were reconstructed on the query protein surfaces and were relatively insensitive to local conformational variations of the tentative ligand binding sites. The prediction accuracy of the ISMBLab-LIG predictors is comparable to that of the best LBS predictors benchmarked on several well-established testing datasets. More importantly, the ISMBLab-LIG algorithm has substantial tolerance to the prediction uncertainties of computationally derived protein structure models. As such, the method is particularly useful for predicting LBSs not only on experimental protein structures without known LBS templates in the database but also on computationally predicted model protein structures with structural uncertainties in the tentative ligand binding sites. PMID:27513851

  1. L-Asp is a useful tool in the purification of the ionotropic glutamate receptor A2 ligand-binding domain

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Krintel, Christian; Frydenvang, Karla; Ceravalls de Rabassa, Anna

    2014-01-01

    In purification of the ionotropic glutamate receptor A2 (GluA2) ligand-binding domain (LBD), L-Glu supplemented buffers have previously been used for protein stabilization during the procedure. This sometimes hampers structural studies of low affinity ligands because L-Glu is difficult to displace...... crystallized as a mixed dimer with L-Glu present in one subunit while neither L-Asp nor L-Glu were found in the other subunit. Thus, residual L-Glu is still present from the expression. On the other hand, only L-Asp was found at the binding site when using 50 mM or 250 mM L-Asp for crystallization. The binding...... mode observed for L-Asp at the GluA2 LBD is very similar to that described for L-Glu. Taken together, we have shown that L-Asp can be used instead of L-Glu for ligand-dependent stabilization of the GluA2 LBD during purification. This will enable structural studies of low affinity ligands for lead...

  2. (-)PPAP: a new and selective ligand for sigma binding sites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glennon, R A; Battaglia, G; Smith, J D

    1990-11-01

    Most agents employed for the investigation of sigma (sigma) binding sites display relatively low affinity for these sites, bind both at sigma sites and at either phencyclidine (PCP) sites or dopamine receptors with similar affinity, and/or produce some dopaminergic activity in vivo. We describe a new agent, (-)PPAP or R(-)-N-(3-phenyl-n-propyl)-1-phenyl-2-aminopropane hydrochloride, that binds with high affinity and selectivity at sigma (IC50 = 24 nM) versus either PCP sites (IC50 greater than 75,000 nM) or D1 and D2 dopamine receptors (IC50 greater than 5,000 nM). The sigma affinity of this agent is comparable to that of the standard ligands (+)-3-PPP and DTG. Furthermore, although (-)PPAP is structurally related to amphetamine, it neither produces nor antagonizes amphetamine-like stimulus effect in rats trained to discriminate 1 mg/kg of S(+)amphetamine from saline.

  3. Role of solution conformation and flexibility of short peptide ligands that bind to the p56(lck) SH2 domain

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dekker, Frank J; de Mol, Nico J; Bultinck, Patrick; Kemmink, Johan; Hilbers, Hans W; Liskamp, Rob M J; Dekker, Frank

    2003-01-01

    A general approach in drug design is making ligands more rigid in order to avoid loss in conformational entropy (deltaS(conf)) upon receptor binding. We hypothesized that in the high affinity binding of pYEEI peptide ligands to the p56(lck) SH2 domain this loss in deltaS(conf) might be diminished

  4. Stable alterations of CD44 isoform expression in prostate cancer cells decrease invasion and growth and alter ligand binding and chemosensitivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, Kui; Tang, Yaqiong; Habermehl, Gabriel K; Iczkowski, Kenneth A

    2010-01-01

    Dysregulated CD44 expression characterizes most human cancers, including prostate cancer (PCa). PCa loses expression of CD44 standard (CD44s) that is present in benign epithelium, and overexpresses the novel splice variant isoform, CD44v7-10. Using retroviral gene delivery to PC-3M PCa cells, we expressed luciferase-only, enforced CD44s re-expression as a fusion protein with luciferase at its C-terminus or as a protein separate from luciferase, or knocked down CD44v7-10 by RNAi. Invasion, migration, proliferation, soft agar colony formation, adhesion, Docetaxel sensitivity, and xenograft growth assays were carried out. Expression responses of merlin, a CD44 binding partner, and growth-permissive phospho-merlin, were assessed by western blot. Compared to luciferase-only PC-3M cells, all three treatments reduced invasion and migration. Growth and soft agar colony formation were reduced only by re-expression of CD44s as a separate or fusion protein but not CD44v7-10 RNAi. Hyaluronan and osteopontin binding were greatly strengthened by CD44s expression as a separate protein, but not a fusion protein. CD44v7-10 RNAi in PC-3M cells caused marked sensitization to Docetaxel; the two CD44s re-expression approaches caused minimal sensitization. In limited numbers of mouse subcutaneous xenografts, all three alterations produced only nonsignificant trends toward slower growth compared with luciferase-only controls. The expression of CD44s as a separate protein, but not a fusion protein, caused emergence of a strongly-expressed, hypophosphorylated species of phospho-merlin. Stable re-expression of CD44s reduces PCa growth and invasion in vitro, and possibly in vivo, suggesting CD44 alterations have potential as gene therapy. When the C-terminus of CD44s is fused to another protein, most phenotypic effects are lessened, particularly hyaluronan adhesion. Finally, CD44v7-10, although it was not functionally significant for growth, may be a target for chemosensitization

  5. Dynamic factors affecting gaseous ligand binding in an artificial oxygen transport protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Lei; Andersen, Eskil M E; Khajo, Abdelahad; Magliozzo, Richard S; Koder, Ronald L

    2013-01-22

    We report the functional analysis of an artificial hexacoordinate oxygen transport protein, HP7, which operates via a mechanism similar to that of human neuroglobin and cytoglobin: the destabilization of one of two heme-ligating histidine residues. In the case of HP7, this is the result of the coupling of histidine side chain ligation with the burial of three charged glutamate residues on the same helix. Here we compare gaseous ligand binding, including rates, affinities, and oxyferrous state lifetimes, of both heme binding sites in HP7. We find that despite the identical sequence of helices in both binding sites, there are differences in oxygen affinity and oxyferrous state lifetime that may be the result of differences in the freedom of motion imposed by the candelabra fold on the two sites of the protein. We further examine the effect of mutational removal of the buried glutamates on function. Heme iron in the ferrous state of this mutant is rapidly oxidized when exposed to oxygen. Compared to that of HP7, the distal histidine affinity is increased by a 22-fold decrease in the histidine ligand off rate. Electron paramagnetic resonance comparison of these ferric hemoproteins demonstrates that the mutation increases the level of disorder at the heme binding site. Nuclear magnetic resonance-detected deuterium exchange demonstrates that the mutation greatly increases the degree of penetration of water into the protein core. The inability of the mutant protein to bind oxygen may be due to an increased level of water penetration, the large decrease in binding rate caused by the increase in distal histidine affinity, or a combination of the two factors. Together, these data underline the importance of the control of protein dynamics in the design of functional artificial proteins.

  6. Cloning, ligand-binding, and temporal expression of ecdysteroid receptors in the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tang Baozhen

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L. (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae, is a devastating pest of cruciferous crops worldwide, and has developed resistance to a wide range of insecticides, including diacylhydrazine-based ecdysone agonists, a highly selective group of molt-accelerating biopesticides targeting the ecdysone receptors. Result In this study, we cloned and characterized the ecdysone receptors from P. xylostella, including the two isoforms of EcR and a USP. Sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis showed striking conservations among insect ecdysone receptors, especially between P. xylostella and other lepidopterans. The binding affinity of ecdysteroids to in vitro-translated receptor proteins indicated that PxEcRB isoform bound specifically to ponasterone A, and the binding affinity was enhanced by co-incubation with PxUSP (Kd =3.0±1.7 nM. In contrast, PxEcRA did not bind to ponasterone A, even in the presence of PxUSP. The expression of PxEcRB were consistently higher than that of PxEcRA across each and every developmental stage, while the pattern of PxUSP expression is more or less ubiquitous. Conclusions Target site insensitivity, in which the altered binding of insecticides (ecdysone agonists to their targets (ecdysone receptors leads to an adaptive response (resistance, is one of the underlying mechanisms of diacylhydrazine resistance. Given the distinct differences at expression level and the ligand-binding capacity, we hypothesis that PxEcRB is the ecdysone receptor that controls the remodeling events during metamorphosis. More importantly, PxEcRB is the potential target site which is modified in the ecdysone agonist-resistant P. xylostella.

  7. Ligand size is a major determinant of specificity in periplasmic oxyanion-binding proteins: the 1.2 A resolution crystal structure of Azotobacter vinelandii ModA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawson, D M; Williams, C E; Mitchenall, L A; Pau, R N

    1998-12-15

    . Periplasmic receptors constitute a diverse class of binding proteins that differ widely in size, sequence and ligand specificity. Nevertheless, almost all of them display a common beta/alpha folding motif and have similar tertiary structures consisting of two globular domains. The ligand is bound at the bottom of a deep cleft, which lies at the interface between these two domains. The oxyanion-binding proteins are notable in that they can discriminate between very similar ligands. . Azotobacter vinelandii is unusual in that it possesses two periplasmic molybdate-binding proteins. The crystal structure of one of these with bound ligand has been determined at 1.2 A resolution. It superficially resembles the structure of sulphate-binding protein (SBP) from Salmonella typhimurium and uses a similar constellation of hydrogen-bonding interactions to bind its ligand. However, the detailed interactions are distinct from those of SBP and the more closely related molybdate-binding protein of Escherichia coli. . Despite differences in the residues involved in binding, the volumes of the binding pockets in the A. vinelandii and E. coli molybdate-binding proteins are similar and are significantly larger than that of SBP. We conclude that the discrimination between molybdate and sulphate shown by these binding proteins is largely dependent upon small differences in the sizes of these two oxyanions.

  8. Evaluation of several two-step scoring functions based on linear interaction energy, effective ligand size, and empirical pair potentials for prediction of protein-ligand binding geometry and free energy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahaman, Obaidur; Estrada, Trilce P; Doren, Douglas J; Taufer, Michela; Brooks, Charles L; Armen, Roger S

    2011-09-26

    The performances of several two-step scoring approaches for molecular docking were assessed for their ability to predict binding geometries and free energies. Two new scoring functions designed for "step 2 discrimination" were proposed and compared to our CHARMM implementation of the linear interaction energy (LIE) approach using the Generalized-Born with Molecular Volume (GBMV) implicit solvation model. A scoring function S1 was proposed by considering only "interacting" ligand atoms as the "effective size" of the ligand and extended to an empirical regression-based pair potential S2. The S1 and S2 scoring schemes were trained and 5-fold cross-validated on a diverse set of 259 protein-ligand complexes from the Ligand Protein Database (LPDB). The regression-based parameters for S1 and S2 also demonstrated reasonable transferability in the CSARdock 2010 benchmark using a new data set (NRC HiQ) of diverse protein-ligand complexes. The ability of the scoring functions to accurately predict ligand geometry was evaluated by calculating the discriminative power (DP) of the scoring functions to identify native poses. The parameters for the LIE scoring function with the optimal discriminative power (DP) for geometry (step 1 discrimination) were found to be very similar to the best-fit parameters for binding free energy over a large number of protein-ligand complexes (step 2 discrimination). Reasonable performance of the scoring functions in enrichment of active compounds in four different protein target classes established that the parameters for S1 and S2 provided reasonable accuracy and transferability. Additional analysis was performed to definitively separate scoring function performance from molecular weight effects. This analysis included the prediction of ligand binding efficiencies for a subset of the CSARdock NRC HiQ data set where the number of ligand heavy atoms ranged from 17 to 35. This range of ligand heavy atoms is where improved accuracy of predicted ligand

  9. Insights into an original pocket-ligand pair classification: a promising tool for ligand profile prediction.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stéphanie Pérot

    Full Text Available Pockets are today at the cornerstones of modern drug discovery projects and at the crossroad of several research fields, from structural biology to mathematical modeling. Being able to predict if a small molecule could bind to one or more protein targets or if a protein could bind to some given ligands is very useful for drug discovery endeavors, anticipation of binding to off- and anti-targets. To date, several studies explore such questions from chemogenomic approach to reverse docking methods. Most of these studies have been performed either from the viewpoint of ligands or targets. However it seems valuable to use information from both ligands and target binding pockets. Hence, we present a multivariate approach relating ligand properties with protein pocket properties from the analysis of known ligand-protein interactions. We explored and optimized the pocket-ligand pair space by combining pocket and ligand descriptors using Principal Component Analysis and developed a classification engine on this paired space, revealing five main clusters of pocket-ligand pairs sharing specific and similar structural or physico-chemical properties. These pocket-ligand pair clusters highlight correspondences between pocket and ligand topological and physico-chemical properties and capture relevant information with respect to protein-ligand interactions. Based on these pocket-ligand correspondences, a protocol of prediction of clusters sharing similarity in terms of recognition characteristics is developed for a given pocket-ligand complex and gives high performances. It is then extended to cluster prediction for a given pocket in order to acquire knowledge about its expected ligand profile or to cluster prediction for a given ligand in order to acquire knowledge about its expected pocket profile. This prediction approach shows promising results and could contribute to predict some ligand properties critical for binding to a given pocket, and conversely

  10. Insights into an original pocket-ligand pair classification: a promising tool for ligand profile prediction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pérot, Stéphanie; Regad, Leslie; Reynès, Christelle; Spérandio, Olivier; Miteva, Maria A; Villoutreix, Bruno O; Camproux, Anne-Claude

    2013-01-01

    Pockets are today at the cornerstones of modern drug discovery projects and at the crossroad of several research fields, from structural biology to mathematical modeling. Being able to predict if a small molecule could bind to one or more protein targets or if a protein could bind to some given ligands is very useful for drug discovery endeavors, anticipation of binding to off- and anti-targets. To date, several studies explore such questions from chemogenomic approach to reverse docking methods. Most of these studies have been performed either from the viewpoint of ligands or targets. However it seems valuable to use information from both ligands and target binding pockets. Hence, we present a multivariate approach relating ligand properties with protein pocket properties from the analysis of known ligand-protein interactions. We explored and optimized the pocket-ligand pair space by combining pocket and ligand descriptors using Principal Component Analysis and developed a classification engine on this paired space, revealing five main clusters of pocket-ligand pairs sharing specific and similar structural or physico-chemical properties. These pocket-ligand pair clusters highlight correspondences between pocket and ligand topological and physico-chemical properties and capture relevant information with respect to protein-ligand interactions. Based on these pocket-ligand correspondences, a protocol of prediction of clusters sharing similarity in terms of recognition characteristics is developed for a given pocket-ligand complex and gives high performances. It is then extended to cluster prediction for a given pocket in order to acquire knowledge about its expected ligand profile or to cluster prediction for a given ligand in order to acquire knowledge about its expected pocket profile. This prediction approach shows promising results and could contribute to predict some ligand properties critical for binding to a given pocket, and conversely, some key pocket

  11. Binding constants of membrane-anchored receptors and ligands: A general theory corroborated by Monte Carlo simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Guang-Kui; Hu, Jinglei; Lipowsky, Reinhard; Weikl, Thomas R

    2015-12-28

    Adhesion processes of biological membranes that enclose cells and cellular organelles are essential for immune responses, tissue formation, and signaling. These processes depend sensitively on the binding constant K2D of the membrane-anchored receptor and ligand proteins that mediate adhesion, which is difficult to measure in the "two-dimensional" (2D) membrane environment of the proteins. An important problem therefore is to relate K2D to the binding constant K3D of soluble variants of the receptors and ligands that lack the membrane anchors and are free to diffuse in three dimensions (3D). In this article, we present a general theory for the binding constants K2D and K3D of rather stiff proteins whose main degrees of freedom are translation and rotation, along membranes and around anchor points "in 2D," or unconstrained "in 3D." The theory generalizes previous results by describing how K2D depends both on the average separation and thermal nanoscale roughness of the apposing membranes, and on the length and anchoring flexibility of the receptors and ligands. Our theoretical results for the ratio K2D/K3D of the binding constants agree with detailed results from Monte Carlo simulations without any data fitting, which indicates that the theory captures the essential features of the "dimensionality reduction" due to membrane anchoring. In our Monte Carlo simulations, we consider a novel coarse-grained model of biomembrane adhesion in which the membranes are represented as discretized elastic surfaces, and the receptors and ligands as anchored molecules that diffuse continuously along the membranes and rotate at their anchor points.

  12. Nanodisc-Targeted STD NMR Spectroscopy Reveals Atomic Details of Ligand Binding to Lipid Environments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muñoz-García, Juan C; Inacio Dos Reis, Rosana; Taylor, Richard J; Henry, Alistair J; Watts, Anthony

    2018-05-18

    Saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR spectroscopy is one of the most popular ligand-based NMR techniques for the study of protein-ligand interactions. This is due to its robustness and the fact that it is focused on the signals of the ligand, without any need for NMR information on the macromolecular target. This technique is most commonly applied to systems involving different types of ligands (e.g., small organic molecules, carbohydrates or lipids) and a protein as the target, in which the latter is selectively saturated. However, only a few examples have been reported where membrane mimetics are the macromolecular binding partners. Here, we have employed STD NMR spectroscopy to investigate the interactions of the neurotransmitter dopamine with mimetics of lipid bilayers, such as nanodiscs, by saturation of the latter. In particular, the interactions between dopamine and model lipid nanodiscs formed either from charged or zwitterionic lipids have been resolved at the atomic level. The results, in agreement with previous isothermal titration calorimetry studies, show that dopamine preferentially binds to negatively charged model membranes, but also provide detailed atomic insights into the mode of interaction of dopamine with membrane mimetics. Our findings provide relevant structural information for the design of lipid-based drug carriers of dopamine and its structural analogues and are of general applicability to other systems. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  13. Binding equilibrium and kinetics of membrane-anchored receptors and ligands in cell adhesion: Insights from computational model systems and theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weikl, Thomas R.; Hu, Jinglei; Xu, Guang-Kui; Lipowsky, Reinhard

    2016-01-01

    ABSTRACT The adhesion of cell membranes is mediated by the binding of membrane-anchored receptor and ligand proteins. In this article, we review recent results from simulations and theory that lead to novel insights on how the binding equilibrium and kinetics of these proteins is affected by the membranes and by the membrane anchoring and molecular properties of the proteins. Simulations and theory both indicate that the binding equilibrium constant K2D and the on- and off-rate constants of anchored receptors and ligands in their 2-dimensional (2D) membrane environment strongly depend on the membrane roughness from thermally excited shape fluctuations on nanoscales. Recent theory corroborated by simulations provides a general relation between K2D and the binding constant K3D of soluble variants of the receptors and ligands that lack the membrane anchors and are free to diffuse in 3 dimensions (3D). PMID:27294442

  14. Protein flexibility and ligand rigidity : a thermodynamic and kinetic study of ITAM-based ligand binding to Syk tandem SH2

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Mol, Nico J; Catalina, M Isabel; Dekker, Frank J; Fischer, Marcel J E; Heck, Albert J R; Liskamp, Rob M J; Dekker, Frank

    2005-01-01

    The Syk tandem Src homology 2 domain (Syk tSH2) constitutes a flexible protein module involved in the regulation of Syk kinase activity. The Syk tSH2 domain is assumed to function by adapting the distance between its two SH2 domains upon bivalent binding to diphosphotyrosine ligands. A thermodynamic

  15. Ligand and membrane-binding behavior of the phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins PITPα and PITPβ.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baptist, Matilda; Panagabko, Candace; Cockcroft, Shamshad; Atkinson, Jeffrey

    2016-12-01

    Phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins (PITPs) are believed to be lipid transfer proteins because of their ability to transfer either phosphatidylinositol (PI) or phosphatidylcholine (PC) between membrane compartments, in vitro. However, the detailed mechanism of this transfer process is not fully established. To further understand the transfer mechanism of PITPs we examined the interaction of PITPs with membranes using dual polarization interferometry (DPI), which measures protein binding affinity on a flat immobilized lipid surface. In addition, a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based assay was also employed to monitor how quickly PITPs transfer their ligands to lipid vesicles. DPI analysis revealed that PITPβ had a higher affinity to membranes compared with PITPα. Furthermore, the FRET-based transfer assay revealed that PITPβ has a higher ligand transfer rate compared with PITPα. However, both PITPα and PITPβ demonstrated a preference for highly curved membrane surfaces during ligand transfer. In other words, ligand transfer rate was higher when the accepting vesicles were highly curved.

  16. Unique structure and dynamics of the EphA5 ligand binding domain mediate its binding specificity as revealed by X-ray crystallography, NMR and MD simulations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xuelu Huan

    Full Text Available The 16 EphA and EphB receptors represent the largest family of receptor tyrosine kinases, and their interactions with 9 ephrin-A and ephrin-B ligands initiate bidirectional signals controlling many physiological and pathological processes. Most interactions occur between receptor and ephrins of the same class, and only EphA4 can bind all A and B ephrins. To understand the structural and dynamic principles that enable Eph receptors to utilize the same jellyroll β-sandwich fold to bind ephrins, the VAPB-MSP domain, peptides and small molecules, we have used crystallography, NMR and molecular dynamics (MD simulations to determine the first structure and dynamics of the EphA5 ligand-binding domain (LBD, which only binds ephrin-A ligands. Unexpectedly, despite being unbound, the high affinity ephrin-binding pocket of EphA5 resembles that of other Eph receptors bound to ephrins, with a helical conformation over the J-K loop and an open pocket. The openness of the pocket is further supported by NMR hydrogen/deuterium exchange data and MD simulations. Additionally, the EphA5 LBD undergoes significant picosecond-nanosecond conformational exchanges over the loops, as revealed by NMR and MD simulations, but lacks global conformational exchanges on the microsecond-millisecond time scale. This is markedly different from the EphA4 LBD, which shares 74% sequence identity and 87% homology. Consequently, the unbound EphA5 LBD appears to comprise an ensemble of open conformations that have only small variations over the loops and appear ready to bind ephrin-A ligands. These findings show how two proteins with high sequence homology and structural similarity are still able to achieve distinctive binding specificities through different dynamics, which may represent a general mechanism whereby the same protein fold can serve for different functions. Our findings also suggest that a promising strategy to design agonists/antagonists with high affinity and selectivity

  17. Evaluation of DNA binding, DNA cleavage, protein binding, radical scavenging and in vitro cytotoxic activities of ruthenium(II) complexes containing 2,4-dihydroxy benzylidene ligands

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mohanraj, Maruthachalam; Ayyannan, Ganesan; Raja, Gunasekaran; Jayabalakrishnan, Chinnasamy, E-mail: drcjbstar@gmail.com

    2016-12-01

    The new ruthenium(II) complexes with hydrazone ligands, 4-Methyl-benzoic acid (2,4-dihydroxy-benzylidene)-hydrazide (HL{sup 1}), 4-Methoxy-benzoic acid (2,4-dihydroxy-benzylidene)-hydrazide (HL{sup 2}), 4-Bromo-benzoic acid (2,4-dihydroxy-benzylidene)-hydrazide (HL{sup 3}), were synthesized and characterized by various spectro analytical techniques. The molecular structures of the ligands were confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. The DNA binding studies of the ligands and complexes were examined by absorption, fluorescence, viscosity and cyclic voltammetry methods. The results indicated that the ligands and complexes could interact with calf thymus DNA (CT-DNA) through intercalation. The DNA cleavage activity of the complexes was evaluated by gel electrophoresis assay, which revealed that the complexes are good DNA cleaving agents. The binding interaction of the ligands and complexes with bovine serum albumin (BSA) was investigated using fluorescence spectroscopic method. Antioxidant studies showed that the complexes have a strong radical scavenging properties. Further, the cytotoxic effect of the complexes examined on cancerous cell lines showed that the complexes exhibit significant anticancer activity. - Highlights: • Synthesis of ruthenium(II) hydrazone complexes • Molecular structure of the ligands was elucidated by single crystal X-ray diffraction method. • The ligands and complexes interact with CT-DNA via intercalation. • The complexes possess significant antioxidant activity against DPPH, OH and NO radicals. • The complex 6 shows higher IC{sub 50} value than the other complexes against cancer cells.

  18. LIGSITEcsc: predicting ligand binding sites using the Connolly surface and degree of conservation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Schroeder Michael

    2006-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Identifying pockets on protein surfaces is of great importance for many structure-based drug design applications and protein-ligand docking algorithms. Over the last ten years, many geometric methods for the prediction of ligand-binding sites have been developed. Results We present LIGSITEcsc, an extension and implementation of the LIGSITE algorithm. LIGSITEcsc is based on the notion of surface-solvent-surface events and the degree of conservation of the involved surface residues. We compare our algorithm to four other approaches, LIGSITE, CAST, PASS, and SURFNET, and evaluate all on a dataset of 48 unbound/bound structures and 210 bound-structures. LIGSITEcsc performs slightly better than the other tools and achieves a success rate of 71% and 75%, respectively. Conclusion The use of the Connolly surface leads to slight improvements, the prediction re-ranking by conservation to significant improvements of the binding site predictions. A web server for LIGSITEcsc and its source code is available at scoppi.biotec.tu-dresden.de/pocket.

  19. The thermodynamic signature of ligand binding to histone deacetylase-like amidohydrolases is most sensitive to the flexibility in the L2-loop lining the active site pocket.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meyners, Christian; Krämer, Andreas; Yildiz, Özkan; Meyer-Almes, Franz-Josef

    2017-07-01

    The analysis of the thermodynamic driving forces of ligand-protein binding has been suggested to be a key component for the selection and optimization of active compounds into drug candidates. The binding enthalpy as deduced from isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) is usually interpreted assuming single-step binding of a ligand to one conformation of the target protein. Although successful in many cases, these assumptions are oversimplified approximations of the reality with flexible proteins and complicated binding mechanism in many if not most cases. The relationship between protein flexibility and thermodynamic signature of ligand binding is largely understudied. Directed mutagenesis, X-ray crystallography, enzyme kinetics and ITC methods were combined to dissect the influence of loop flexibility on the thermodynamics and mechanism of ligand binding to histone deacetylase (HDAC)-like amidohydrolases. The general ligand-protein binding mechanism comprises an energetically demanding gate opening step followed by physical binding. Increased flexibility of the L2-loop in HDAC-like amidohydrolases facilitates access of ligands to the binding pocket resulting in predominantly enthalpy-driven complex formation. The study provides evidence for the great importance of flexibility adjacent to the active site channel for the mechanism and observed thermodynamic driving forces of molecular recognition in HDAC like enzymes. The flexibility or malleability in regions adjacent to binding pockets should be given more attention when designing better drug candidates. The presented case study also suggests that the observed binding enthalpy of protein-ligand systems should be interpreted with caution, since more complicated binding mechanisms may obscure the significance regarding potential drug likeness. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Coupling ligand recognition to protein folding in an engineered variant of rabbit ileal lipid binding protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kouvatsos, Nikolaos; Meldrum, Jill K; Searle, Mark S; Thomas, Neil R

    2006-11-28

    We have engineered a variant of the beta-clam shell protein ILBP which lacks the alpha-helical motif that caps the central binding cavity; the mutant protein is sufficiently destabilised that it is unfolded under physiological conditions, however, it unexpectedly binds its natural bile acid substrates with high affinity forming a native-like beta-sheet rich structure and demonstrating strong thermodynamic coupling between ligand binding and protein folding.

  1. Crystal structures of the ligand-binding region of uPARAP

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yuan, Cai; Jürgensen, Henrik J; Engelholm, Lars H

    2016-01-01

    The proteins of the mannose receptor (MR) family share a common domain organization and have a broad range of biological functions. Urokinase plasminogen activator receptor-associated protein (uPARAP) (or Endo180) is a member of this family and plays an important role in extracellular matrix...... remodelling through interaction with its ligands, including collagens and urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR). We report the crystal structures of the first four domains of uPARAP (also named the ligand-binding region, LBR) at pH 7.4 in Ca(2+)-bound and Ca(2+)-free forms. The first domain....... These LLRs undergo a Ca(2+)-dependent conformational change, and this is likely to be the key structural determinant affecting the overall conformation of uPARAP. Our results provide a molecular mechanism to support the structural flexibility of uPARAP, and shed light on the structural flexibility of other...

  2. Foreign or Domestic CARs: Receptor Ligands as Antigen-Binding Domains

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Donald R. Shaffer

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs are increasingly being used in clinical trials to treat a variety of malignant conditions and recent results with CD19-specific CARs showing complete tumor regressions has sparked the interest of researchers and the public alike. Traditional CARs have been generated using single-chain variable fragments (scFv, often derived from murine monoclonal antibodies, for antigen specificity. As the clinical experience with CAR T cells grows, so does the potential for unwanted immune responses against the foreign transgene. Strategies that may reduce the immunogenicity of CAR T cells are humanization of the scFv and the use of naturally occurring receptor ligands as antigen-binding domains. Herein, we review the experience with alternatively designed CARs that contain receptor ligands rather than scFv. While most of the experiences have been in the pre-clinical setting, clinical data is also emerging.

  3. A highly tilted binding mode by a self-reactive T cell receptor results in altered engagement of peptide and MHC

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sethi, D.K.; Heroux, A.; Schubert, D. A.; Anders, A.-K.; Bonsor, D. A.; Thomas, C. P.; Sundberg, E. J.; Pyrdol, J.; Wucherpfennig, K. W.

    2011-01-17

    Self-reactive T cells that escape elimination in the thymus can cause autoimmune pathology, and it is therefore important to understand the structural mechanisms of self-antigen recognition. We report the crystal structure of a T cell receptor (TCR) from a patient with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis that engages its self-peptide-major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) ligand in an unusual manner. The TCR is bound in a highly tilted orientation that prevents interaction of the TCR-{alpha} chain with the MHC class II {beta} chain helix. In this structure, only a single germline-encoded TCR loop engages the MHC protein, whereas in most other TCR-pMHC structures all four germline-encoded TCR loops bind to the MHC helices. The tilted binding mode also prevents peptide contacts by the short complementarity-determining region (CDR) 3{beta} loop, and interactions that contribute to peptide side chain specificity are focused on the CDR3{alpha} loop. This structure is the first example in which only a single germline-encoded TCR loop contacts the MHC helices. Furthermore, the reduced interaction surface with the peptide may facilitate TCR cross-reactivity. The structural alterations in the trimolecular complex are distinct from previously characterized self-reactive TCRs, indicating that there are multiple unusual ways for self-reactive TCRs to bind their pMHC ligand.

  4. A Highly Tilted Binding Mode by a Self-Reactive T Cell Receptor Results in Altered Engagement of Peptide and MHC

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    D Sethi; D Schubert; A Anders; A Heroux; D Bonsor; C Thomas; E Sundberg; J Pyrdol; K Wucherpfennig

    2011-12-31

    Self-reactive T cells that escape elimination in the thymus can cause autoimmune pathology, and it is therefore important to understand the structural mechanisms of self-antigen recognition. We report the crystal structure of a T cell receptor (TCR) from a patient with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis that engages its self-peptide-major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) ligand in an unusual manner. The TCR is bound in a highly tilted orientation that prevents interaction of the TCR-{alpha} chain with the MHC class II {beta} chain helix. In this structure, only a single germline-encoded TCR loop engages the MHC protein, whereas in most other TCR-pMHC structures all four germline-encoded TCR loops bind to the MHC helices. The tilted binding mode also prevents peptide contacts by the short complementarity-determining region (CDR) 3{beta} loop, and interactions that contribute to peptide side chain specificity are focused on the CDR3{alpha} loop. This structure is the first example in which only a single germline-encoded TCR loop contacts the MHC helices. Furthermore, the reduced interaction surface with the peptide may facilitate TCR cross-reactivity. The structural alterations in the trimolecular complex are distinct from previously characterized self-reactive TCRs, indicating that there are multiple unusual ways for self-reactive TCRs to bind their pMHC ligand.

  5. A magnetic bead-based ligand binding assay to facilitate human kynurenine 3-monooxygenase drug discovery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Kris; Mole, Damian J; Homer, Natalie Z M; Iredale, John P; Auer, Manfred; Webster, Scott P

    2015-02-01

    Human kynurenine 3-monooxygenase (KMO) is emerging as an important drug target enzyme in a number of inflammatory and neurodegenerative disease states. Recombinant protein production of KMO, and therefore discovery of KMO ligands, is challenging due to a large membrane targeting domain at the C-terminus of the enzyme that causes stability, solubility, and purification difficulties. The purpose of our investigation was to develop a suitable screening method for targeting human KMO and other similarly challenging drug targets. Here, we report the development of a magnetic bead-based binding assay using mass spectrometry detection for human KMO protein. The assay incorporates isolation of FLAG-tagged KMO enzyme on protein A magnetic beads. The protein-bound beads are incubated with potential binding compounds before specific cleavage of the protein-compound complexes from the beads. Mass spectrometry analysis is used to identify the compounds that demonstrate specific binding affinity for the target protein. The technique was validated using known inhibitors of KMO. This assay is a robust alternative to traditional ligand-binding assays for challenging protein targets, and it overcomes specific difficulties associated with isolating human KMO. © 2014 Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening.

  6. Simple Ligand-Receptor Interaction Descriptor (SILIRID) for alignment-free binding site comparison.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chupakhin, Vladimir; Marcou, Gilles; Gaspar, Helena; Varnek, Alexandre

    2014-06-01

    We describe SILIRID (Simple Ligand-Receptor Interaction Descriptor), a novel fixed size descriptor characterizing protein-ligand interactions. SILIRID can be obtained from the binary interaction fingerprints (IFPs) by summing up the bits corresponding to identical amino acids. This results in a vector of 168 integer numbers corresponding to the product of the number of entries (20 amino acids and one cofactor) and 8 interaction types per amino acid (hydrophobic, aromatic face to face, aromatic edge to face, H-bond donated by the protein, H-bond donated by the ligand, ionic bond with protein cation and protein anion, and interaction with metal ion). Efficiency of SILIRID to distinguish different protein binding sites has been examined in similarity search in sc-PDB database, a druggable portion of the Protein Data Bank, using various protein-ligand complexes as queries. The performance of retrieval of structurally and evolutionary related classes of proteins was comparable to that of state-of-the-art approaches (ROC AUC ≈ 0.91). SILIRID can efficiently be used to visualize chemogenomic space covered by sc-PDB using Generative Topographic Mapping (GTM): sc-PDB SILIRID data form clusters corresponding to different protein types.

  7. Application of CE-ICP-MS and CE-ESI-MS/MS for identification of Zn-binding ligands in Goji berries extracts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruzik, Lena; Kwiatkowski, Piotr

    2018-06-01

    The identification of groups of ligands binding metals is a crucial issue for the better understanding of their bioaccessibility. In the current study, we have intended an approach for identification of Zn-binding ligands based on using capillary electrophoresis combined with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (CE-ICP-MS) and tandem electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (CE-ESI-MS/MS). The approach, which featured the use of the coupling of capillary electrophoresis with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry allows to separate and observe zinc ions present in complexes with respect to their size and charge and to identify nine compounds with zinc isotopic profile. CE-ICP-MS provides us with information about presence of zinc species and elemental information about zinc distribution. CE-ESI-MS/MS provide us with information about the most favorable Zn binding ligands: amino acids, flavonols, stilbenoids, fenolic acids and carotenoids. The presented work is the continuation of previous studies based on using LC-ESI-MS/MS, though, now we presented a new solutions with the possibility of changing detectors without changing the separation techniques, what is important without re-optimizing the method. The new presented method allows to identify the zinc-binding ligands in shorter time. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. Molecular characterization of the haptoglobin.hemoglobin receptor CD163. Ligand binding properties of the scavenger receptor cysteine-rich domain region

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Madsen, Mette; Møller, Holger J; Nielsen, Marianne Jensby

    2004-01-01

    CD163 is the macrophage receptor for endocytosis of haptoglobin.hemoglobin complexes. The extracellular region consisting of nine scavenger receptor cysteine rich (SRCR) domains also circulates in plasma as a soluble protein. By ligand binding analysis of a broad spectrum of soluble CD163...... truncation variants, the amino-terminal third of the SRCR region was shown to be crucial for the binding of haptoglobin.hemoglobin complexes. By Western blotting of the CD163 variants, a panel of ten monoclonal antibodies was mapped to SRCR domains 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9, respectively. Only the two antibodies...... to CD163 demonstrated that optimal ligand binding requires physiological plasma calcium concentrations, and an immediate ligand release occurs at the low calcium concentrations measured in acidifying endosomes. In conclusion, SRCR domain 3 of CD163 is an exposed domain and a critical determinant...

  9. Application of high resolution NMR, ESR, and gamma-ray scintillation spectroscopy to the study of ligand binding in proteins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lancione, G.V.

    1982-01-01

    Electron spin resonance spectroscopy has been employed to study the nature of the ligand binding site of alpha-1-antitrypsin. Spectra of spin-labeled alpha-1-antitrypsin were recorded at pH's ranging from 2.4 to 12.5. This data demonstrates the tight binding of the spin-label to the protease, and the sensitivity of the bound spin-label to informational changes in the protease inhibitor. A molecular dipstick approach has also been applied to this system and has yielded information on the geometry of the cleft accommodating the spin-label. 160 Terbium(III) exchange experiments have been performed on the acetylcholine receptor protein isolated from Torpedo californica, employing a specially designed flow dialysis apparatus constructed in the laboratory. The apparatus is designed to allow continuous monitoring of 160 Tb(III) gamma-ray emission from the protein compartment of the flow dialysis cell. Nicotinic ligand-induced displacement of 160 Tb(III) from the nicotinic binding site of the receptor was monitored as a funtion of (1) the concentration of nicotinic ligand in the washout buffer, and (2) the nature of the nicotinic ligand in the buffer. Measured 160 Tb(III) exchange half-lives indicate (1) a direct relationship between 160 Tb(III) displacement and nicotinic ligand concentration in the wash-out buffer, and (2) an enhanced 160 Tb(III) displacement for nicotinic agents possessing quaternary ammonium functions

  10. Effects of Mutations and Ligands on the Thermostability of the l-Arginine/Agmatine Antiporter AdiC and Deduced Insights into Ligand-Binding of Human l-Type Amino Acid Transporters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hüseyin Ilgü

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The l-arginine/agmatine transporter AdiC is a prokaryotic member of the SLC7 family, which enables pathogenic enterobacteria to survive the extremely acidic gastric environment. Wild-type AdiC from Escherichia coli, as well as its previously reported point mutants N22A and S26A, were overexpressed homologously and purified to homogeneity. A size-exclusion chromatography-based thermostability assay was used to determine the melting temperatures (Tms of the purified AdiC variants in the absence and presence of the selected ligands l-arginine (Arg, agmatine, l-arginine methyl ester, and l-arginine amide. The resulting Tms indicated stabilization of AdiC variants upon ligand binding, in which Tms and ligand binding affinities correlated positively. Considering results from this and previous studies, we revisited the role of AdiC residue S26 in Arg binding and proposed interactions of the α-carboxylate group of Arg exclusively with amide groups of the AdiC backbone. In the context of substrate binding in the human SLC7 family member l-type amino acid transporter-1 (LAT1; SLC7A5, an analogous role of S66 in LAT1 to S26 in AdiC is discussed based on homology modeling and amino acid sequence analysis. Finally, we propose a binding mechanism for l-amino acid substrates to LATs from the SLC7 family.

  11. Modelling the interdependence between the stoichiometry of receptor oligomerization and ligand binding for a coexisting dimer/tetramer receptor system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rovira, X; Vivó, M; Serra, J; Roche, D; Strange, P G; Giraldo, J

    2009-01-01

    Many G protein-coupled receptors have been shown to exist as oligomers, but the oligomerization state and the effects of this on receptor function are unclear. For some G protein-coupled receptors, in ligand binding assays, different radioligands provide different maximal binding capacities. Here we have developed mathematical models for co-expressed dimeric and tetrameric species of receptors. We have considered models where the dimers and tetramers are in equilibrium and where they do not interconvert and we have also considered the potential influence of the ligands on the degree of oligomerization. By analogy with agonist efficacy, we have considered ligands that promote, inhibit or have no effect on oligomerization. Cell surface receptor expression and the intrinsic capacity of receptors to oligomerize are quantitative parameters of the equations. The models can account for differences in the maximal binding capacities of radioligands in different preparations of receptors and provide a conceptual framework for simulation and data fitting in complex oligomeric receptor situations.

  12. Monovalent cation and amiloride analog modulation of adrenergic ligand binding to the unglycosylated alpha 2B-adrenergic receptor subtype

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wilson, A.L.; Seibert, K.; Brandon, S.; Cragoe, E.J. Jr.; Limbird, L.E.

    1991-01-01

    The unglycosylated alpha 2B subtype of the alpha 2-adrenergic receptor found in NG-108-15 cells possesses allosteric regulation of adrenergic ligand binding by monovalent cations and 5-amino-substituted amiloride analogs. These findings demonstrate that allosteric modulation of adrenergic ligand binding is not a property unique to the alpha 2A subtype. The observation that amiloride analogs as well as monovalent cations can modulate adrenergic ligand binding to the nonglycosylated alpha 2B subtype indicates that charge shielding due to carbohydrate moieties does not play a role in this allosteric modulation but, rather, these regulatory effects result from interactions of cations and amiloride analogs with the protein moiety of the receptor. Furthermore, the observation that both alpha 2A and alpha 2B receptor subtypes are modulated by amiloride analogs suggests that structural domains that are conserved between the two are likely to be involved in this allosteric modulation

  13. CavityPlus: a web server for protein cavity detection with pharmacophore modelling, allosteric site identification and covalent ligand binding ability prediction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Youjun; Wang, Shiwei; Hu, Qiwan; Gao, Shuaishi; Ma, Xiaomin; Zhang, Weilin; Shen, Yihang; Chen, Fangjin; Lai, Luhua; Pei, Jianfeng

    2018-05-10

    CavityPlus is a web server that offers protein cavity detection and various functional analyses. Using protein three-dimensional structural information as the input, CavityPlus applies CAVITY to detect potential binding sites on the surface of a given protein structure and rank them based on ligandability and druggability scores. These potential binding sites can be further analysed using three submodules, CavPharmer, CorrSite, and CovCys. CavPharmer uses a receptor-based pharmacophore modelling program, Pocket, to automatically extract pharmacophore features within cavities. CorrSite identifies potential allosteric ligand-binding sites based on motion correlation analyses between cavities. CovCys automatically detects druggable cysteine residues, which is especially useful to identify novel binding sites for designing covalent allosteric ligands. Overall, CavityPlus provides an integrated platform for analysing comprehensive properties of protein binding cavities. Such analyses are useful for many aspects of drug design and discovery, including target selection and identification, virtual screening, de novo drug design, and allosteric and covalent-binding drug design. The CavityPlus web server is freely available at http://repharma.pku.edu.cn/cavityplus or http://www.pkumdl.cn/cavityplus.

  14. Insights on Structural Characteristics and Ligand Binding Mechanisms of CDK2

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yan Li

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2 is a crucial regulator of the eukaryotic cell cycle. However it is well established that monomeric CDK2 lacks regulatory activity, which needs to be aroused by its positive regulators, cyclins E and A, or be phosphorylated on the catalytic segment. Interestingly, these activation steps bring some dynamic changes on the 3D-structure of the kinase, especially the activation segment. Until now, in the monomeric CDK2 structure, three binding sites have been reported, including the adenosine triphosphate (ATP binding site (Site I and two non-competitive binding sites (Site II and III. In addition, when the kinase is subjected to the cyclin binding process, the resulting structural changes give rise to a variation of the ATP binding site, thus generating an allosteric binding site (Site IV. All the four sites are demonstrated as being targeted by corresponding inhibitors, as is illustrated by the allosteric binding one which is targeted by inhibitor ANS (fluorophore 8-anilino-1-naphthalene sulfonate. In the present work, the binding mechanisms and their fluctuations during the activation process attract our attention. Therefore, we carry out corresponding studies on the structural characterization of CDK2, which are expected to facilitate the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of kinase proteins. Besides, the binding mechanisms of CDK2 with its relevant inhibitors, as well as the changes of binding mechanisms following conformational variations of CDK2, are summarized and compared. The summary of the conformational characteristics and ligand binding mechanisms of CDK2 in the present work will improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms regulating the bioactivities of CDK2.

  15. THERMODYNAMICS OF PROTEIN-LIGAND INTERACTIONS AND THEIR ANALYSIS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rummi Devi Saini

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Physiological processes are controlled mainly by intermolecular recognition mechanisms which involve protein–protein and protein–ligand interactions with a high specificity and affinity to form a specific complex. Proteins being an important class of macromolecules in biological systems, it is important to understand their actions through binding to other molecules of proteins or ligands. In fact, the binding of low molecular weight ligands to proteins plays a significant role in regulating biological processes such as cellular metabolism and signal transmission. Therefore knowledge of the protein–ligand interactions and the knowledge of the mechanisms involved in the protein-ligand recognition and binding are key in understanding biology at molecular level which will facilitate the discovery, design, and development of drugs. In this review, the mechanisms involved in protein–ligand binding, the binding kinetics, thermodynamic concepts and binding driving forces are discussed. Thermodynamic mechanisms involved in a few important protein-ligand binding are described. Various spectroscopic, non-spectroscopic and computational method for analysis of protein–ligand binding are also discussed.

  16. PATTERN BASED DETECTION OF POTENTIALLY DRUGGABLE BINDING SITES BY LIGAND SCREENING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Uttam Pal

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available This article describes an innovative way of finding the potentially druggable sites on a target protein, which can be used for orthosteric and allosteric lead detection in a single virtual screening setup. Druggability estimation for an alternate binding site other than the canonical ligand-binding pocket of an enzyme is rewarding for several inherent benefits. Allostery is a direct and efficient way of regulating biomacromolecule function. The allosteric modulators can fine-tune protein mechanics. Besides, allosteric sites are evolutionarily less conserved/more diverse even in very similarly related proteins, thus, provides high degree of specificity in targeting a particular protein. Therefore, targeting of allosteric sites is gaining attention as an emerging strategy in rational drug design. However, the experimental approaches provide a limited degree of characterization of new allosteric sites. Computational approaches are useful to analyze and select potential allosteric sites for drug discovery. Here, the use of molecular docking, which has become an integral part of the drug discovery process, has been discussed to predict the druggability of novel allosteric sites as well as the active site on target proteins by ligand screening. Genetic algorithm was used for docking and the whole protein was placed in the search space. For each ligand in the library of small molecules, the genetic algorithm was run for multiple times to populate all the druggable sites in the target protein, which was then translated into two dimensional density maps or “patterns”. High density clusters were observed for lead like molecules in these pattern diagrams. Each cluster in such a pattern diagram indicated a plausible binding site and the density gave its druggability score in terms of weighted probabilities. The patterns were filtered to find the leads for each of the druggable sites on the target protein. Such a novel pattern based analysis of the

  17. High throughput screening of ligand binding to macromolecules using high resolution powder diffraction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Von Dreele, Robert B.; D'Amico, Kevin

    2006-10-31

    A process is provided for the high throughput screening of binding of ligands to macromolecules using high resolution powder diffraction data including producing a first sample slurry of a selected polycrystalline macromolecule material and a solvent, producing a second sample slurry of a selected polycrystalline macromolecule material, one or more ligands and the solvent, obtaining a high resolution powder diffraction pattern on each of said first sample slurry and the second sample slurry, and, comparing the high resolution powder diffraction pattern of the first sample slurry and the high resolution powder diffraction pattern of the second sample slurry whereby a difference in the high resolution powder diffraction patterns of the first sample slurry and the second sample slurry provides a positive indication for the formation of a complex between the selected polycrystalline macromolecule material and at least one of the one or more ligands.

  18. Toehold-Mediated Displacement of an Adenosine-Binding Aptamer from a DNA Duplex by its Ligand.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monserud, Jon H; Macri, Katherine M; Schwartz, Daniel K

    2016-10-24

    DNA is increasingly used to engineer dynamic nanoscale circuits, structures, and motors, many of which rely on DNA strand-displacement reactions. The use of functional DNA sequences (e.g., aptamers, which bind to a wide range of ligands) in these reactions would potentially confer responsiveness on such devices, and integrate DNA computation with highly varied molecular stimuli. By using high-throughput single-molecule FRET methods, we compared the kinetics of a putative aptamer-ligand and aptamer-complement strand-displacement reaction. We found that the ligands actively disrupted the DNA duplex in the presence of a DNA toehold in a similar manner to complementary DNA, with kinetic details specific to the aptamer structure, thus suggesting that the DNA strand-displacement concept can be extended to functional DNA-ligand systems. © 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  19. Response of SCP-2L domain of human MFE-2 to ligand removal: binding site closure and burial of peroxisomal targeting signal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lensink, M F; Haapalainen, A M; Hiltunen, J K; Glumoff, T; Juffer, A H

    2002-10-11

    In the study of the structure and function relationship of human MFE-2, we have investigated the dynamics of human MFE-2SCP-2L (hSCP-2L) and its response to ligand removal. A comparison was made with homologous rabbit SCP-2. Breathing and a closing motion are found, identifiable with an adjustment in size and a closing off of the binding pocket. Crucial residues for structural integrity have been identified. Particularly mobile areas of the protein are loop 1 that is connecting helices A and C in space, and helix D, next to the entrance of the pocket. In hSCP-2L, the binding pocket gets occupied by Phe93, which is making a tight hydrophobic contact with Trp36. In addition, it is found that the C-terminal peroxisomal targeting signal (PTS1) that is solvent exposed in the complexed structure becomes buried when no ligand is present. Moreover, an anti-correlation exists between burial of PTS1 and the size of the binding pocket. The results are in accordance with plant nsLTPs, where a similar accommodation of binding pocket size was found after ligand binding/removal. Furthermore, the calculations support the suggestion of a ligand-assisted targeting mechanism.

  20. Computing the binding affinity of a ligand buried deep inside a protein with the hybrid steered molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Villarreal, Oscar D.; Yu, Lili; Rodriguez, Roberto A.; Chen, Liao Y.

    2017-01-01

    Computing the ligand-protein binding affinity (or the Gibbs free energy) with chemical accuracy has long been a challenge for which many methods/approaches have been developed and refined with various successful applications. False positives and, even more harmful, false negatives have been and still are a common occurrence in practical applications. Inevitable in all approaches are the errors in the force field parameters we obtain from quantum mechanical computation and/or empirical fittings for the intra- and inter-molecular interactions. These errors propagate to the final results of the computed binding affinities even if we were able to perfectly implement the statistical mechanics of all the processes relevant to a given problem. And they are actually amplified to various degrees even in the mature, sophisticated computational approaches. In particular, the free energy perturbation (alchemical) approaches amplify the errors in the force field parameters because they rely on extracting the small differences between similarly large numbers. In this paper, we develop a hybrid steered molecular dynamics (hSMD) approach to the difficult binding problems of a ligand buried deep inside a protein. Sampling the transition along a physical (not alchemical) dissociation path of opening up the binding cavity- -pulling out the ligand- -closing back the cavity, we can avoid the problem of error amplifications by not relying on small differences between similar numbers. We tested this new form of hSMD on retinol inside cellular retinol-binding protein 1 and three cases of a ligand (a benzylacetate, a 2-nitrothiophene, and a benzene) inside a T4 lysozyme L99A/M102Q(H) double mutant. In all cases, we obtained binding free energies in close agreement with the experimentally measured values. This indicates that the force field parameters we employed are accurate and that hSMD (a brute force, unsophisticated approach) is free from the problem of error amplification suffered by

  1. Size versus polarizability in protein-ligand interactions: binding of noble gases within engineered cavities in phage T4 lysozyme.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quillin, M L; Breyer, W A; Griswold, I J; Matthews, B W

    2000-09-29

    To investigate the relative importance of size and polarizability in ligand binding within proteins, we have determined the crystal structures of pseudo wild-type and cavity-containing mutant phage T4 lysozymes in the presence of argon, krypton, and xenon. These proteins provide a representative sample of predominantly apolar cavities of varying size and shape. Even though the volumes of these cavities range up to the equivalent of five xenon atoms, the noble gases bind preferentially at highly localized sites that appear to be defined by constrictions in the walls of the cavities, coupled with the relatively large radii of the noble gases. The cavities within pseudo wild-type and L121A lysozymes each bind only a single atom of noble gas, while the cavities within mutants L133A and F153A have two independent binding sites, and the L99A cavity has three interacting sites. The binding of noble gases within two double mutants was studied to characterize the additivity of binding at such sites. In general, when a cavity in a protein is created by a "large-to-small" substitution, the surrounding residues relax somewhat to reduce the volume of the cavity. The binding of xenon and, to a lesser degree, krypton and argon, tend to expand the volume of the cavity and to return it closer to what it would have been had no relaxation occurred. In nearly all cases, the extent of binding of the noble gases follows the trend xenon>krypton>argon. Pressure titrations of the L99A mutant have confirmed that the crystallographic occupancies accurately reflect fractional saturation of the binding sites. The trend in noble gas affinity can be understood in terms of the effects of size and polarizability on the intermolecular potential. The plasticity of the protein matrix permits repulsion due to increased ligand size to be more than compensated for by attraction due to increased ligand polarizability. These results have implications for the mechanism of general anesthesia, the migration

  2. Airfuge centrifugation procedure for the measurement of ligand binding to membrane-associated and detergent-solubilized plasma membrane receptors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, E L.F.; Perdue, J F [Lady Davis Institute, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    1980-10-01

    A method is described in which high-speed centrifugation of membranes through an oil phase is used to separate membrane-bound and detergent-solubilized polypeptide receptor-iodinated ligand complexes from unbound ligands. Three centrifuges, the Brinkmann Eppendorf (5412), the Beckman Microfuge B and the Beckman Airfuge were evaluated for this capability. Under the conditions described, the Beckman Airfuge surpassed the others in recovering previously /sup 125/I- and /sup 32/P-labelled cell membranes. The Airfuge method was compared with the more classically employed membrane filtration method to measure specific (/sup 125/I)insulin and (/sup 125/I)thrombin binding to human placental membranes and an enriched plasma membrane fraction from mouse embryo fibroblasts, respectively, and found to be 4 to 5 times more sensitive. For example, specific binding of ligand to its receptor was demonstrated with 5 ..mu..g of protein. With slight modifications, the polyethyleneglycol 6000 method of precipitating /sup 125/I-labelled ligand-soluble receptor complexes can be adapted to the Airfuge sedimentation through oil procedure.

  3. Oxytocin receptor ligand binding in embryonic tissue and postnatal brain development of the C57BL/6J mouse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elizabeth eHammock

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Oxytocin (OXT has drawn increasing attention as a developmentally relevant neuropeptide given its role in the brain regulation of social behavior. It has been suggested that OXT plays an important role in the infant brain during caregiver attachment in nurturing familial contexts, but there is incomplete experimental evidence. Mouse models of OXT system genes have been particularly informative for the role of the OXT system in social behavior, however, the developing brain areas that could respond to ligand activation of the OXT receptor (OXTR have yet to be identified in this species. Here we report new data revealing dynamic ligand-binding distribution of OXTR in the developing mouse brain. Using male and female C57BL/6J mice at postnatal days (P 0, 7, 14, 21, 35, and 60 we quantified OXTR ligand binding in several brain areas which changed across development. Further, we describe OXTR ligand binding in select tissues of the near-term whole embryo at E18.5. Together, these data aid in the interpretation of findings in mouse models of the OXT system and generate new testable hypotheses for developmental roles for OXT in mammalian systems. We discuss our findings in the context of developmental disorders (including autism, attachment biology, and infant physiological regulation.

  4. Effects of Mutations and Ligands on the Thermostability of the l-Arginine/Agmatine Antiporter AdiC and Deduced Insights into Ligand-Binding of Human l-Type Amino Acid Transporters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ilgü, Hüseyin; Jeckelmann, Jean-Marc; Colas, Claire; Ucurum, Zöhre; Schlessinger, Avner; Fotiadis, Dimitrios

    2018-03-20

    The l-arginine/agmatine transporter AdiC is a prokaryotic member of the SLC7 family, which enables pathogenic enterobacteria to survive the extremely acidic gastric environment. Wild-type AdiC from Escherichia coli, as well as its previously reported point mutants N22A and S26A, were overexpressed homologously and purified to homogeneity. A size-exclusion chromatography-based thermostability assay was used to determine the melting temperatures ( T m s) of the purified AdiC variants in the absence and presence of the selected ligands l-arginine (Arg), agmatine, l-arginine methyl ester, and l-arginine amide. The resulting T m s indicated stabilization of AdiC variants upon ligand binding, in which T m s and ligand binding affinities correlated positively. Considering results from this and previous studies, we revisited the role of AdiC residue S26 in Arg binding and proposed interactions of the α-carboxylate group of Arg exclusively with amide groups of the AdiC backbone. In the context of substrate binding in the human SLC7 family member l-type amino acid transporter-1 (LAT1; SLC7A5), an analogous role of S66 in LAT1 to S26 in AdiC is discussed based on homology modeling and amino acid sequence analysis. Finally, we propose a binding mechanism for l-amino acid substrates to LATs from the SLC7 family.

  5. MGMT DNA repair gene promoter/enhancer haplotypes alter transcription factor binding and gene expression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Meixiang; Cross, Courtney E; Speidel, Jordan T; Abdel-Rahman, Sherif Z

    2016-10-01

    The O 6 -methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) protein removes O 6 -alkyl-guanine adducts from DNA. MGMT expression can thus alter the sensitivity of cells and tissues to environmental and chemotherapeutic alkylating agents. Previously, we defined the haplotype structure encompassing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the MGMT promoter/enhancer (P/E) region and found that haplotypes, rather than individual SNPs, alter MGMT promoter activity. The exact mechanism(s) by which these haplotypes exert their effect on MGMT promoter activity is currently unknown, but we noted that many of the SNPs comprising the MGMT P/E haplotypes are located within or in close proximity to putative transcription factor binding sites. Thus, these haplotypes could potentially affect transcription factor binding and, subsequently, alter MGMT promoter activity. In this study, we test the hypothesis that MGMT P/E haplotypes affect MGMT promoter activity by altering transcription factor (TF) binding to the P/E region. We used a promoter binding TF profiling array and a reporter assay to evaluate the effect of different P/E haplotypes on TF binding and MGMT expression, respectively. Our data revealed a significant difference in TF binding profiles between the different haplotypes evaluated. We identified TFs that consistently showed significant haplotype-dependent binding alterations (p ≤ 0.01) and revealed their role in regulating MGMT expression using siRNAs and a dual-luciferase reporter assay system. The data generated support our hypothesis that promoter haplotypes alter the binding of TFs to the MGMT P/E and, subsequently, affect their regulatory function on MGMT promoter activity and expression level.

  6. Ligand-specific conformational changes in the alpha1 glycine receptor ligand-binding domain

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pless, Stephan Alexander; Lynch, Joseph W

    2009-01-01

    , and by the antagonist, strychnine. Voltage-clamp fluorometry involves labeling introduced cysteines with environmentally sensitive fluorophores and inferring structural rearrangements from ligand-induced fluorescence changes. In the inner beta-sheet, we labeled residues in loop 2 and in binding domain loops D and E....... At each position, strychnine and glycine induced distinct maximal fluorescence responses. The pre-M1 domain responded similarly; at each of four labeled positions glycine produced a strong fluorescence signal, whereas strychnine did not. This suggests that glycine induces conformational changes...... in the inner beta-sheet and pre-M1 domain that may be important for activation, desensitization, or both. In contrast, most labeled residues in loops C and F yielded fluorescence changes identical in magnitude for glycine and strychnine. A notable exception was H201C in loop C. This labeled residue responded...

  7. Mutation analysis and molecular modeling for the investigation of ligand-binding modes of GPR84.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nikaido, Yoshiaki; Koyama, Yuuta; Yoshikawa, Yasushi; Furuya, Toshio; Takeda, Shigeki

    2015-05-01

    GPR84 is a G protein-coupled receptor for medium-chain fatty acids. Capric acid and 3,3'-diindolylmethane are specific agonists for GPR84. We built a homology model of a GPR84-capric acid complex to investigate the ligand-binding mode using the crystal structure of human active-state β2-adrenergic receptor. We performed site-directed mutagenesis to subject ligand-binding sites to our model using GPR84-Giα fusion proteins and a [(35)S]GTPγS-binding assay. We compared the activity of the wild type and mutated forms of GPR84 by [(35)S]GTPγS binding to capric acid and diindolylmethane. The mutations L100D `Ballesteros-Weinstein numbering: 3.32), F101Y (3.33) and N104Q (3.36) in the transmembrane helix III and N357D (7.39) in the transmembrane helix VII resulted in reduced capric acid activity but maintained the diindolylmethane responses. Y186F (5.46) and Y186H (5.46) mutations had no characteristic effect on capric acid but with diindolylmethane they significantly affected the G protein activation efficiency. The L100D (3.32) mutant responded to decylamine, a fatty amine, instead of a natural agonist, the fatty acid capric acid, suggesting that we have identified a mutated G protein-coupled receptor-artificial ligand pairing. Our molecular model provides an explanation for these results and interactions between GPR84 and capric acid. Further, from the results of a double stimulation assay, we concluded that diindolylmethane was a positive allosteric modulator for GPR84. © The Authors 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Japanese Biochemical Society. All rights reserved.

  8. The structure of a mixed GluR2 ligand-binding core dimer in complex with (S)-glutamate and the antagonist (S)-NS1209

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kasper, Christina; Pickering, Darryl S; Mirza, Osman

    2006-01-01

    domains has been observed. (S)-NS1209 adopts a novel binding mode, including hydrogen bonding to Tyr450 and Gly451 of D1. Parts of (S)-NS1209 occupy new areas of the GluR2 ligand-binding cleft, and bind near residues that are not conserved among receptor subtypes. The affinities of (RS)-NS1209 at the Glu....... The thermodynamics of binding of the antagonists (S)-NS1209, DNQX and (S)-ATPO to the GluR2 ligand-binding core have been determined by displacement isothermal titration calorimetry. The displacement of (S)-glutamate by all antagonists was shown to be driven by enthalpy....

  9. The interrelationship between ligand binding and thermal unfolding of the folate binding protein. The role of self-association and pH

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holm, Jan; Babol, Linnea N.; Markova, Natalia

    2014-01-01

    The present study utilized a combination of DLS (dynamic light scattering) and DSC (differential scanning calorimetry) to address thermostability of high-affinity folate binding protein (FBP), a transport protein and cellular receptor for the vitamin folate. At pH7.4 (pI=7-8) ligand binding......, intermolecular forces involved in concentration-dependent multimerization thus contribute to the thermostability of holo-FBP. Hence, thermal unfolding and dissociation of holo-FBP multimers occur simultaneously consistent with a gradual decrease from octameric to monomeric holo-FBP (10μM) in DLS after a step-wise...

  10. The ligand-binding domain of the cell surface receptor for urokinase-type plasminogen activator

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Behrendt, N; Ploug, M; Patthy, L

    1991-01-01

    with the internal repeats of u-PAR constitute the extracellular part of Ly-6 antigens and of the squid glycoprotein Sgp-2. Like u-PAR, these proteins are attached to the membrane by a glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol anchor. The hydrophilic, ligand-binding u-PAR domain identified in the present study has potential...

  11. NMRKIN: Simulating line shapes from two-dimensional spectra of proteins upon ligand binding

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Guenther, Ulrich L.; Schaffhausen, Brian

    2002-01-01

    The analysis of the shape of signals in NMR spectra is a powerful tool to study exchange and reaction kinetics. Line shapes in two-dimensional spectra of proteins recorded for titrations with ligands provide information about binding rates observed at individual residues. Here we describe a fast method to simulate a series of line shapes derived from two-dimensional spectra of a protein during a ligand titration. This procedure, which takes the mutual effects of two dimensions into account, has been implemented in MATLAB as an add-on to NMRLab (Guenther et al., 2000). In addition, more complex kinetic models, including sequential and parallel reactions, were simulated to demonstrate common features of more complex line shapes which could be encountered in protein-ligand interactions. As an example of this method, we describe its application to line shapes obtained for a titration of the p85 N-SH2 domain of PI3-kinase with a peptide derived from polyomavirus middle T antigen (MT)

  12. Formation of Mixed-Ligand Complexes of Pd2+ with Nucleoside 5'-Monophosphates and Some Metal-Ion-Binding Nucleoside Surrogates

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oleg Golubev

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Formation of mixed-ligand Pd2+ complexes between canonical nucleoside 5'-monophosphates and five metal-ion-binding nucleoside analogs has been studied by 1H-NMR spectroscopy to test the ability of these nucleoside surrogates to discriminate between unmodified nucleobases by Pd2+-mediated base pairing. The nucleoside analogs studied included 2,6-bis(3,5-dimethylpyrazol-1-yl-, 2,6-bis(1-methylhydrazinyl- and 6-(3,5-dimethylpyrazol-1-yl-substituted 9-(β-d-ribofuranosylpurines 1–3, and 2,4-bis(3,5-dimethylpyrazol-1-yl- and 2,4-bis(1-methylhydrazinyl-substituted 5-(β-d-ribofuranosyl-pyrimidines 4–5. Among these, the purine derivatives 1-3 bound Pd2+ much more tightly than the pyrimidine derivatives 4, 5 despite apparently similar structures of the potential coordination sites. Compounds 1 and 2 formed markedly stable mixed-ligand Pd2+ complexes with UMP and GMP, UMP binding favored by 1 and GMP by 2. With 3, formation of mixed-ligand complexes was retarded by binding of two molecules of 3 to Pd2+.

  13. Quantitative Characterization of E-selectin Interaction with Native CD44 and P-selectin Glycoprotein Ligand-1 (PSGL-1) Using a Real Time Immunoprecipitation-based Binding Assay

    KAUST Repository

    Abu Samra, Dina Bashir Kamil; Al Kilani, Alia; Hamdan, Samir; Sakashita, Kosuke; Gadhoum, Samah Z.; Merzaban, Jasmeen

    2015-01-01

    Selectins (E-, P-, and L-selectins) interact with glycoprotein ligands to mediate the essential tethering/rolling step in cell transport and delivery that captures migrating cells from the circulating flow. In this work, we developed a real time immunoprecipitation assay on a surface plasmon resonance chip that captures native glycoforms of two well known E-selectin ligands (CD44/hematopoietic cell E-/L-selectin ligand and P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1) from hematopoietic cell extracts. Here we present a comprehensive characterization of their binding to E-selectin. We show that both ligands bind recombinant monomeric E-selectin transiently with fast on- and fast off-rates, whereas they bind dimeric E-selectin with remarkably slow onand off-rates. This binding requires the sialyl Lewis x sugar moiety to be placed on both O- and N-glycans, and its association, but not dissociation, is sensitive to the salt concentration. Our results suggest a mechanism through which monomeric selectins mediate initial fast on and fast off kinetics to help capture cells out of the circulating shear flow; subsequently, tight binding by dimeric/oligomeric selectins is enabled to significantly slow rolling. © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  14. Quantitative Characterization of E-selectin Interaction with Native CD44 and P-selectin Glycoprotein Ligand-1 (PSGL-1) Using a Real Time Immunoprecipitation-based Binding Assay

    KAUST Repository

    Abu Samra, Dina Bashir Kamil

    2015-06-29

    Selectins (E-, P-, and L-selectins) interact with glycoprotein ligands to mediate the essential tethering/rolling step in cell transport and delivery that captures migrating cells from the circulating flow. In this work, we developed a real time immunoprecipitation assay on a surface plasmon resonance chip that captures native glycoforms of two well known E-selectin ligands (CD44/hematopoietic cell E-/L-selectin ligand and P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1) from hematopoietic cell extracts. Here we present a comprehensive characterization of their binding to E-selectin. We show that both ligands bind recombinant monomeric E-selectin transiently with fast on- and fast off-rates, whereas they bind dimeric E-selectin with remarkably slow onand off-rates. This binding requires the sialyl Lewis x sugar moiety to be placed on both O- and N-glycans, and its association, but not dissociation, is sensitive to the salt concentration. Our results suggest a mechanism through which monomeric selectins mediate initial fast on and fast off kinetics to help capture cells out of the circulating shear flow; subsequently, tight binding by dimeric/oligomeric selectins is enabled to significantly slow rolling. © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  15. Structures of the Streptococcus sanguinis SrpA Binding Region with Human Sialoglycans Suggest Features of the Physiological Ligand.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loukachevitch, Lioudmila V; Bensing, Barbara A; Yu, Hai; Zeng, Jie; Chen, Xi; Sullam, Paul M; Iverson, T M

    2016-10-11

    Streptococcus sanguinis is a leading cause of bacterial infective endocarditis, a life-threatening infection of heart valves. S. sanguinis binds to human platelets with high avidity, and this adherence is likely to enhance virulence. Previous studies suggest that a serine-rich repeat adhesin termed SrpA mediates the binding of S. sanguinis to human platelets via its interaction with sialoglycans on the receptor GPIbα. However, in vitro binding assays with SrpA and defined sialoglycans failed to identify specific high-affinity ligands. To improve our understanding of the interaction between SrpA and human platelets, we determined cocrystal structures of the SrpA sialoglycan binding region (SrpA BR ) with five low-affinity ligands: three sialylated trisaccharides (sialyl-T antigen, 3'-sialyllactose, and 3'-sialyl-N-acetyllactosamine), a sialylated tetrasaccharide (sialyl-Lewis X ), and a sialyl galactose disaccharide component common to these sialoglyans. We then combined structural analysis with mutagenesis to further determine whether our observed interactions between SrpA BR and glycans are important for binding to platelets and to better map the binding site for the physiological receptor. We found that the sialoglycan binding site of SrpA BR is significantly larger than the sialoglycans cocrystallized in this study, which suggests that binding of SrpA to platelets either is multivalent or occurs via a larger, disialylated glycan.

  16. Converging ligand-binding free energies obtained with free-energy perturbations at the quantum mechanical level.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olsson, Martin A; Söderhjelm, Pär; Ryde, Ulf

    2016-06-30

    In this article, the convergence of quantum mechanical (QM) free-energy simulations based on molecular dynamics simulations at the molecular mechanics (MM) level has been investigated. We have estimated relative free energies for the binding of nine cyclic carboxylate ligands to the octa-acid deep-cavity host, including the host, the ligand, and all water molecules within 4.5 Å of the ligand in the QM calculations (158-224 atoms). We use single-step exponential averaging (ssEA) and the non-Boltzmann Bennett acceptance ratio (NBB) methods to estimate QM/MM free energy with the semi-empirical PM6-DH2X method, both based on interaction energies. We show that ssEA with cumulant expansion gives a better convergence and uses half as many QM calculations as NBB, although the two methods give consistent results. With 720,000 QM calculations per transformation, QM/MM free-energy estimates with a precision of 1 kJ/mol can be obtained for all eight relative energies with ssEA, showing that this approach can be used to calculate converged QM/MM binding free energies for realistic systems and large QM partitions. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Computational Chemistry Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Computational Chemistry Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  17. Sensing Conformational Changes in DNA upon Ligand Binding Using QCM-D. Polyamine Condensation and Rad51 Extension of DNA Layers

    KAUST Repository

    Sun, Lu

    2014-10-16

    © 2014 American Chemical Society. Biosensors, in which binding of ligands is detected through changes in the optical or electrochemical properties of a DNA layer confined to the sensor surface, are important tools for investigating DNA interactions. Here, we investigate if conformational changes induced in surface-attached DNA molecules upon ligand binding can be monitored by the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) technique. DNA duplexes containing 59-184 base pairs were formed on QCM-D crystals by stepwise assembly of synthetic oligonucleotides of designed base sequences. The DNA films were exposed to the cationic polyamines spermidine and spermine, known to condense DNA molecules in bulk experiments, or to the recombination protein Rad51, known to extend the DNA helix. The binding and dissociation of the ligands to the DNA films were monitored in real time by measurements of the shifts in resonance frequency (Δf) and in dissipation (ΔD). The QCM-D data were analyzed using a Voigt-based model for the viscoelastic properties of polymer films in order to evaluate how the ligands affect thickness and shear viscosity of the DNA layer. Binding of spermine shrinks all DNA layers and increases their viscosity in a reversible fashion, and so does spermidine, but to a smaller extent, in agreement with its lower positive charge. SPR was used to measure the amount of bound polyamines, and when combined with QCM-D, the data indicate that the layer condensation leads to a small release of water from the highly hydrated DNA films. The binding of Rad51 increases the effective layer thickness of a 59bp film, more than expected from the know 50% DNA helix extension. The combined results provide guidelines for a QCM-D biosensor based on ligand-induced structural changes in DNA films. The QCM-D approach provides high discrimination between ligands affecting the thickness and the structural properties of the DNA layer differently. The reversibility of the film

  18. Aromatic interactions impact ligand binding and function at serotonin 5-HT2C G protein-coupled receptors: receptor homology modelling, ligand docking, and molecular dynamics results validated by experimental studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Córdova-Sintjago, Tania; Villa, Nancy; Fang, Lijuan; Booth, Raymond G.

    2014-02-01

    The serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) 5-HT2 G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family consists of types 2A, 2B, and 2C that share ∼75% transmembrane (TM) sequence identity. Agonists for 5-HT2C receptors are under development for psychoses; whereas, at 5-HT2A receptors, antipsychotic effects are associated with antagonists - in fact, 5-HT2A agonists can cause hallucinations and 5-HT2B agonists cause cardiotoxicity. It is known that 5-HT2A TM6 residues W6.48, F6.51, and F6.52 impact ligand binding and function; however, ligand interactions with these residues at the 5-HT2C receptor have not been reported. To predict and validate molecular determinants for 5-HT2C-specific activation, results from receptor homology modelling, ligand docking, and molecular dynamics simulation studies were compared with experimental results for ligand binding and function at wild type and W6.48A, F6.51A, and F6.52A point-mutated 5-HT2C receptors.

  19. Identifying Marine Copper-Binding Ligands in Seawater

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whitby, H.; Hollibaugh, J. T.; Maldonado, M. T.; Ouchi, S.; van den Berg, S. M.

    2016-02-01

    Complexation reactions are important because they affect the bioavailability of trace metals such as copper and iron. For example, organic complexation can determine whether copper is a limiting or a toxic micronutrient at natural levels. Copper competes with iron for complexing ligands, and when iron is limiting, copper can also substitute for iron in some metabolic pathways. The speciation of copper can be measured using complexing capacity titrations, which provide the concentration of individual ligand classes (L1, L2 etc.) and the complex stabilities (log K). Using methods recently developed in our laboratory, we show that the ligands within these classes can be measured independently of titrations, thus confirming the titration method and simultaneously identifying the ligands within each class. Thiols were identified as the L1 ligand class and humic compounds as the weaker L2 class in samples from coastal Georgia, USA, collected monthly from April to December. Log K values of the ligand complexes were consistent with values expected for thiols and humic substances. Recent results from culture studies and from samples collected along Line P, a coastal - oceanic transect in the HNLC region of the NE subarctic Pacific, will be presented in comparison to the estuarine results. This comparison will help to broaden our perspective on copper complexation and the ligands responsible, furthering our understanding of ligand sources and life cycles.

  20. Impact of protein and ligand impurities on ITC-derived protein-ligand thermodynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grüner, Stefan; Neeb, Manuel; Barandun, Luzi Jakob; Sielaff, Frank; Hohn, Christoph; Kojima, Shun; Steinmetzer, Torsten; Diederich, François; Klebe, Gerhard

    2014-09-01

    The thermodynamic characterization of protein-ligand interactions by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) is a powerful tool in drug design, giving valuable insight into the interaction driving forces. ITC is thought to require protein and ligand solutions of high quality, meaning both the absence of contaminants as well as accurately determined concentrations. Ligands synthesized to deviating purity and protein of different pureness were titrated by ITC. Data curation was attempted also considering information from analytical techniques to correct stoichiometry. We used trypsin and tRNA-guanine transglycosylase (TGT), together with high affinity ligands to investigate the effect of errors in protein concentration as well as the impact of ligand impurities on the apparent thermodynamics. We found that errors in protein concentration did not change the thermodynamic properties obtained significantly. However, most ligand impurities led to pronounced changes in binding enthalpy. If protein binding of the respective impurity is not expected, the actual ligand concentration was corrected for and the thus revised data compared to thermodynamic properties obtained with the respective pure ligand. Even in these cases, we observed differences in binding enthalpy of about 4kJ⋅mol(-1), which is considered significant. Our results indicate that ligand purity is the critical parameter to monitor if accurate thermodynamic data of a protein-ligand complex are to be recorded. Furthermore, artificially changing fitting parameters to obtain a sound interaction stoichiometry in the presence of uncharacterized ligand impurities may lead to thermodynamic parameters significantly deviating from the accurate thermodynamic signature. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Structure of the ligand-binding domain (LBD) of human androgen receptor in complex with a selective modulator LGD2226

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang, Feng; Liu, Xiao-qin; Li, He; Liang, Kai-ni; Miner, Jeffrey N.; Hong, Mei; Kallel, E. Adam; Oeveren, Arjan van; Zhi, Lin; Jiang, Tao

    2006-01-01

    Crystal structure of the ligand-binding domain of androgen receptor in complex with LGD2226. The androgen receptor (AR) is a ligand-inducible steroid hormone receptor that mediates androgen action, determining male sexual phenotypes and promoting spermatogenesis. As the androgens play a dominant role in male sexual development and function, steroidal androgen agonists have been used clinically for some years. However, there is a risk of potential side effects and most steroidal androgens cannot be dosed orally, which limits the use of these substances. 1,2-Dihydro-6-N,N-bis(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl) amino-4-trifluoromethyl-2-quinolinone (LGD2226) is a synthetic nonsteroidal ligand and a novel selective AR modulator. The crystal structure of the complex of LGD2226 with the androgen receptor ligand-binding domain (AR LBD) at 2.1 Å was solved and compared with the structure of the AR LBD–R1881 complex. It is hoped that this will aid in further explaining the selectivity of LGD2226 observed in in vitro and in vivo assays and in developing more selective and effective therapeutic agents

  2. Rhenium complexes of chromophore-appended dipicolylamine ligands: syntheses, spectroscopic properties, DNA binding and X-ray crystal structure

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mullice, L.A.; Buurma, N.J.; Pope, S.J.A.; Laye, R.H.; Harding, L.P.

    2008-01-01

    The syntheses of two chromophore-appended dipicolylamine-derived ligands and their reactivity with penta-carbonyl-chloro-rhenium have been studied. The resultant complexes each possess the fac-Re(CO) 3 core. The ligands L 1 1-[bis(pyridine-2-yl-methyl)amino]methyl-pyrene and L 2 2-[bis(pyridine-2-yl-methyl)amino]methyl-quinoxaline were isolated via a one-pot reductive amination in moderate yield. The corresponding rhenium complexes were isolated in good yields and characterised by 1 H NMR, MS, IR and UV-Vis studies. X-Ray crystallographic data were obtained for fac-{Re(CO) 3 (L 1 )}(BF 4 ), C 34 H 26 BF 4 N 4 O 3 Re: monoclinic, P2(1)/c, a 18.327(2) Angstroms, α = 90.00 degrees, b 14.1537(14) Angstroms, β96.263(6) degrees, c = 23.511(3) Angstroms, γ 90.00 Angstroms, 6062.4(11) (Angstroms) 3 , Z=8. The luminescence properties of the ligands and complexes were also investigated, with the emission attributed to the appended chromophore in each case. Isothermal titration calorimetry suggests that fac-{Re(CO) 3 (L 1 )}(BF 4 ) self-aggregates cooperatively in aqueous solution, probably forming micelle-like aggregates with a cmc of 0.18 mM. Investigations into the DNA-binding properties of fac-{Re(CO) 3 (L 1 )}(BF 4 ) were undertaken and revealed that fac-{Re(CO) 3 (L 1 )}(BF 4 ) binding to fish sperm DNA (binding constant 1.5 ± 0.2 * 10 5 M -1 , binding site size 3.2 ± 0.3 base pairs) is accompanied by changes in the UV-Vis spectrum as typically observed for pyrene-based intercalators while the calorimetrically determined binding enthalpy (-14 ± 2 kcal mol -1 ) also agrees favourably with values as typically found for intercalators. (authors)

  3. E-selectin ligand-1 (ESL-1) is a novel adiponectin binding protein on cell adhesion

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yamamoto, Hiroyasu; Kuroda, Nana; Uekita, Hiromi; Kochi, Ikoi; Matsumoto, Akane; Niinaga, Ryu [Department of Biomedical Informatics, Division of Health Sciences, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka (Japan); Funahashi, Tohru; Shimomura, Iichiro [Department of Metabolic Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka (Japan); Kihara, Shinji, E-mail: skihara@sahs.med.osaka-u.ac.jp [Department of Biomedical Informatics, Division of Health Sciences, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka (Japan)

    2016-02-05

    Background: Adiponectin (APN) is an adipocyte-derived bioactive molecule with anti-diabetic and anti-atherogenic properties. Although anti-diabetic effects are mostly mediated by the adiponectin receptors AdipoR1 and AdipoR2, the anti-atherogenic mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. Methods and Results: In this study, we identified E-selectin ligand (ESL)-1 as a novel APN-binding protein by mass spectrometry analysis of HepG2 cell-derived immunoprecipitant with an anti-APN antibody. Cell adhesion assays using fluorescence-labelled monocyte cell line THP-1 cells and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) revealed that APN-pre-treated THP-1 cells had reduced binding ability to HUVECs. This APN-mediated suppressive effect on monocyte binding to endothelial cells was partially abrogated by targeting ESL-1 with shRNA in THP-1 cells. In addition, serial mutagenesis analysis disclosed that five extracellular amino acids close to the N-terminus of ESL-1 were essential for binding with APN. Conclusion: Our results highlight the fact that interaction between APN and ESL-1 could provide a fundamental mechanism underlying the anti-atherogenic properties of APN. - Highlights: • E-selectin ligand (ESL)-1 was identified as an adiponectin (APN)-binding protein. • ESL-1 bound to APN at its N-terminal 6th-10th amino acids. • shESL-1 reduced the suppressive effect of APN on adhesion of THP-1 cells to HUVECs. • Interaction with ESL may be involved in the anti-atherogenic effects of APN.

  4. E-selectin ligand-1 (ESL-1) is a novel adiponectin binding protein on cell adhesion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yamamoto, Hiroyasu; Kuroda, Nana; Uekita, Hiromi; Kochi, Ikoi; Matsumoto, Akane; Niinaga, Ryu; Funahashi, Tohru; Shimomura, Iichiro; Kihara, Shinji

    2016-01-01

    Background: Adiponectin (APN) is an adipocyte-derived bioactive molecule with anti-diabetic and anti-atherogenic properties. Although anti-diabetic effects are mostly mediated by the adiponectin receptors AdipoR1 and AdipoR2, the anti-atherogenic mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. Methods and Results: In this study, we identified E-selectin ligand (ESL)-1 as a novel APN-binding protein by mass spectrometry analysis of HepG2 cell-derived immunoprecipitant with an anti-APN antibody. Cell adhesion assays using fluorescence-labelled monocyte cell line THP-1 cells and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) revealed that APN-pre-treated THP-1 cells had reduced binding ability to HUVECs. This APN-mediated suppressive effect on monocyte binding to endothelial cells was partially abrogated by targeting ESL-1 with shRNA in THP-1 cells. In addition, serial mutagenesis analysis disclosed that five extracellular amino acids close to the N-terminus of ESL-1 were essential for binding with APN. Conclusion: Our results highlight the fact that interaction between APN and ESL-1 could provide a fundamental mechanism underlying the anti-atherogenic properties of APN. - Highlights: • E-selectin ligand (ESL)-1 was identified as an adiponectin (APN)-binding protein. • ESL-1 bound to APN at its N-terminal 6th-10th amino acids. • shESL-1 reduced the suppressive effect of APN on adhesion of THP-1 cells to HUVECs. • Interaction with ESL may be involved in the anti-atherogenic effects of APN.

  5. Searching the protein structure database for ligand-binding site similarities using CPASS v.2

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Caprez Adam

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background A recent analysis of protein sequences deposited in the NCBI RefSeq database indicates that ~8.5 million protein sequences are encoded in prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes, where ~30% are explicitly annotated as "hypothetical" or "uncharacterized" protein. Our Comparison of Protein Active-Site Structures (CPASS v.2 database and software compares the sequence and structural characteristics of experimentally determined ligand binding sites to infer a functional relationship in the absence of global sequence or structure similarity. CPASS is an important component of our Functional Annotation Screening Technology by NMR (FAST-NMR protocol and has been successfully applied to aid the annotation of a number of proteins of unknown function. Findings We report a major upgrade to our CPASS software and database that significantly improves its broad utility. CPASS v.2 is designed with a layered architecture to increase flexibility and portability that also enables job distribution over the Open Science Grid (OSG to increase speed. Similarly, the CPASS interface was enhanced to provide more user flexibility in submitting a CPASS query. CPASS v.2 now allows for both automatic and manual definition of ligand-binding sites and permits pair-wise, one versus all, one versus list, or list versus list comparisons. Solvent accessible surface area, ligand root-mean square difference, and Cβ distances have been incorporated into the CPASS similarity function to improve the quality of the results. The CPASS database has also been updated. Conclusions CPASS v.2 is more than an order of magnitude faster than the original implementation, and allows for multiple simultaneous job submissions. Similarly, the CPASS database of ligand-defined binding sites has increased in size by ~ 38%, dramatically increasing the likelihood of a positive search result. The modification to the CPASS similarity function is effective in reducing CPASS similarity scores

  6. An Experiment Illustrating the Change in Ligand p"K"[subscript a] upon Protein Binding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chenprakhon, Pirom; Panijpan, Bhinyo; Chaiyen, Pimchai

    2012-01-01

    The modulation of ligand p"K"[subscript a] due to its surrounding environment is a crucial feature that controls many biological phenomena. For example, the shift in the p"K"[subscript a] of substrates or catalytic residues at enzyme active sites upon substrate binding often triggers and controls enzymatic reactions. In this work, we developed an…

  7. Acyl-CoA-binding protein (ACBP) localizes to the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi in a ligand-dependent manner in mammalian cells

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Jesper S; Færgeman, Nils J; Kragelund, Birthe B

    2008-01-01

    showed that ACBP targeted to the ER (endoplasmic reticulum) and Golgi in a ligand-binding-dependent manner. A variant Y28F/K32A-FACI-50, which is unable to bind acyl-CoA, did no longer show association with the ER and became segregated from the Golgi, as analysed by intensity correlation calculations....... Depletion of fatty acids from cells by addition of FAFBSA (fatty-acid-free BSA) significantly decreased FACI-50 association with the Golgi, whereas fatty acid overloading increased Golgi association, strongly supporting that ACBP associates with the Golgi in a ligand-dependent manner. FRAP (fluorescence...... recovery after photobleaching) showed that the fatty-acid-induced targeting of FACI-50 to the Golgi resulted in a 5-fold reduction in FACI-50 mobility. We suggest that ACBP is targeted to the ER and Golgi in a ligand-binding-dependent manner in living cells and propose that ACBP may be involved...

  8. Allelic variation in KIR2DL3 generates a KIR2DL2-like receptor with increased binding to its HLA-C ligand.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frazier, William R; Steiner, Noriko; Hou, Lihua; Dakshanamurthy, Sivanesan; Hurley, Carolyn Katovich

    2013-06-15

    Although extensive homology exists between their extracellular domains, NK cell inhibitory receptors killer Ig-like receptor (KIR) 2DL2*001 and KIR2DL3*001 have previously been shown to differ substantially in their HLA-C binding avidity. To explore the largely uncharacterized impact of allelic diversity, the most common KIR2DL2/3 allelic products in European American and African American populations were evaluated for surface expression and binding affinity to their HLA-C group 1 and 2 ligands. Although no significant differences in the degree of cell membrane localization were detected in a transfected human NKL cell line by flow cytometry, surface plasmon resonance and KIR binding to a panel of HLA allotypes demonstrated that KIR2DL3*005 differed significantly from other KIR2DL3 allelic products in its ability to bind HLA-C. The increased affinity and avidity of KIR2DL3*005 for its ligand was also demonstrated to have a larger impact on the inhibition of IFN-γ production by the human KHYG-1 NK cell line compared with KIR2DL3*001, a low-affinity allelic product. Site-directed mutagenesis established that the combination of arginine at residue 11 and glutamic acid at residue 35 in KIR2DL3*005 were critical to the observed phenotype. Although these residues are distal to the KIR/HLA-C interface, molecular modeling suggests that alteration in the interdomain hinge angle of KIR2DL3*005 toward that found in KIR2DL2*001, another strong receptor of the KIR2DL2/3 family, may be the cause of this increased affinity. The regain of inhibitory capacity by KIR2DL3*005 suggests that the rapidly evolving KIR locus may be responding to relatively recent selective pressures placed upon certain human populations.

  9. GPR17: Molecular modeling and dynamics studies of the 3-D structure and purinergic ligand binding features in comparison with P2Y receptors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ranghino Graziella

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background GPR17 is a G-protein-coupled receptor located at intermediate phylogenetic position between two distinct receptor families: the P2Y and CysLT receptors for extracellular nucleotides and cysteinyl-LTs, respectively. We previously showed that GPR17 can indeed respond to both classes of endogenous ligands and to synthetic compounds active at the above receptor families, thus representing the first fully characterized non-peptide "hybrid" GPCR. In a rat brain focal ischemia model, the selective in vivo knock down of GPR17 by anti-sense technology or P2Y/CysLT antagonists reduced progression of ischemic damage, thus highlighting GPR17 as a novel therapeutic target for stroke. Elucidation of the structure of GPR17 and of ligand binding mechanisms are the necessary steps to obtain selective and potent drugs for this new potential target. On this basis, a 3-D molecular model of GPR17 embedded in a solvated phospholipid bilayer and refined by molecular dynamics simulations has been the first aim of this study. To explore the binding mode of the "purinergic" component of the receptor, the endogenous agonist UDP and two P2Y receptor antagonists demonstrated to be active on GPR17 (MRS2179 and cangrelor were then modeled on the receptor. Results Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that GPR17 nucleotide binding pocket is similar to that described for the other P2Y receptors, although only one of the three basic residues that have been typically involved in ligand recognition is conserved (Arg255. The binding pocket is enclosed between the helical bundle and covered at the top by EL2. Driving interactions are H-bonds and salt bridges between the 6.55 and 6.52 residues and the phosphate moieties of the ligands. An "accessory" binding site in a region formed by the EL2, EL3 and the Nt was also found. Conclusion Nucleotide binding to GPR17 occurs on the same receptor regions identified for already known P2Y receptors. Agonist

  10. Genetic variants alter T-bet binding and gene expression in mucosal inflammatory disease.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katrina Soderquest

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available The polarization of CD4+ T cells into distinct T helper cell lineages is essential for protective immunity against infection, but aberrant T cell polarization can cause autoimmunity. The transcription factor T-bet (TBX21 specifies the Th1 lineage and represses alternative T cell fates. Genome-wide association studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs that may be causative for autoimmune diseases. The majority of these polymorphisms are located within non-coding distal regulatory elements. It is considered that these genetic variants contribute to disease by altering the binding of regulatory proteins and thus gene expression, but whether these variants alter the binding of lineage-specifying transcription factors has not been determined. Here, we show that SNPs associated with the mucosal inflammatory diseases Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis (UC and celiac disease, but not rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis, are enriched at T-bet binding sites. Furthermore, we identify disease-associated variants that alter T-bet binding in vitro and in vivo. ChIP-seq for T-bet in individuals heterozygous for the celiac disease-associated SNPs rs1465321 and rs2058622 and the IBD-associated SNPs rs1551398 and rs1551399, reveals decreased binding to the minor disease-associated alleles. Furthermore, we show that rs1465321 is an expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL for the neighboring gene IL18RAP, with decreased T-bet binding associated with decreased expression of this gene. These results suggest that genetic polymorphisms may predispose individuals to mucosal autoimmune disease through alterations in T-bet binding. Other disease-associated variants may similarly act by modulating the binding of lineage-specifying transcription factors in a tissue-selective and disease-specific manner.

  11. Peptides identify multiple hotspots within the ligand binding domain of the TNF receptor 2

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lennick Michael

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Hotspots are defined as the minimal functional domains involved in protein:protein interactions and sufficient to induce a biological response. Results Here we describe the use of complex and high diversity phage display libraries to isolate peptides (called Hotspot Ligands or HSPLs which sub-divide the ligand binding domain of the tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2; p75 into multiple hotspots. We have shown that these libraries could generate HSPLs which not only subdivide hotspots on protein and non-protein targets but act as agonists or antagonists. Using this approach, we generated peptides which were specific for human TNFR2, could be competed by the natural ligands, TNFα and TNFβ and induced an unexpected biological response in a TNFR2-specific manner. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the dissection of the TNFR2 into biologically active hotspots with the concomitant identification of a novel and unexpected biological activity.

  12. Refolding and characterization of the functional ligand-binding domain of human lectin-like oxidized LDL receptor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Qiuhong; Matsunaga, Shigeru; Shi, Xiaohua; Ogawa, Setsuko; Niimi, Setsuko; Wen, Zhesheng; Tokuyasu, Ken; Machida, Sachiko

    2003-11-01

    Lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor (LOX-1), a type II membrane protein that can recognize a variety of structurally unrelated macromolecules, plays an important role in host defense and is implicated in atherogenesis. To understand the interaction between human LOX-1 and its ligands, in this study the functional C-type lectin-like domain (CTLD) of LOX-1 was reconstituted at high efficiency from inactive aggregates in Escherichia coli using a refolding technique based on an artificial chaperone. The CD spectra of the purified domain suggested that the domain has alpha-helical structure and the blue shift of Trp residues was observed on refolding of the domain. Like wild-type hLOX-1, the refolded CTLD domain was able to bind modified LDL. Thus, even though CTLD contains six Cys residues that form disulfide bonds, it recovered its specific binding ability on refolding. This suggests that the correct disulfide bonds in CTLD were formed by the artificial chaperone technique. Although the domain lacked N-glycosylation, it showed high affinity for its ligand in surface plasmon resonance experiments. Thus, unglycosylated CTLD is sufficient for binding modified LDL.

  13. Ventilation-induced increases in EGFR ligand mRNA are not altered by intra-amniotic LPS or ureaplasma in preterm lambs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hillman, Noah H; Gisslen, Tate; Polglase, Graeme R; Kallapur, Suhas G; Jobe, Alan H

    2014-01-01

    Chorioamnionitis and mechanical ventilation are associated with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in preterm infants. Mechanical ventilation at birth activates both inflammatory and acute phase responses. These responses can be partially modulated by previous exposure to intra-amniotic (IA) LPS or Ureaplasma parvum (UP). Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) ligands participate in lung development, and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) 1 and ACE2 contribute to lung inflammation. We asked whether brief mechanical ventilation at birth altered EGFR and ACE pathways and if antenatal exposure to IA LPS or UP could modulate these effects. Ewes were exposed to IA injections of UP, LPS or saline multiple days prior to preterm delivery at 85% gestation. Lambs were either immediately euthanized or mechanically ventilated for 2 to 3 hr. IA UP and LPS cause modest changes in the EGFR ligands amphiregulin (AREG), epiregulin (EREG), heparin binding epidermal growth factor (HB-EGF), and betacellulin (BTC) mRNA expression. Mechanical ventilation greatly increased mRNA expression of AREG, EREG, and HB-EGF, with no additional increases resulting from IA LPS or UP. With ventilation AREG and EREG mRNA localized to cells in terminal airspace. EGFR mRNA also increased with mechanical ventilation. IA UP and LPS decreased ACE1 mRNA and increased ACE2 mRNA, resulting in a 4 fold change in the ACE1/ACE2 ratio. Mechanical ventilation with large tidal volumes increased both ACE1 and ACE2 expression. The alterations seen in ACE with IA exposures and EGFR pathways with mechanical ventilation may contribute to the development of BPD in preterm infants.

  14. Ligand-receptor Interactions by NMR Spectroscopy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Novak. P.

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available Today NMR spectroscopy is a method of choice for elucidation of interactions between biomolecules and the potential ligands. Knowledge on these interactions is an essential prerequisite for the rational drug design. The most important contribution of NMR to drug design a few years ago was the 3D structure determination of proteins. Besides delivering the 3D structures of the free proteins as a raw material for the modeling studies on ligand binding, NMR can directly yield valuable experimental data on the biologically important protein-ligand complexes. In addition to X-ray diffraction, NMR spectroscopy can provide information on the internal protein dynamics ordynamics of intermolecular interactions. Changes in NMR parameters allow us to detect ("SAR by NMR" and quantitatively determine binding affinities (titration, diffusion NMR experiments, etc. of potential ligands. Also, it is possible to determine the binding site and conformations of ligands, receptors and receptor-ligand complexes with the help of NMR methods such as tr-NOESY. Epitopes or functional groups responsible for binding of ligands to the receptor can be identified by employing STD or WaterLOGSY experiments. In this review are described some of the most frequent NMR methods for the characterization of the interactions between biomolecules and ligands, together with their advantages and disadvantages.

  15. Different mechanisms are involved in the antibody mediated inhibition of ligand binding to the urokinase receptor

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    List, K; Høyer-Hansen, G; Rønne, E

    1999-01-01

    Certain monoclonal antibodies are capable of inhibiting the biological binding reactions of their target proteins. At the molecular level, this type of effect may be brought about by completely different mechanisms, such as competition for common binding determinants, steric hindrance or interfer......Certain monoclonal antibodies are capable of inhibiting the biological binding reactions of their target proteins. At the molecular level, this type of effect may be brought about by completely different mechanisms, such as competition for common binding determinants, steric hindrance......) can be employed as a highly useful tool to characterize the inhibitory mechanism of specific antagonist antibodies. Two inhibitory antibodies against uPAR, mAb R3 and mAb R5, were shown to exhibit competitive and non-competitive inhibition, respectively, of ligand binding to the receptor. The former...

  16. Dynamical Binding Modes Determine Agonistic and Antagonistic Ligand Effects in the Prostate-Specific G-Protein Coupled Receptor (PSGR).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Steffen; Jovancevic, Nikolina; Gelis, Lian; Pietsch, Sebastian; Hatt, Hanns; Gerwert, Klaus

    2017-11-22

    We analysed the ligand-based activation mechanism of the prostate-specific G-protein coupled receptor (PSGR), which is an olfactory receptor that mediates cellular growth in prostate cancer cells. Furthermore, it is an olfactory receptor with a known chemically near identic antagonist/agonist pair, α- and β-ionone. Using a combined theoretical and experimental approach, we propose that this receptor is activated by a ligand-induced rearrangement of a protein-internal hydrogen bond network. Surprisingly, this rearrangement is not induced by interaction of the ligand with the network, but by dynamic van der Waals contacts of the ligand with the involved amino acid side chains, altering their conformations and intraprotein connectivity. Ligand recognition in this GPCR is therefore highly stereo selective, but seemingly lacks any ligand recognition via polar contacts. A putative olfactory receptor-based drug design scheme will have to take this unique mode of protein/ligand action into account.

  17. Nucleolin inhibits Fas ligand binding and suppresses Fas-mediated apoptosis in vivo via a surface nucleolin-Fas complex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wise, Jillian F; Berkova, Zuzana; Mathur, Rohit; Zhu, Haifeng; Braun, Frank K; Tao, Rong-Hua; Sabichi, Anita L; Ao, Xue; Maeng, Hoyoung; Samaniego, Felipe

    2013-06-06

    Resistance to Fas-mediated apoptosis is associated with poor cancer outcomes and chemoresistance. To elucidate potential mechanisms of defective Fas signaling, we screened primary lymphoma cell extracts for Fas-associated proteins that would have the potential to regulate Fas signaling. An activation-resistant Fas complex selectively included nucleolin. We confirmed the presence of nucleolin-Fas complexes in B-cell lymphoma cells and primary tissues, and the absence of such complexes in B-lymphocytes from healthy donors. RNA-binding domain 4 and the glycine/arginine-rich domain of nucleolin were essential for its association with Fas. Nucleolin colocalized with Fas on the surface of B-cell lymphoma cells. Nucleolin knockdown sensitized BJAB cells to Fas ligand (FasL)-induced and Fas agonistic antibody-induced apoptosis through enhanced binding, suggesting that nucleolin blocks the FasL-Fas interaction. Mice transfected with nucleolin were protected from the lethal effects of agonistic anti-mouse Fas antibody (Jo2) and had lower rates of hepatocyte apoptosis, compared with vector and a non-Fas-binding mutant of nucleolin. Our results show that cell surface nucleolin binds Fas, inhibits ligand binding, and thus prevents induction of Fas-mediated apoptosis in B-cell lymphomas and may serve as a new therapeutic target.

  18. NetMHCpan-4.0: Improved Peptide-MHC Class I Interaction Predictions Integrating Eluted Ligand and Peptide Binding Affinity Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jurtz, Vanessa; Paul, Sinu; Andreatta, Massimo; Marcatili, Paolo; Peters, Bjoern; Nielsen, Morten

    2017-11-01

    Cytotoxic T cells are of central importance in the immune system's response to disease. They recognize defective cells by binding to peptides presented on the cell surface by MHC class I molecules. Peptide binding to MHC molecules is the single most selective step in the Ag-presentation pathway. Therefore, in the quest for T cell epitopes, the prediction of peptide binding to MHC molecules has attracted widespread attention. In the past, predictors of peptide-MHC interactions have primarily been trained on binding affinity data. Recently, an increasing number of MHC-presented peptides identified by mass spectrometry have been reported containing information about peptide-processing steps in the presentation pathway and the length distribution of naturally presented peptides. In this article, we present NetMHCpan-4.0, a method trained on binding affinity and eluted ligand data leveraging the information from both data types. Large-scale benchmarking of the method demonstrates an increase in predictive performance compared with state-of-the-art methods when it comes to identification of naturally processed ligands, cancer neoantigens, and T cell epitopes. Copyright © 2017 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.

  19. Allelic Variation in KIR2DL3 Generates a KIR2DL2-like Receptor with Increased Binding to Its HLA-C Ligand12

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frazier, William R.; Steiner, Noriko; Hou, Lihua; Dakshanamurthy, Sivanesan; Hurley, Carolyn Katovich

    2013-01-01

    Although extensive homology exists between their extracellular domains, natural killer cell inhibitory receptors KIR2DL2*001 and KIR2DL3*001 have previously been shown to differ substantially in their HLA-C binding avidity. To explore the largely uncharacterized impact of allelic diversity, the most common KIR2DL2/3 allelic products in European American and African American populations were evaluated for surface expression and binding affinity to their HLA-C group 1 and 2 ligands. Although no significant differences in the degree of cell membrane localization were detected in a transfected human NKL cell line by flow cytometry, surface plasmon resonance and KIR binding to a panel of HLA allotypes demonstrated that KIR2DL3*005 differed significantly from other KIR2DL3 allelic products in its ability to bind HLA-C. The increased affinity and avidity of KIR2DL3*005 for its ligand was also demonstrated to have a larger impact on the inhibition of IFN-γ production by the human KHYG-1 NK cell line compared to KIR2DL3*001, a low affinity allelic product. Site-directed mutagenesis established that the combination of arginine at residue 11 and glutamic acid at residue 35 in KIR2DL3*005 were critical to the observed phenotype. Although these residues are distal to the KIR/HLA-C interface, molecular modeling suggests that alteration in the interdomain hinge angle of KIR2DL3*005 towards that found in KIR2DL2*001, another strong receptor of the KIR2DL2/3 family, may be the cause of this increased affinity. The regain of inhibitory capacity by KIR2DL3*005 suggests that the rapidly evolving KIR locus may be responding to relatively recent selective pressures placed upon certain human populations. PMID:23686481

  20. Role of the small integrin-binding ligand N-linked glycoprotein (SIBLING), bone sialoprotein (BSP) in bone development and remodeling.

    OpenAIRE

    Malaval, L.; Aubin, J.; Vico, L.

    2009-01-01

    14 pages; International audience; Members of the “small, integrin binding ligand, N-linked glycoprotein” (SIBLING) family, which have both mineral binding and cell binding (integrins) abilities, appear as potent regulators of bone mineralisation and remodeling. Among these, osteopontin (OPN) and bone sialoprotein (BSP) are highly expressed in early bone. Gene knockout of OPN results in increased mineralisation and a resorption defect making mutant mice unable to respond to such challenges as ...

  1. A Global Map of Lipid-Binding Proteins and Their Ligandability in Cells.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niphakis, Micah J; Lum, Kenneth M; Cognetta, Armand B; Correia, Bruno E; Ichu, Taka-Aki; Olucha, Jose; Brown, Steven J; Kundu, Soumajit; Piscitelli, Fabiana; Rosen, Hugh; Cravatt, Benjamin F

    2015-06-18

    Lipids play central roles in physiology and disease, where their structural, metabolic, and signaling functions often arise from interactions with proteins. Here, we describe a set of lipid-based chemical proteomic probes and their global interaction map in mammalian cells. These interactions involve hundreds of proteins from diverse functional classes and frequently occur at sites of drug action. We determine the target profiles for several drugs across the lipid-interaction proteome, revealing that its ligandable content extends far beyond traditionally defined categories of druggable proteins. In further support of this finding, we describe a selective ligand for the lipid-binding protein nucleobindin-1 (NUCB1) and show that this compound perturbs the hydrolytic and oxidative metabolism of endocannabinoids in cells. The described chemical proteomic platform thus provides an integrated path to both discover and pharmacologically characterize a wide range of proteins that participate in lipid pathways in cells. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Interaction of calreticulin with CD40 ligand, TRAIL and Fas ligand

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Duus, K; Pagh, R T; Holmskov, U

    2007-01-01

    is utilized by many other functionally diverse molecules and in this work the interaction of calreticulin with C1q and structurally similar molecules was investigated. In addition to C1q and MBL, CD40 ligand (CD40L), tumour necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and Fas ligand (FasL) were...... found to bind calreticulin strongly. A low level or no binding was observed for adiponectin, tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), CD30L, surfactant protein-A and -D and collagen VIII. The interaction with calreticulin required a conformational change in CD40L, TRAIL and FasL and showed the same...

  3. Estrogen receptor determination in endometrial carcinoma: ligand binding assay versus enzyme immunoassay

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nyholm, H C; Nielsen, Anette Lynge; Lyndrup, J

    1995-01-01

    We compared concentrations of cytosolic estrogen receptors (ERc) measured in 35 postmenopausal endometrial carcinomas by ligand binding method (LBA) (dextran-coated charcoal assay) and enzyme immunoassay (EIA). Correlations between ERc, nuclear estrogen receptors (ERn) determined by EIA......, and cytosolic progesterone receptors (PR) measured by LBA were also studied. While ERc concentrations determined by LBA and EIA were highly correlated (r: 0.94), ERc values detected by LBA were approximately twice those found by EIA (median values of ERc: 155 vs. 64 fmol/mg cytosol protein, DCC vs. EIA......). The percentages of ERc positive tumors were 89% by LBA and 77% by EIA. The median fraction of total ER present as ERn was 63%. PR levels correlated positively with ERn concentrations (r: 0.73). We explore possible reasons why greater concentrations of ERc are determined by estradiol binding than by the ER-EIA kit...

  4. Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors: location of the ligand binding site

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hulme, E.; Wheatley, M.; Curtis, C.; Birdsall, N.

    1987-01-01

    The key to understanding the pharmacological specificity of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChR's) is the location within the receptor sequence of the amino acid residues responsible for ligand binding. To approach this problem, they have purified mAChR's from rat brain to homogeneity by sequential ion-exchange chromatography, affinity chromatography and molecular weight fractionation. Following labelling of the binding site with an alkylating affinity label, 3 H-propylbenzilycholine mustard aziridinium ion ( 3 H-PrBCM), the mAChR was digested with a lysine-specific endoproteinase, and a ladder of peptides of increasing molecular weight, each containing the glycosylated N-terminus, isolated by chromatography on wheat-germ agglutinin sepharose. The pattern of labelling showed that a residue in the peptides containing transmembrane helices 2 and/or 3 of the mAChR was alkylated. The linkage was cleaved by 1 M hydroxylamine, showing that 3 H-PrBCM was attached to an acidic residue, whose properties strongly suggested it to be embedded in a hydrophobic intramembrane region of the mAChR. Examination of the cloned sequence of the mAChR reveals several candidate residues, the most likely of which is homologous to an aspartic acid residue thought to protonate the retinal Schiff's base in the congeneric protein rhodopsin

  5. New Synthesis and Tritium Labeling of a Selective Ligand for Studying High-affinity γ-Hydroxybutyrate (GHB) Binding Sites

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vogensen, Stine B.; Marek, Aleš; Bay, Tina; Wellendorph, Petrine; Kehler, Jan; Bundgaard, Christoffer; Frølund, Bente; Pedersen, Martin H.F.; Clausen, Rasmus P.

    2013-01-01

    3-Hydroxycyclopent-1-enecarboxylic acid (HOCPCA, 1) is a potent ligand for the high-affinity GHB binding sites in the CNS. An improved synthesis of 1 together with a very efficient synthesis of [3H]-1 is described. The radiosynthesis employs in situ generated lithium trimethoxyborotritide. Screening of 1 against different CNS targets establishes a high selectivity and we demonstrate in vivo brain penetration. In vitro characterization of [3H]-1 binding shows high specificity to the high-affinity GHB binding sites. PMID:24053696

  6. A DFT approach to discriminate the antagonist and partial agonist activity of ligands binding to the NMDA receptor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haslak, Zeynep Pinar; Bozkurt, Esra; Dutagaci, Bercem; De Proft, Frank; Aviyente, Viktorya; De Vleeschouwer, Freija

    2018-02-01

    The activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors is found to be intimately associated with neurodegenerative diseases which make them promising therapeutic targets. Despite the significantly increasing multidisciplinary interests centred on this ionotropic channel, design of new ligands with intended functional activity remains a great challenge. In this article, a computational study based on density functional theory is presented to understand the structural factors of ligands determining their function as antagonists and partial agonists. With this aim, the GluN1 subunit is chosen as being one of the essential components in the activation mechanism, and quantum chemical calculations are implemented for 30 antagonists and 30 partial agonists known to bind to this subunit with different binding affinities. Several quantum chemical descriptors are investigated which might unlock the difference between antagonists and partial agonists.

  7. Effect of iodination site on binding of radiolabeled ligand by insulin antibodies and insulin autoantibodies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Diaz, J.L.; Wilkin, T.J.

    1988-01-01

    Four human insulins and four porcine insulins, each monoiodinated to the same specific activity at one of the four tyrosine residues (A14, A19, B16, B26) and purified by reversed-phase liquid chromatography, were tested in a radiobinding assay against a panel of insulin-antibody (IA)-positive sera from 10 insulin-treated diabetics and insulin-autoantibody-positive (IAA) sera from 10 nondiabetics. Of the 10 IAA-positive sera, five were fully cross reactive with both insulin species, and five were specific for human insulin. The rank order of binding of sera with the four ligands from each species was random for IA (mean rank values of 1.9 for A14, 2.0 for A19, 2.5 for B16, and 3.6 for B26 from a possible ranking range of 1 to 4), but more consistent for non-human-insulin-specific IAA (mean rank values 1.3 for A14, 3.8 for A19, 1.7 for B16, and 3.2 for B26 for labeled human insulins; 1.2 for A14, 4.0 for A19, 1.8 for B16, and 3.0 for B26 for labeled porcine insulins). The rank order of binding was virtually uniform for human-insulin-specific IAA (mean values 1.2 for A14, 3.0 for A19, 1.8 for B16, and 4.0 for B26). The influence of iodination site on the binding of labeled insulin appears to be dependent on the proximity of the labeled tyrosine to the antibody binding site and the clonal diversity, or restriction, of insulin-binding antibodies in the test serum. When IA and IAA are measured, the implications of this study regarding the choice of assay ligand may be important

  8. PK of immunoconjugate anticancer agent CMD-193 in rats: ligand-binding assay approach to determine in vivo immunoconjugate stability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussain, Azher; Gorovits, Boris; Leal, Mauricio; Fluhler, Eric

    2014-01-01

    Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a new generation of anticancer therapeutics. The objective of this manuscript is to propose a methodology that can be used to assess the stability of the ADCs by using the PK data obtained by ligand-binding assays that measure various components of ADCs. The ligand-binding assays format of different components of ADCs provided unique valuable PK information. The mathematical manipulation of the bioanalytical data provided an insight into the in vivo integrity, indicating that the loading of the calicheamicin on the G193 antibody declines in an apparent slow first-order process. This report demonstrates the value of analyzing various components of the ADC and their PK profiles to better understand the disposition and in vivo stability of ADCs.

  9. The green hemoproteins of bovine erythrocytes. II. Spectral, ligand-binding, and electrochemical properties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeFilippi, L J; Hultquist, D E

    1978-05-10

    The two green hemoproteins isolated from bovine erythrocytes (form I and form II) have been characterized as to spectral, electrochemical, and chemical properties. The absorption spectra of the isolated hemoproteins are typical of high spin ferric states. Reduction of the hemoproteins yields high spin ferrohemoproteins. Complexation of the ferrohemoproteins with CO and the ferrihemoproteins with cyanide yields low spin complexes, demonstrating the presence of an exchangeable weak field ligand in both the ferrous and ferric states of the hemoproteins. The differences in position and intensity of the absorption peaks of the visible spectra allow the two forms to be distinguished from one another. The midpoint potential of forms I and II were found to be +0.075 and +0.019 V, respectively, at pH 6.4 and +0.038 and -0.005 V, respectively, at pH 7.0. This is consistent with the gaining of 1 proton/electron during the reduction. The Nernst plot reveals an unusual 0.5-electron transfer, whereas a quantitative titration demonstrates a 1-electron transfer. Form I binds cyanide more tightly than form II (KD of 84 and 252 micrometer, respectively). The observed spectral, electrochemical, and ligand-binding differences between forms I and II can be explained in terms of a greater electron-withdrawing ability of the side chains of the heme of form I relative to the heme of form II.

  10. Cell-specific targeting by heterobivalent ligands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Josan, Jatinder S; Handl, Heather L; Sankaranarayanan, Rajesh; Xu, Liping; Lynch, Ronald M; Vagner, Josef; Mash, Eugene A; Hruby, Victor J; Gillies, Robert J

    2011-07-20

    Current cancer therapies exploit either differential metabolism or targeting to specific individual gene products that are overexpressed in aberrant cells. The work described herein proposes an alternative approach--to specifically target combinations of cell-surface receptors using heteromultivalent ligands ("receptor combination approach"). As a proof-of-concept that functionally unrelated receptors can be noncovalently cross-linked with high avidity and specificity, a series of heterobivalent ligands (htBVLs) were constructed from analogues of the melanocortin peptide ligand ([Nle(4), dPhe(7)]-α-MSH) and the cholecystokinin peptide ligand (CCK-8). Binding of these ligands to cells expressing the human Melanocortin-4 receptor and the Cholecystokinin-2 receptor was analyzed. The MSH(7) and CCK(6) were tethered with linkers of varying rigidity and length, constructed from natural and/or synthetic building blocks. Modeling data suggest that a linker length of 20-50 Å is needed to simultaneously bind these two different G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). These ligands exhibited up to 24-fold enhancement in binding affinity to cells that expressed both (bivalent binding), compared to cells with only one (monovalent binding) of the cognate receptors. The htBVLs had up to 50-fold higher affinity than that of a monomeric CCK ligand, i.e., Ac-CCK(6)-NH(2). Cell-surface targeting of these two cell types with labeled heteromultivalent ligand demonstrated high avidity and specificity, thereby validating the receptor combination approach. This ability to noncovalently cross-link heterologous receptors and target individual cells using a receptor combination approach opens up new possibilities for specific cell targeting in vivo for therapy or imaging.

  11. The Fifth Transmembrane Domain of Angiotensin II Type 1 Receptor Participates in the Formation of the Ligand-binding Pocket and Undergoes a Counterclockwise Rotation upon Receptor Activation*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domazet, Ivana; Martin, Stéphane S.; Holleran, Brian J.; Morin, Marie-Ève; Lacasse, Patrick; Lavigne, Pierre; Escher, Emanuel; Leduc, Richard; Guillemette, Gaétan

    2009-01-01

    The octapeptide hormone angiotensin II exerts a wide variety of cardiovascular effects through the activation of the angiotensin II Type 1 (AT1) receptor, which belongs to the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. Like other G protein- coupled receptors, the AT1 receptor possesses seven transmembrane domains that provide structural support for the formation of the ligand-binding pocket. The role of the fifth transmembrane domain (TMD5) was investigated using the substituted cysteine accessibility method. All of the residues within Thr-190 to Leu-217 region were mutated one at a time to cysteine, and after expression in COS-7 cells, the mutant receptors were treated with the sulfhydryl-specific alkylating agent methanethiosulfonate-ethylammonium (MTSEA). MTSEA reacts selectively with water-accessible, free sulfhydryl groups of endogenous or introduced point mutation cysteines. If a cysteine is found in the binding pocket, the covalent modification will affect the binding kinetics of the ligand. MTSEA substantially decreased the binding affinity of L197C-AT1, N200C-AT1, I201C-AT1, G203C-AT1, and F204C-AT1 mutant receptors, which suggests that these residues orient themselves within the water-accessible binding pocket of the AT1 receptor. Interestingly, this pattern of acquired MTSEA sensitivity was altered for TMD5 reporter cysteines engineered in a constitutively active N111G-AT1 receptor background. Indeed, mutant I201C-N111G-AT1 became more sensitive to MTSEA, whereas mutant G203C-N111G-AT1 lost some sensitivity. Our results suggest that constitutive activation of AT1 receptor causes an apparent counterclockwise rotation of TMD5 as viewed from the extracellular side. PMID:19773549

  12. The fifth transmembrane domain of angiotensin II Type 1 receptor participates in the formation of the ligand-binding pocket and undergoes a counterclockwise rotation upon receptor activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domazet, Ivana; Martin, Stéphane S; Holleran, Brian J; Morin, Marie-Eve; Lacasse, Patrick; Lavigne, Pierre; Escher, Emanuel; Leduc, Richard; Guillemette, Gaétan

    2009-11-13

    The octapeptide hormone angiotensin II exerts a wide variety of cardiovascular effects through the activation of the angiotensin II Type 1 (AT(1)) receptor, which belongs to the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. Like other G protein- coupled receptors, the AT(1) receptor possesses seven transmembrane domains that provide structural support for the formation of the ligand-binding pocket. The role of the fifth transmembrane domain (TMD5) was investigated using the substituted cysteine accessibility method. All of the residues within Thr-190 to Leu-217 region were mutated one at a time to cysteine, and after expression in COS-7 cells, the mutant receptors were treated with the sulfhydryl-specific alkylating agent methanethiosulfonate-ethylammonium (MTSEA). MTSEA reacts selectively with water-accessible, free sulfhydryl groups of endogenous or introduced point mutation cysteines. If a cysteine is found in the binding pocket, the covalent modification will affect the binding kinetics of the ligand. MTSEA substantially decreased the binding affinity of L197C-AT(1), N200C-AT(1), I201C-AT(1), G203C-AT(1), and F204C-AT(1) mutant receptors, which suggests that these residues orient themselves within the water-accessible binding pocket of the AT(1) receptor. Interestingly, this pattern of acquired MTSEA sensitivity was altered for TMD5 reporter cysteines engineered in a constitutively active N111G-AT(1) receptor background. Indeed, mutant I201C-N111G-AT(1) became more sensitive to MTSEA, whereas mutant G203C-N111G-AT(1) lost some sensitivity. Our results suggest that constitutive activation of AT(1) receptor causes an apparent counterclockwise rotation of TMD5 as viewed from the extracellular side.

  13. Ventilation-induced increases in EGFR ligand mRNA are not altered by intra-amniotic LPS or ureaplasma in preterm lambs.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Noah H Hillman

    Full Text Available Chorioamnionitis and mechanical ventilation are associated with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD in preterm infants. Mechanical ventilation at birth activates both inflammatory and acute phase responses. These responses can be partially modulated by previous exposure to intra-amniotic (IA LPS or Ureaplasma parvum (UP. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR ligands participate in lung development, and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE 1 and ACE2 contribute to lung inflammation. We asked whether brief mechanical ventilation at birth altered EGFR and ACE pathways and if antenatal exposure to IA LPS or UP could modulate these effects. Ewes were exposed to IA injections of UP, LPS or saline multiple days prior to preterm delivery at 85% gestation. Lambs were either immediately euthanized or mechanically ventilated for 2 to 3 hr. IA UP and LPS cause modest changes in the EGFR ligands amphiregulin (AREG, epiregulin (EREG, heparin binding epidermal growth factor (HB-EGF, and betacellulin (BTC mRNA expression. Mechanical ventilation greatly increased mRNA expression of AREG, EREG, and HB-EGF, with no additional increases resulting from IA LPS or UP. With ventilation AREG and EREG mRNA localized to cells in terminal airspace. EGFR mRNA also increased with mechanical ventilation. IA UP and LPS decreased ACE1 mRNA and increased ACE2 mRNA, resulting in a 4 fold change in the ACE1/ACE2 ratio. Mechanical ventilation with large tidal volumes increased both ACE1 and ACE2 expression. The alterations seen in ACE with IA exposures and EGFR pathways with mechanical ventilation may contribute to the development of BPD in preterm infants.

  14. A Single Rainbow Trout Cobalamin-binding Protein Stands in for Three Human Binders

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Greibe, Eva Holm; Fedosov, Sergey; Sorensen, Boe S

    2012-01-01

    affinity for the cobalamin analog cobinamide. Like haptocorrin and transcobalamin, the trout cobalamin-binding protein was present in plasma and recognized ligands with altered nucleotide moiety. Like intrinsic factors, the trout cobalamin-binding protein was present in the stomach and resisted degradation...... by trypsin and chymotrypsin. It also resembled intrinsic factor in the composition of conserved residues in the primary cobalamin-binding site in the C terminus. The trout cobalamin-binding protein was glycosylated and displayed spectral properties comparable with those of haptocorrin and intrinsic factor...

  15. Functional glass slides for in vitro evaluation of interactions between osteosarcoma TE85 cells and mineral-binding ligands

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Song, Jie; Chen, Julia; Klapperich, Catherine M.; Eng, Vincent; Bertozzi, Carolyn R.

    2004-07-20

    Primary amine-functionalized glass slides obtained through a multi-step plasma treatment were conjugated with anionic amino acids that are frequently found as mineral binding elements in acidic extracellular matrix components of natural bone. The modified glass surfaces were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and contact angle measurements. Human osteosarcoma TE85 cells were cultured on these functionalized slides and analyses on both protein and gene expression levels were performed to probe the ''biocompatibility'' of the surface ligands. Cell attachment and proliferation on anionic surfaces were either better than or comparable to those of cells cultured on tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS). The modified glass surfaces promoted the expression of osteocalcin, alkaline phosphatase activity and ECM proteins such as fibronectin and vitronectin under differentiation culture conditions. Transcript analysis using gene chip microarrays confirmed that culturing TE85 cells on anionic surfaces did not activate apoptotic pathways. Collectively, these results suggest that the potential mineral-binding anionic ligands examined here do not exert significant adverse effects on the expression of important osteogenic markers of TE85 cells. This work paves the way for the incorporation of these ligands into 3-dimensional artificial bone-like scaffolds.

  16. Photolytic degradation of methylmercury enhanced by binding to natural organic ligands

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Tong; Hsu-Kim, Heileen

    2010-07-01

    Methylmercury is a neurotoxin that accumulates in food webs and poses a significant risk to human health. In natural water bodies, methylmercury concentrations remain low due to the degradation of methylmercury into inorganic mercury by sunlight, a process known as photodecomposition. Rates of photodecomposition are relatively rapid in freshwater lakes, and slow in marine waters, but the cause of this difference is not clear. Here, we carry out incubation experiments with artificial freshwater and seawater samples to examine the mechanisms regulating methylmercury photodecomposition. We show that singlet oxygen-a highly reactive form of dissolved oxygen generated by sunlight falling on dissolved organic matter-drives photodecomposition. However, in our experiments the rate of methylmercury degradation depends on the type of methylmercury-binding ligand present in the water. Relatively fast degradation rates (similar to observations in freshwater lakes) were detected when methylmercury species were bound to sulphur-containing ligands such as glutathione and mercaptoacetate. In contrast, methylmercury-chloride complexes, which are the dominant form of methylmercury in marine systems, did not degrade as easily. Our results could help to explain why methylmercury photodecomposition rates are relatively rapid in freshwater lakes and slow in marine waters.

  17. Structural analysis of prolyl oligopeptidases using molecular docking and dynamics: insights into conformational changes and ligand binding.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Swati Kaushik

    Full Text Available Prolyl oligopeptidase (POP is considered as an important pharmaceutical target for the treatment of numerous diseases. Despite enormous studies on various aspects of POPs structure and function still some of the questions are intriguing like conformational dynamics of the protein and interplay between ligand entry/egress. Here, we have used molecular modeling and docking based approaches to unravel questions like differences in ligand binding affinities in three POP species (porcine, human and A. thaliana. Despite high sequence and structural similarity, they possess different affinities for the ligands. Interestingly, human POP was found to be more specific, selective and incapable of binding to a few planar ligands which showed extrapolation of porcine POP in human context is more complicated. Possible routes for substrate entry and product egress were also investigated by detailed analyses of molecular dynamics (MD simulations for the three proteins. Trajectory analysis of bound and unbound forms of three species showed differences in conformational dynamics, especially variations in β-propeller pore size, which was found to be hidden by five lysine residues present on blades one and seven. During simulation, β-propeller pore size was increased by ∼2 Å in porcine ligand-bound form which might act as a passage for smaller product movement as free energy barrier was reduced, while there were no significant changes in human and A. thaliana POPs. We also suggest that these differences in pore size could lead to fundamental differences in mode of product egress among three species. This analysis also showed some functionally important residues which can be used further for in vitro mutagenesis and inhibitor design. This study can help us in better understanding of the etiology of POPs in several neurodegenerative diseases.

  18. Development and utilization of a fluorescence-based receptor-binding assay for the site 5 voltage-sensitive sodium channel ligands brevetoxin and ciguatoxin.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCall, Jennifer R; Jacocks, Henry M; Niven, Susan C; Poli, Mark A; Baden, Daniel G; Bourdelais, Andrea J

    2014-01-01

    Brevetoxins are a family of ladder-frame polyether toxins produced during blooms of the marine dinoflagellate Karenia brevis. Consumption of fish exposed to K. brevis blooms can lead to the development of neurotoxic shellfish poisoning. The toxic effects of brevetoxins are due to activation of voltage-sensitive sodium channels (VSSCs) in cell membranes. Binding of toxins has historically been measured using a radioligand competition assay that is fraught with difficulty. In this study, we developed a novel fluorescence-based binding assay for the brevetoxin receptor. Several fluorophores were conjugated to polyether brevetoxin-2 and used as the labeled ligand. Brevetoxin analogs were able to compete for binding with the fluorescent ligands. This assay was qualified against the standard radioligand receptor assay for the brevetoxin receptor. Furthermore, the fluorescence-based assay was used to determine relative concentrations of toxins in raw extracts of K. brevis culture, and to determine ciguatoxin affinity to site 5 of VSSCs. The fluorescence-based assay was quicker, safer, and far less expensive. As such, this assay can be used to replace the current radioligand assay and will be a vital tool for future experiments examining the binding affinity of various ligands for site 5 on sodium channels.

  19. Allosteric ligands and their binding sites define γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) type A receptor subtypes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olsen, Richard W

    2015-01-01

    GABAA receptors (GABA(A)Rs) mediate rapid inhibitory transmission in the brain. GABA(A)Rs are ligand-gated chloride ion channel proteins and exist in about a dozen or more heteropentameric subtypes exhibiting variable age and brain regional localization and thus participation in differing brain functions and diseases. GABA(A)Rs are also subject to modulation by several chemotypes of allosteric ligands that help define structure and function, including subtype definition. The channel blocker picrotoxin identified a noncompetitive channel blocker site in GABA(A)Rs. This ligand site is located in the transmembrane channel pore, whereas the GABA agonist site is in the extracellular domain at subunit interfaces, a site useful for low energy coupled conformational changes of the functional channel domain. Two classes of pharmacologically important allosteric modulatory ligand binding sites reside in the extracellular domain at modified agonist sites at other subunit interfaces: the benzodiazepine site and the high-affinity, relevant to intoxication, ethanol site. The benzodiazepine site is specific for certain GABA(A)R subtypes, mainly synaptic, while the ethanol site is found at a modified benzodiazepine site on different, extrasynaptic, subtypes. In the transmembrane domain are allosteric modulatory ligand sites for diverse chemotypes of general anesthetics: the volatile and intravenous agents, barbiturates, etomidate, propofol, long-chain alcohols, and neurosteroids. The last are endogenous positive allosteric modulators. X-ray crystal structures of prokaryotic and invertebrate pentameric ligand-gated ion channels, and the mammalian GABA(A)R protein, allow homology modeling of GABA(A)R subtypes with the various ligand sites located to suggest the structure and function of these proteins and their pharmacological modulation. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Domain interplay in the urokinase receptor. Requirement for the third domain in high affinity ligand binding and demonstration of ligand contact sites in distinct receptor domains

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Behrendt, N; Ronne, E; Dano, K

    1996-01-01

    by chemical cross-linking, but quantitative binding/competition studies showed that the apparent ligand affinity was 100- to 1000-fold lower than that of the intact suPAR. This loss of affinity was comparable with the loss found after cleavage between the first domain (D1) and D(2 + 3), using chymotrypsin...

  1. Circular Dichroism of G-Quadruplex: A Laboratory Experiment for the Study of Topology and Ligand Binding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carvalho, Josue´; Queiroz, João A.; Cruz, Carla

    2017-01-01

    Circular dichroism (CD) has emerged as one of the standard biophysical techniques for the study of guaninequadruplex (G4) folding, cation effect, and ligand binding. The utility of this technique is based on its robustness, ease of use, and requirement of only small quantities of nucleic acid. This experiment is also extendable to the classroom…

  2. Structural ordering of disordered ligand-binding loops of biotin protein ligase into active conformations as a consequence of dehydration.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vibha Gupta

    Full Text Available Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb, a dreaded pathogen, has a unique cell envelope composed of high fatty acid content that plays a crucial role in its pathogenesis. Acetyl Coenzyme A Carboxylase (ACC, an important enzyme that catalyzes the first reaction of fatty acid biosynthesis, is biotinylated by biotin acetyl-CoA carboxylase ligase (BirA. The ligand-binding loops in all known apo BirAs to date are disordered and attain an ordered structure only after undergoing a conformational change upon ligand-binding. Here, we report that dehydration of Mtb-BirA crystals traps both the apo and active conformations in its asymmetric unit, and for the first time provides structural evidence of such transformation. Recombinant Mtb-BirA was crystallized at room temperature, and diffraction data was collected at 295 K as well as at 120 K. Transfer of crystals to paraffin and paratone-N oil (cryoprotectants prior to flash-freezing induced lattice shrinkage and enhancement in the resolution of the X-ray diffraction data. Intriguingly, the crystal lattice rearrangement due to shrinkage in the dehydrated Mtb-BirA crystals ensued structural order of otherwise flexible ligand-binding loops L4 and L8 in apo BirA. In addition, crystal dehydration resulted in a shift of approximately 3.5 A in the flexible loop L6, a proline-rich loop unique to Mtb complex as well as around the L11 region. The shift in loop L11 in the C-terminal domain on dehydration emulates the action responsible for the complex formation with its protein ligand biotin carboxyl carrier protein (BCCP domain of ACCA3. This is contrary to the involvement of loop L14 observed in Pyrococcus horikoshii BirA-BCCP complex. Another interesting feature that emerges from this dehydrated structure is that the two subunits A and B, though related by a noncrystallographic twofold symmetry, assemble into an asymmetric dimer representing the ligand-bound and ligand-free states of the protein, respectively. In

  3. A Critical Review of Validation, Blind Testing, and Real- World Use of Alchemical Protein-Ligand Binding Free Energy Calculations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abel, Robert; Wang, Lingle; Mobley, David L; Friesner, Richard A

    2017-01-01

    Protein-ligand binding is among the most fundamental phenomena underlying all molecular biology, and a greater ability to more accurately and robustly predict the binding free energy of a small molecule ligand for its cognate protein is expected to have vast consequences for improving the efficiency of pharmaceutical drug discovery. We briefly reviewed a number of scientific and technical advances that have enabled alchemical free energy calculations to recently emerge as a preferred approach, and critically considered proper validation and effective use of these techniques. In particular, we characterized a selection bias effect which may be important in prospective free energy calculations, and introduced a strategy to improve the accuracy of the free energy predictions. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

  4. Multivalent cyclic RGD ligands: influence of linker lengths on receptor binding

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kubas, Holger; Schaefer, Martin; Bauder-Wuest, Ulrike; Eder, Matthias; Oltmanns, Doerte [Department of Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry, German Cancer Research Center, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg (Germany); Haberkorn, Uwe; Mier, Walter [Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 400, 69120 Heidelberg (Germany); Eisenhut, Michael, E-mail: m.eisenhut@dkfz.d [Department of Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry, German Cancer Research Center, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg (Germany)

    2010-11-15

    Peptides involving the RGD motive (arginine-glycine-aspartic acid) recognize members of the integrin receptor family. Since the receptors are located mainly on the surface of endothelial cells, structural modifications including multimers of c(RGDfE) were recently found to improve the binding avidity for {alpha}{sub v{beta}3} integrin significantly. The multivalent RGD peptides exhibited rather loose linkages partly including oligo(ethylene glycol) spacers (EG{sub n}) with different chain lengths. Therefore, the dependence of multivalent RGD systems with and without EG{sub n} linkers were investigated on their binding properties to cultured {alpha}{sub v{beta}3} integrin-expressing U87MG cells. Methods: We synthesized a series of di-, tri- and tetravalent rigid scaffolds (terephthalic acid, trimesic acid and adamantane-1,3,5,7-tetracarboxylic acid) conjugated to c(RGDyK) ligands, which were linked contiguously or separated by the oligo(ethylene glycol) spacers. The inhibition constants of these c(RGDyK) derivatives were determined by competition assays with {sup 125}I-labeled echistatin. Results: While c(RGDyK) function is a relative weak competitor against [{sup 125}I]echistatin (K{sub i}, 329{+-}18 nM) for {alpha}{sub v{beta}3} integrin-expressing U87MG cells, RGD dimers improved the competition potency considerably (K{sub i}, 64{+-}23 nM). This effect was even more pronounced with the RGD trimers (K{sub i}, 40{+-}7 nM) and tetramers (K{sub i}, 26{+-}9 nM). The introduction of EG{sub n} spacers and the increase of linker lengths proved to be detrimental since more competitors were needed to compete with [{sup 125}I]echistatin. The EG{sub 6} group, for example, reduced the inhibition constants by 29% (dimer), 57% (trimer) and 97% (tetramer). Conclusion: The binding experiments performed with the three forms of multivalent RGD ligands indicate the weakening of competitive potency against [{sup 125}I]echistatin with the introduction of EG{sub n} spacers. This effect

  5. The serotonin transporter: Examination of the changes in transporter affinity induced by ligand binding

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Humphreys, C.J.

    1989-01-01

    The plasmalemmal serotonin transporter uses transmembrane gradients of Na + , Cl - and K + to accumulate serotonin within blood platelets. Transport is competitively inhibited by the antidepressant imipramine. Like serotonin transport, imipramine binding requires Na + . Unlike serotonin, however, imipramine does not appear to be transported. To gain insight into the mechanism of serotonin transport the author have analyzed the influences of Na + and Cl - , the two ions cotransported with serotonin, on both serotonin transport and the interaction of imipramine and other antidepressant drugs with the plasmalemmal serotonin transporter of human platelets. Additionally, the author have synthesized, purified and characterized the binding of 2-iodoimipramine to the serotonin transporter. Finally, the author have conducted a preliminary study of the inhibition of serotonin transport and imipramine binding produced by dicyclohexylcarbodiimide. My results reveal many instances of positive heterotropic cooperativity in ligand binding to the serotonin transporter. Na + binding enhances the transporters affinity for imipramine and several other antidepressant drugs, and also increases the affinity for Cl - . Cl - enhances the transporters affinity for imipramine, as well as for Na + . At concentrations in the range of its K M for transport serotonin is a competitive inhibitor of imipramine binding. At much higher concentrations, however, serotonin also inhibits imipramines dissociation rate constant. This latter effect which is Na + -independent and species specific, is apparently produced by serotonin binding at a second, low affinity site on, or near, the transporter complex. Iodoimipramine competitively inhibit both [ 3 H]imipramine binding and [ 3 H]serotonin transport

  6. Colloidal nanoparticle size control: experimental and kinetic modeling investigation of the ligand-metal binding role in controlling the nucleation and growth kinetics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mozaffari, Saeed; Li, Wenhui; Thompson, Coogan; Ivanov, Sergei; Seifert, Soenke; Lee, Byeongdu; Kovarik, Libor; Karim, Ayman M

    2017-09-21

    Despite the major advancements in colloidal metal nanoparticles synthesis, a quantitative mechanistic treatment of the ligand's role in controlling their size remains elusive. We report a methodology that combines in situ small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and kinetic modeling to quantitatively capture the role of ligand-metal binding (with the metal precursor and the nanoparticle surface) in controlling the synthesis kinetics. We demonstrate that accurate extraction of the kinetic rate constants requires using both, the size and number of particles obtained from in situ SAXS to decouple the contributions of particle nucleation and growth to the total metal reduction. Using Pd acetate and trioctylphosphine in different solvents, our results reveal that the binding of ligands with both the metal precursor and nanoparticle surface play a key role in controlling the rates of nucleation and growth and consequently the final size. We show that the solvent can affect the metal-ligand binding and consequently ligand coverage on the nanoparticles surface which has a strong effect on the growth rate and final size (1.4 nm in toluene and 4.3 nm in pyridine). The proposed kinetic model quantitatively predicts the effects of varying the metal concentration and ligand/metal ratio on nanoparticle size for our work and literature reports. More importantly, we demonstrate that the final size is exclusively determined by the nucleation and growth kinetics at early times and not how they change with time. Specifically, the nanoparticle size in this work and many literature reports can be predicted using a single, model independent kinetic descriptor, (growth-to-nucleation rate ratio) 1/3 , despite the different metals and synthetic conditions. The proposed model and kinetic descriptor could serve as powerful tools for the design of colloidal nanoparticles with specific sizes.

  7. A scalable and accurate method for classifying protein-ligand binding geometries using a MapReduce approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Estrada, T; Zhang, B; Cicotti, P; Armen, R S; Taufer, M

    2012-07-01

    We present a scalable and accurate method for classifying protein-ligand binding geometries in molecular docking. Our method is a three-step process: the first step encodes the geometry of a three-dimensional (3D) ligand conformation into a single 3D point in the space; the second step builds an octree by assigning an octant identifier to every single point in the space under consideration; and the third step performs an octree-based clustering on the reduced conformation space and identifies the most dense octant. We adapt our method for MapReduce and implement it in Hadoop. The load-balancing, fault-tolerance, and scalability in MapReduce allow screening of very large conformation spaces not approachable with traditional clustering methods. We analyze results for docking trials for 23 protein-ligand complexes for HIV protease, 21 protein-ligand complexes for Trypsin, and 12 protein-ligand complexes for P38alpha kinase. We also analyze cross docking trials for 24 ligands, each docking into 24 protein conformations of the HIV protease, and receptor ensemble docking trials for 24 ligands, each docking in a pool of HIV protease receptors. Our method demonstrates significant improvement over energy-only scoring for the accurate identification of native ligand geometries in all these docking assessments. The advantages of our clustering approach make it attractive for complex applications in real-world drug design efforts. We demonstrate that our method is particularly useful for clustering docking results using a minimal ensemble of representative protein conformational states (receptor ensemble docking), which is now a common strategy to address protein flexibility in molecular docking. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Stereochemistry of charged nitrogen-aromatic interactions and its involvement in ligand-receptor binding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verdonk, Marcel L.; Boks, Gertjan J.; Kooijman, Huub; Kanters, Jan A.; Kroon, Jan

    1993-04-01

    Recently, new evidence was found for the involvement of charged nitrogen-aromatic interactions in ligand-receptor binding. In this study we report two favourable orientations of a phenyl ring with respect to a R-N+(CH3)3 group, based on crystal structure statistics from the Cambridge Structural Database. In the first orientation, the phenyl ring is situated in between the substituents at about 4.5 Å from the nitrogen atom, and the ring is approximately oriented on the sphere around the nitrogen atom. In the second orientation, the phenyl ring is situated in the same direction as one of the N-C bonds at about 6.0 Å from the nitrogen atom, and the ring is tilted with respect to the sphere around the nitrogen atom. The same two orientations were also found in the crystal structures of three ligand-receptor complexes, which implies that these orientations probably play a major role in molecular recognition mechanisms.

  9. Dopamine denervation does not alter in vivo 3H-spiperone binding in rat striatum: implications for external imaging of dopamine receptors in Parkinson's disease

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bennett, J.P. Jr.; Wooten, G.F.

    1986-01-01

    Striatal particulate preparations, both from rats with lesion-induced striatal dopamine (DA) loss and from some striatal dopamine (DA) loss and from some patients with Parkinson's disease, exhibit increased 3 H-neuroleptic binding, which is interpreted to be the mechanism of denervation-induced behavioral supersensitivity to dopaminergic compounds. After intravenous 3 H-spiperone ( 3 H-SP) administration to rats with unilateral nigral lesions, we found no differences in accumulation of total or particulate-bound 3 H-SP in dopamine-denervated compared with intact striata. 3 H-SP in vivo binds to less than 10% of striatal sites labeled by 3 H-SP incubated with striatal particulate preparations in vitro. Quantitative autoradiography of 3 H-SP binding to striatal sections in vitro also failed to reveal any effects of dopamine denervation. 3 H-SP bound to striatal sites in vivo dissociates more slowly than that bound to striatal particulate preparations labeled in vitro. Striatal binding properties of 3 H-SP administered in vivo are quite different from the same kinetic binding parameters estimated in vitro using crude membrane preparations of striatum. In addition, striatal binding of in vivo-administered 3H-SP is not affected by prior lesion of the substantia nigra, which results in profound ipsilateral striatal dopamine depletion. Thus, behavioral supersensitivity to dopaminergic compounds may not be associated with altered striatal binding properties for dopamine receptor ligands in vivo

  10. Quantitative ligand and receptor binding studies reveal the mechanism of interleukin-36 (IL-36) pathway activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Li; Todorovic, Viktor; Kakavas, Steve; Sielaff, Bernhard; Medina, Limary; Wang, Leyu; Sadhukhan, Ramkrishna; Stockmann, Henning; Richardson, Paul L; DiGiammarino, Enrico; Sun, Chaohong; Scott, Victoria

    2018-01-12

    IL-36 cytokines signal through the IL-36 receptor (IL-36R) and a shared subunit, IL-1RAcP (IL-1 receptor accessory protein). The activation mechanism for the IL-36 pathway is proposed to be similar to that of IL-1 in that an IL-36R agonist (IL-36α, IL-36β, or IL-36γ) forms a binary complex with IL-36R, which then recruits IL-1RAcP. Recent studies have shown that IL-36R interacts with IL-1RAcP even in the absence of an agonist. To elucidate the IL-36 activation mechanism, we considered all possible binding events for IL-36 ligands/receptors and examined these events in direct binding assays. Our results indicated that the agonists bind the IL-36R extracellular domain with micromolar affinity but do not detectably bind IL-1RAcP. Using surface plasmon resonance (SPR), we found that IL-1RAcP also does not bind IL-36R when no agonist is present. In the presence of IL-36α, however, IL-1RAcP bound IL-36R strongly. These results suggested that the main pathway to the IL-36R·IL-36α·IL-1RAcP ternary complex is through the IL-36R·IL-36α binary complex, which recruits IL-1RAcP. We could not measure the binding affinity of IL-36R to IL-1RAcP directly, so we engineered a fragment crystallizable-linked construct to induce IL-36R·IL-1RAcP heterodimerization and predicted the binding affinity during a complete thermodynamic cycle to be 74 μm The SPR analysis also indicated that the IL-36R antagonist IL-36Ra binds IL-36R with higher affinity and a much slower off rate than the IL-36R agonists, shedding light on IL-36 pathway inhibition. Our results reveal the landscape of IL-36 ligand and receptor interactions, improving our understanding of IL-36 pathway activation and inhibition. © 2018 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  11. Ensemble Architecture for Prediction of Enzyme-ligand Binding Residues Using Evolutionary Information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pai, Priyadarshini P; Dattatreya, Rohit Kadam; Mondal, Sukanta

    2017-11-01

    Enzyme interactions with ligands are crucial for various biochemical reactions governing life. Over many years attempts to identify these residues for biotechnological manipulations have been made using experimental and computational techniques. The computational approaches have gathered impetus with the accruing availability of sequence and structure information, broadly classified into template-based and de novo methods. One of the predominant de novo methods using sequence information involves application of biological properties for supervised machine learning. Here, we propose a support vector machines-based ensemble for prediction of protein-ligand interacting residues using one of the most important discriminative contributing properties in the interacting residue neighbourhood, i. e., evolutionary information in the form of position-specific- scoring matrix (PSSM). The study has been performed on a non-redundant dataset comprising of 9269 interacting and 91773 non-interacting residues for prediction model generation and further evaluation. Of the various PSSM-based models explored, the proposed method named ROBBY (pRediction Of Biologically relevant small molecule Binding residues on enzYmes) shows an accuracy of 84.0 %, Matthews Correlation Coefficient of 0.343 and F-measure of 39.0 % on 78 test enzymes. Further, scope of adding domain knowledge such as pocket information has also been investigated; results showed significant enhancement in method precision. Findings are hoped to boost the reliability of small-molecule ligand interaction prediction for enzyme applications and drug design. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  12. DNA binding and biological activity of mixed ligand complexes of Cu(II, Ni(II and Co(II with quinolones and N donor ligand

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S.M M Akram

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available  AbstractMixed ligand complexes of  Cu(II, Ni(II and Co(II have been synthesized by using levofloxacin and bipyridyl and characterized using spectral and analytical techniques. The binding behavior of the Ni(II and Cu(II complexes with herring sperm DNA(Hs-DNA were determined using electronic absorption titration, viscometric measurements and cyclic voltammetry measurements. The binding constant calculated  for Cu(II and Ni(II complexes are 2.0 x 104 and 4.0 x 104 M-1 respectively. Detailed analysis reveals that these metal complexes interact with DNA through intercalative binding mode. The nuclease activity of  Cu(II and Ni(II complexes with ct-DNA was carried out using agarose gel electrophoresis technique. The antioxidant activities for the synthesized complexes have been tested and the antibacterial activity for Ni(II complex was also checked.Key words: Intercalation, hypochromism, red shift and  peak potential.

  13. Mannose-Binding Lectin Binds to Amyloid Protein and Modulates Inflammation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mykol Larvie

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Mannose-binding lectin (MBL, a soluble factor of the innate immune system, is a pattern recognition molecule with a number of known ligands, including viruses, bacteria, and molecules from abnormal self tissues. In addition to its role in immunity, MBL also functions in the maintenance of tissue homeostasis. We present evidence here that MBL binds to amyloid β peptides. MBL binding to other known carbohydrate ligands is calcium-dependent and has been attributed to the carbohydrate-recognition domain, a common feature of other C-type lectins. In contrast, we find that the features of MBL binding to Aβ are more similar to the reported binding characteristics of the cysteine-rich domain of the unrelated mannose receptor and therefore may involve the MBL cysteine-rich domain. Differences in MBL ligand binding may contribute to modulation of inflammatory response and may correlate with the function of MBL in processes such as coagulation and tissue homeostasis.

  14. Localization of the fourth membrane spanning domain as a ligand binding site in the human platelet α2-adrenergic receptor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Matsui, Hiroaki; Lefkowitz, R.J.; Caron, M.G.; Regan, J.W.

    1989-01-01

    The human platelet α 2 -adrenergic receptor is an integral membrane protein which binds epinephrine. The gene for this receptor has been cloned, and the primary structure is thus known. A model of its secondary structure predicts that the receptor has seven transmembrane spanning domains. By covalent labeling and peptide mapping, the authors have identified a region of the receptor that is directly involved with ligand binding. Partially purified preparations of the receptor were covalently radiolabeled with either of two specific photoaffinity ligands: [ 3 H]SKF 102229 (an antagonist) or p-azido[ 3 H]clonidine (an agonist). The radiolabeled receptors were then digested with specific endopeptidases, and peptides containing the covalently bound radioligands were identified. Lysylendopeptidase treatment of [ 3 H]SKF 102229 labeled receptor yielded one peptide of M r 2400 as the product of a complete digest. Endopeptidase Arg-C gave a labeled peptide of M r 4000, which was further digested to the M r 2400 peptide by additional treatment with lysylendopeptidase. Using p-azido[ 3 H]clonidine-labeled receptor, a similar M r 2400 peptide was obtained by lysylendopeptidase cleavage. This M r 2400 peptide corresponds to the fourth transmembrane spanning domain of the receptor. These data suggest that this region forms part of the ligand binding domain of the human platelet α 2 -adrenergic receptor

  15. Architecture effects on multivalent interactions by polypeptide-based multivalent ligands

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Shuang

    Multivalent interactions are characterized by the simultaneous binding between multiple ligands and multiple binding sites, either in solutions or at interfaces. In biological systems, most multivalent interactions occur between protein receptors and carbohydrate ligands through hydrogen-bonding and hydrophobic interactions. Compared with weak affinity binding between one ligand and one binding site, i.e. monovalent interaction, multivalent interactioins provide greater avidity and specificity, and therefore play unique roles in a broad range of biological activities. Moreover, the studies of multivalent interactions are also essential for producing effective inhibitors and effectors of biological processes that could have important therapeutic applications. Synthetic multivalent ligands have been designed to mimic the biological functions of natural multivalent interactions, and various types of scaffolds have been used to display multiple ligands, including small molecules, linear polymers, dendrimers, nanoparticle surfaces, monolayer surfaces and liposomes. Studies have shown that multivalent interactions can be highly affected by various architectural parameters of these multivalent ligands, including ligand identities, valencies, spacing, ligand densities, nature of linker arms, scaffold length and scaffold conformation. Most of these multivalent ligands are chemically synthesized and have limitations of controlling over sequence and conformation, which is a barrier for mimicking ordered and controlled natural biological systems. Therefore, multivalent ligands with precisely controlled architecture are required for improved structure-function relationship studies. Protein engineering methods with subsequent chemical coupling of ligands provide significant advantages of controlling over backbone conformation and functional group placement, and therefore have been used to synthesize recombinant protein-based materials with desired properties similar to natural

  16. Characterization of two forms of mouse salivary androgen-binding protein (ABP): implications for evolutionary relationships and ligand-binding function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karn, Robert C; Laukaitis, Christina M

    2003-06-17

    Mouse salivary androgen-binding protein (ABP) is a member of the secretoglobin family produced in the submaxillary glands of house mice (Mus musculus). We report the cDNA sequences and amino acid sequences of the beta and gamma subunits of ABP from a mouse cDNA library, identifying the two subunits by their pIs and molecular weights. An anomalously high molecular weight of the alpha subunit is likely due to glycosylation at a single site. A phylogenetic comparison of the three subunits of ABP with the chains of other mammalian secretoglobins shows that ABP is most closely related to mouse lachrymal protein and to the major cat allergen Fel dI. An evaluation of the most conserved residues in ABP and the other secretoglobins, in light of structural data reported by others [Callebaut, I., Poupon, A., Bally, R., Demaret, J.-P., Housset, D., Delettre, J., Hossenlopp, P., and Mornon, J.-P. (2000) Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 923, 90-112; Pattabiraman, N., Matthews, J., Ward, K., Mantile-Selvaggi, G., Miele, L., and Mukherjee, A. (2000) Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 923, 113-127], allows us to draw conclusions about the critical residues important in ligand binding by the two different ABP dimers and to assess the importance of ligand binding in the function of the molecule. In addition to the cDNAs, which represent those of the musculus subspecies of Mus musculus, we also report the coding regions of the beta and gamma subunit cDNAs from two other mouse inbred strains which represent the other two subspecies: M. musculus domesticus and M. musculus castaneus. The high nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution rate ratios (K(a)/K(s)) for both the beta and gamma subunits suggest that these two proteins are evolving under strong directional selection, as has been reported for the alpha subunit [Hwang, J., Hofstetter, J., Bonhomme, F., and Karn, R. (1997) J. Hered. 88, 93-97; Karn, R., and Clements, M. (1999) Biochem. Genet. 37, 187-199].

  17. Allosteric Regulation in the Ligand Binding Domain of Retinoic Acid Receptorγ.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yassmine Chebaro

    Full Text Available Retinoic acid (RA plays key roles in cell differentiation and growth arrest through nuclear retinoic acid receptors (RARs, which are ligand-dependent transcription factors. While the main trigger of RAR activation is the binding of RA, phosphorylation of the receptors has also emerged as an important regulatory signal. Phosphorylation of the RARγ N-terminal domain (NTD is known to play a functional role in neuronal differentiation. In this work, we investigated the phosphorylation of RARγ ligand binding domain (LBD, and present evidence that the phosphorylation status of the LBD affects the phosphorylation of the NTD region. We solved the X-ray structure of a phospho-mimetic mutant of the LBD (RARγ S371E, which we used in molecular dynamics simulations to characterize the consequences of the S371E mutation on the RARγ structural dynamics. Combined with simulations of the wild-type LBD, we show that the conformational equilibria of LBD salt bridges (notably R387-D340 are affected by the S371E mutation, which likely affects the recruitment of the kinase complex that phosphorylates the NTD. The molecular dynamics simulations also showed that a conservative mutation in this salt bridge (R387K affects the dynamics of the LBD without inducing large conformational changes. Finally, cellular assays showed that the phosphorylation of the NTD of RARγ is differentially regulated by retinoic acid in RARγWT and in the S371N, S371E and R387K mutants. This multidisciplinary work highlights an allosteric coupling between phosphorylations of the LBD and the NTD of RARγ and supports the importance of structural dynamics involving electrostatic interactions in the regulation of RARs activity.

  18. Contrasting roles for TLR ligands in HIV-1 pathogenesis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Beda Brichacek

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available The first line of a host's response to various pathogens is triggered by their engagement of cellular pattern recognition receptors (PRRs. Binding of microbial ligands to these receptors leads to the induction of a variety of cellular factors that alter intracellular and extracellular environment and interfere directly or indirectly with the life cycle of the triggering pathogen. Such changes may also affect any coinfecting microbe. Using ligands to Toll-like receptors (TLRs 5 and 9, we examined their effect on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1 replication in lymphoid tissue ex vivo. We found marked differences in the outcomes of such treatment. While flagellin (TLR5 agonist treatment enhanced replication of CC chemokine receptor 5 (CCR 5-tropic and CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4-tropic HIV-1, treatment with oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN M362 (TLR9 agonist suppressed both viral variants. The differential effects of these TLR ligands on HIV-1 replication correlated with changes in production of CC chemokines CCL3, CCL4, CCL5, and of CXC chemokines CXCL10, and CXCL12 in the ligand-treated HIV-1-infected tissues. The nature and/or magnitude of these changes were dependent on the ligand as well as on the HIV-1 viral strain. Moreover, the tested ligands differed in their ability to induce cellular activation as evaluated by the expression of the cluster of differentiation markers (CD 25, CD38, CD39, CD69, CD154, and human leukocyte antigen D related (HLA-DR as well as of a cell proliferation marker, Ki67, and of CCR5. No significant effect of the ligand treatment was observed on apoptosis and cell death/loss in the treated lymphoid tissue ex vivo. Our results suggest that binding of microbial ligands to TLRs is one of the mechanisms that mediate interactions between coinfected microbes and HIV-1 in human tissues. Thus, the engagement of appropriate TLRs by microbial molecules or their mimetic might become a new strategy for HIV therapy or prevention.

  19. Cellular uptake, nuclear localization and cytotoxicity of 125I-labelled DNA minor groove binding ligands in K562, human erythroleukaemia cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Karagiannis, T.C.; Lobachevsky, P.N.; Martin, R.F.

    2000-01-01

    Full text: Iodine-125 decays by orbital electron capture and internal conversion resulting in the emission of numerous Auger electrons which produce a highly localised radiochemical damage in the immediate vicinity of the site of decay. Given the requirement to deliver 125 I to the nuclear DNA, a minor groove binding bibenzimidazole, 125 I-iodoHoechst 33258 was investigated. It has been noted that this analogue may be prone to de-iodination in vitro and in vivo, given the presence of an orthoiodophenol moiety which is analogous to that in thyroxins. Therefore, an 125 I -iodoHoechst analogue without the hydroxyl group was also studied. The 125 I -iodoHoechst 33258 analogue was prepared by direct iodination of Hoechst 33258 and 125 I iodoHoechst was prepared by demetallation of a trimethylstannyl precursor. DNA binding studies indicated that both iodo-analogues bind to calf thymus DNA, K D = 89 ± 30nM, n = 0.018 bp - 1 for iodoHoechst 33258 and K D = 121 ± 31nM, n = 0.024 bp -1 for iodoHoechst. Similarly, nuclear localization following incubation with 5μM of either ligand at 37 deg C was observed in K562 cells by fluorescence microscopy. Flow cytometry was used to investigate the kinetics of drug uptake and efflux in K562 cells. The results indicated that when 10 6 cells were incubated with 5μM ligand at 37 deg C, the uptake reached a plateau at approximately 43 minutes for iodoHoechst 33258 and approximately 52 minutes for iodoHoechst. Ligand efflux results indicated two-phase kinetics. The initial phase which involves 50-60% of drug was characterised by a half-life time (t 1/2 ) of 55.4 minutes for efflux of iodoHoechst 33258 and a t 1/2 of 10.3 minutes for efflux of iodoHoechst, at 37 deg C. Furthermore, the results suggested that the DNA binding sites in a 10 6 cell/ml suspension were saturated by incubation with 3μM iodoHoechst 33258 and 5μM iodoHoechst. In the initial cytotoxicity experiments using 125 I-iodoHoechst 33258, K562 cells were incubated for 1

  20. New Synthesis and Tritium Labeling of a Selective Ligand for Studying High-Affinity γ-Hydroxybutyrate (GHB) Binding Sites

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vogensen, Stine B.; Marek, Ales; Bay, Tina

    2013-01-01

    3-Hydroxycyclopent-1-enecarboxylic acid (HOCPCA, 1) is a potent ligand for the high-affinity GHB binding sites in the CNS. An improved synthesis of 1 together with a very efficient synthesis of [3H]-1 is described. The radiosynthesis employs in situ generated lithium trimethoxyborotritide. Screen...

  1. Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic analysis of the GluR0 ligand-binding core from Nostoc punctiforme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, Jun Hyuck; Park, Soo Jeong; Rho, Seong-Hwan; Im, Young Jun; Kim, Mun-Kyoung; Kang, Gil Bu; Eom, Soo Hyun

    2005-01-01

    The GluR0 ligand-binding core from N. punctiforme was expressed, purified and crystallized in the presence of l-glutamate. A diffraction data set was collected to a resolution of 2.1 Å. GluR0 from Nostoc punctiforme (NpGluR0) is a bacterial homologue of the ionotropic glutamate receptor. The ligand-binding core of NpGluR0 was crystallized at 294 K using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method. The l-glutamate-complexed crystal belongs to space group C222 1 , with unit-cell parameters a = 78.0, b = 145.1, c = 132.1 Å. The crystals contain three subunits in the asymmetric unit, with a V M value of 2.49 Å 3 Da −1 . The diffraction limit of the l-glutamate complex data set was 2.1 Å using synchrotron X-ray radiation at beamline BL-4A of the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (Pohang, Korea)

  2. Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic analysis of the GluR0 ligand-binding core from Nostoc punctiforme

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, Jun Hyuck; Park, Soo Jeong; Rho, Seong-Hwan; Im, Young Jun; Kim, Mun-Kyoung; Kang, Gil Bu; Eom, Soo Hyun, E-mail: eom@gist.ac.kr [Department of Life Science, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju 500-712 (Korea, Republic of)

    2005-11-01

    The GluR0 ligand-binding core from N. punctiforme was expressed, purified and crystallized in the presence of l-glutamate. A diffraction data set was collected to a resolution of 2.1 Å. GluR0 from Nostoc punctiforme (NpGluR0) is a bacterial homologue of the ionotropic glutamate receptor. The ligand-binding core of NpGluR0 was crystallized at 294 K using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method. The l-glutamate-complexed crystal belongs to space group C222{sub 1}, with unit-cell parameters a = 78.0, b = 145.1, c = 132.1 Å. The crystals contain three subunits in the asymmetric unit, with a V{sub M} value of 2.49 Å{sup 3} Da{sup −1}. The diffraction limit of the l-glutamate complex data set was 2.1 Å using synchrotron X-ray radiation at beamline BL-4A of the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (Pohang, Korea)

  3. Different domains of Bacillus thuringiensis delta-endotoxins can bind to insect midgut membrane proteins on ligand blots

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Maagd, de R.A.; Klei, van der H.; Bakker, P.L.; Stiekema, W.J.; Bosch, D.

    1996-01-01

    We investigated the role of the constituent domains of the CryIA(b) and CryIA(c) δ-endotoxins in binding to midgut epithelial cell membrane proteins of Spodoptera exigua and Manduca sexta on ligand blots. A collection of wild- type and CryIC-CryIA hybrid toxins was used for this purpose. As

  4. Effect of the Flexible Regions of the Oncoprotein Mouse Double Minute X on Inhibitor Binding Affinity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qin, Lingyun; Liu, Huili; Chen, Rong; Zhou, Jingjing; Cheng, Xiyao; Chen, Yao; Huang, Yongqi; Su, Zhengding

    2017-11-07

    The oncoprotein MdmX (mouse double minute X) is highly homologous to Mdm2 (mouse double minute 2) in terms of their amino acid sequences and three-dimensional conformations, but Mdm2 inhibitors exhibit very weak affinity for MdmX, providing an excellent model for exploring how protein conformation distinguishes and alters inhibitor binding. The intrinsic conformation flexibility of proteins plays pivotal roles in determining and predicting the binding properties and the design of inhibitors. Although the molecular dynamics simulation approach enables us to understand protein-ligand interactions, the mechanism underlying how a flexible binding pocket adapts an inhibitor has been less explored experimentally. In this work, we have investigated how the intrinsic flexible regions of the N-terminal domain of MdmX (N-MdmX) affect the affinity of the Mdm2 inhibitor nutlin-3a using protein engineering. Guided by heteronuclear nuclear Overhauser effect measurements, we identified the flexible regions that affect inhibitor binding affinity around the ligand-binding pocket on N-MdmX. A disulfide engineering mutant, N-MdmX C25-C110/C76-C88 , which incorporated two staples to rigidify the ligand-binding pocket, allowed an affinity for nutlin-3a higher than that of wild-type N-MdmX (K d ∼ 0.48 vs K d ∼ 20.3 μM). Therefore, this mutant provides not only an effective protein model for screening and designing of MdmX inhibitors but also a valuable clue for enhancing the intermolecular interactions of the pharmacophores of a ligand with pronounced flexible regions. In addition, our results revealed an allosteric ligand-binding mechanism of N-MdmX in which the ligand initially interacts with a compact core, followed by augmenting intermolecular interactions with intrinsic flexible regions. This strategy should also be applicable to many other protein targets to accelerate drug discovery.

  5. Predicting Nanocrystal Shape through Consideration of Surface-Ligand Interactions

    KAUST Repository

    Bealing, Clive R.

    2012-03-27

    Density functional calculations for the binding energy of oleic acid-based ligands on Pb-rich {100} and {111} facets of PbSe nanocrystals determine the surface energies as a function of ligand coverage. Oleic acid is expected to bind to the nanocrystal surface in the form of lead oleate. The Wulff construction predicts the thermodynamic equilibrium shape of the PbSe nanocrystals. The equilibrium shape is a function of the ligand surface coverage, which can be controlled by changing the concentration of oleic acid during synthesis. The different binding energy of the ligand on the {100} and {111} facets results in different equilibrium ligand coverages on the facets, and a transition in the equilibrium shape from octahedral to cubic is predicted when increasing the ligand concentration during synthesis. © 2012 American Chemical Society.

  6. Effects of altered FcγR binding on antibody pharmacokinetics in cynomolgus monkeys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leabman, Maya K; Meng, Y Gloria; Kelley, Robert F; DeForge, Laura E; Cowan, Kyra J; Iyer, Suhasini

    2013-01-01

    Antibody interactions with Fcγ receptors (FcγRs), like FcγRIIIA, play a critical role in mediating antibody effector functions and thereby contribute significantly to the biologic and therapeutic activity of antibodies. Over the past decade, considerable work has been directed towards production of antibodies with altered binding affinity to FcγRs and evaluation of how the alterations modulate their therapeutic activity. This has been achieved by altering glycosylation status at N297 or by engineering modifications in the crystallizable fragment (Fc) region. While the effects of these modifications on biologic activity and efficacy have been examined, few studies have been conducted to understand their effect on antibody pharmacokinetics (PK). We present here a retrospective analysis in which we characterize the PK of three antibody variants with decreased FcγR binding affinity caused by amino acid substitutions in the Fc region (N297A, N297G, and L234A/L235A) and three antibody variants with increased FcγRIIIA binding affinity caused by afucosylation at N297, and compare their PK to corresponding wild type antibody PK in cynomolgus monkeys. For all antibodies, PK was examined at a dose that was known to be in the linear range. Since production of the N297A and N297G variants in Chinese hamster ovary cells results in aglycosylated antibodies that do not bind to FcγRs, we also examined the effect of expression of an aglycosylated antibody, without sequence change(s), in E. coli. All the variants demonstrated similar PK compared with that of the wild type antibodies, suggesting that, for the six antibodies presented here, altered FcγR binding affinity does not affect PK. PMID:24492343

  7. Identification of VDR Antagonists among Nuclear Receptor Ligands Using Virtual Screening

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kelly Teske

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Herein, we described the development of two virtual screens to identify new vitamin D receptor (VDR antagonists among nuclear receptor (NR ligands. Therefore, a database of 14330 nuclear receptor ligands and their NR affinities was assembled using the online available “Binding Database.” Two different virtual screens were carried out in conjunction with a reported VDR crystal structure applying a stringent and less stringent pharmacophore model to filter docked NR ligand conformations. The pharmacophore models were based on the spatial orientation of the hydroxyl functionalities of VDR's natural ligands 1,25(OH2D3 and 25(OH2D3. The first virtual screen identified 32 NR ligands with a calculated free energy of VDR binding of more than -6.0 kJ/mol. All but nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA are VDR ligands, which inhibited the interaction between VDR and coactivator peptide SRC2-3 with an IC50 value of 15.8 μM. The second screen identified 162 NR ligands with a calculated free energy of VDR binding of more than -6.0 kJ/mol. More than half of these ligands were developed to bind VDR followed by ERα/β ligands (26%, TRα/β ligands (7%, and LxRα/β ligands (7%. The binding between VDR and ERα ligand H6036 as well as TRα/β ligand triiodothyronine and a homoserine analog thereof was confirmed by fluorescence polarization.

  8. Post processing of protein-compound docking for fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD): in-silico structure-based drug screening and ligand-binding pose prediction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fukunishi, Yoshifumi

    2010-01-01

    For fragment-based drug development, both hit (active) compound prediction and docking-pose (protein-ligand complex structure) prediction of the hit compound are important, since chemical modification (fragment linking, fragment evolution) subsequent to the hit discovery must be performed based on the protein-ligand complex structure. However, the naïve protein-compound docking calculation shows poor accuracy in terms of docking-pose prediction. Thus, post-processing of the protein-compound docking is necessary. Recently, several methods for the post-processing of protein-compound docking have been proposed. In FBDD, the compounds are smaller than those for conventional drug screening. This makes it difficult to perform the protein-compound docking calculation. A method to avoid this problem has been reported. Protein-ligand binding free energy estimation is useful to reduce the procedures involved in the chemical modification of the hit fragment. Several prediction methods have been proposed for high-accuracy estimation of protein-ligand binding free energy. This paper summarizes the various computational methods proposed for docking-pose prediction and their usefulness in FBDD.

  9. Elucidating the role of surface passivating ligand structural parameters in hole wave function delocalization in semiconductor cluster molecules.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teunis, Meghan B; Nagaraju, Mulpuri; Dutta, Poulami; Pu, Jingzhi; Muhoberac, Barry B; Sardar, Rajesh; Agarwal, Mangilal

    2017-09-28

    This article describes the mechanisms underlying electronic interactions between surface passivating ligands and (CdSe) 34 semiconductor cluster molecules (SCMs) that facilitate band-gap engineering through the delocalization of hole wave functions without altering their inorganic core. We show here both experimentally and through density functional theory calculations that the expansion of the hole wave function beyond the SCM boundary into the ligand monolayer depends not only on the pre-binding energetic alignment of interfacial orbitals between the SCM and surface passivating ligands but is also strongly influenced by definable ligand structural parameters such as the extent of their π-conjugation [π-delocalization energy; pyrene (Py), anthracene (Anth), naphthalene (Naph), and phenyl (Ph)], binding mode [dithiocarbamate (DTC, -NH-CS 2 - ), carboxylate (-COO - ), and amine (-NH 2 )], and binding head group [-SH, -SeH, and -TeH]. We observe an unprecedentedly large ∼650 meV red-shift in the lowest energy optical absorption band of (CdSe) 34 SCMs upon passivating their surface with Py-DTC ligands and the trend is found to be Ph- wave function delocalization rather than carrier trapping and/or phonon-mediated relaxation. Taken together, knowledge of how ligands electronically interact with the SCM surface is crucial to semiconductor nanomaterial research in general because it allows the tuning of electronic properties of nanomaterials for better charge separation and enhanced charge transfer, which in turn will increase optoelectronic device and photocatalytic efficiencies.

  10. Urate is a ligand for the transcriptional regulator PecS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perera, Inoka C; Grove, Anne

    2010-09-24

    PecS is a member of the MarR (multiple antibiotic resistance regulator) family, which has been shown in Erwinia to regulate the expression of virulence genes. MarR homologs typically bind a small molecule ligand, resulting in attenuated DNA binding. For PecS, the natural ligand has not been identified. We have previously shown that urate is a ligand for the Deinococcus radiodurans-encoded MarR homolog HucR (hypothetical uricase regulator) and identified residues responsible for ligand binding. We show here that all four residues involved in urate binding and propagation of conformational changes to DNA recognition helices are conserved in PecS homologs, suggesting that urate is the ligand for PecS. Consistent with this prediction, Agrobacterium tumefaciens PecS specifically binds urate, and urate attenuates DNA binding in vitro. PecS binds two operator sites in the intergenic region between the divergent pecS gene and pecM genes, one of which features two partially overlapping repeats to which PecS binds as a dimer on opposite faces of the duplex. Notably, urate dissociates PecS from cognate DNA, allowing transcription of both genes in vivo. Taken together, our data show that urate is a ligand for PecS and suggest that urate serves a novel function in signaling the colonization of a host plant. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Preliminary Molecular Dynamic Simulations of the Estrogen Receptor Alpha Ligand Binding Domain from Antagonist to Apo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adrian E. Roitberg

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Estrogen receptors (ER are known as nuclear receptors. They exist in the cytoplasm of human cells and serves as a DNA binding transcription factor that regulates gene expression. However the estrogen receptor also has additional functions independent of DNA binding. The human estrogen receptor comes in two forms, alpha and beta. This work focuses on the alpha form of the estrogen receptor. The ERα is found in breast cancer cells, ovarian stroma cells, endometrium, and the hypothalamus. It has been suggested that exposure to DDE, a metabolite of DDT, and other pesticides causes conformational changes in the estrogen receptor. Before examining these factors, this work examines the protein unfolding from the antagonist form found in the 3ERT PDB crystal structure. The 3ERT PDB crystal structure has the estrogen receptor bound to the cancer drug 4-hydroxytamoxifen. The 4-hydroxytamoxifen ligand was extracted before the simulation, resulting in new conformational freedom due to absence of van der Waals contacts between the ligand and the receptor. The conformational changes that result expose the binding clef of the co peptide beside Helix 12 of the receptor forming an apo conformation. Two key conformations in the loops at either end of the H12 are produced resulting in the antagonist to apo conformation transformation. The results were produced over a 42ns Molecular Dynamics simulation using the AMBER FF99SB force field.

  12. Conformational dynamics and ligand binding in the multi-domain protein PDC109.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hyun Jin Kim

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available PDC109 is a modular multi-domain protein with two fibronectin type II (Fn2 repeats joined by a linker. It plays a major role in bull sperm binding to the oviductal epithelium through its interactions with phosphorylcholines (PhCs, a head group of sperm cell membrane lipids. The crystal structure of the PDC109-PhC complex shows that each PhC binds to the corresponding Fn2 domain, while the two domains are on the same face of the protein. Long timescale explicit solvent molecular dynamics (MD simulations of PDC109, in the presence and absence of PhC, suggest that PhC binding strongly correlates with the relative orientation of choline-phospholipid binding sites of the two Fn2 domains; unless the two domains tightly bind PhCs, they tend to change their relative orientation by deforming the flexible linker. The effective PDC109-PhC association constant of 28 M(-1, estimated from their potential of mean force is consistent with the experimental result. Principal component analysis of the long timescale MD simulations was compared to the significantly less expensive normal mode analysis of minimized structures. The comparison indicates that difference between relative domain motions of PDC109 with bound and unbound PhC is captured by the first principal component in the principal component analysis as well as the three lowest normal modes in the normal mode analysis. The present study illustrates the use of detailed MD simulations to clarify the energetics of specific ligand-domain interactions revealed by a static crystallographic model, as well as their influence on relative domain motions in a multi-domain protein.

  13. Heat-induced alterations in cashew allergen solubility and IgE binding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christopher P. Mattison

    Full Text Available Cashew nuts are an increasingly common cause of food allergy. We compare the soluble protein profile of cashew nuts following heating. SDS-PAGE indicate that heating can alter the solubility of cashew nut proteins. The 11S legumin, Ana o 2, dominates the soluble protein content in ready to eat and mildly heated cashew nuts. However, we found that in dark-roasted cashew nuts, the soluble protein profile shifts and the 2S albumin Ana o 3 composes up to 40% of the soluble protein. Analysis of trypsin-treated extracts by LC/MS/MS indicate changes in the relative number and intensity of peptides. The relative cumulative intensity of the 5 most commonly observed Ana o 1 and 2 peptides are altered by heating, while those of the 5 most commonly observed Ana o 3 peptides remaine relatively constant. ELISA experiments indicate that there is a decrease in rabbit IgG and human serum IgE binding to soluble cashew proteins following heating. Our findings indicate that heating can alter the solubility of cashew allergens, resulting in altered IgE binding. Our results support the use of both Ana o 2 and Ana o 3 as potential cashew allergen diagnostic targets. Keywords: Cashew nut, Food allergy, Immunoglobulin E, Mass-spectrometry, Peptide, Solubility

  14. Crystallization and crystallographic analysis of the ligand-binding domain of the Pseudomonas putida chemoreceptor McpS in complex with malate and succinate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gavira, J. A.; Lacal, J.; Ramos, J. L.; García-Ruiz, J. M.; Krell, T.; Pineda-Molina, E.

    2012-01-01

    The crystallization of the ligand-binding domain of the methyl-accepting chemotaxis protein chemoreceptor McpS (McpS-LBD) is reported. Methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins (MCPs) are transmembrane proteins that sense changes in environmental signals, generating a chemotactic response and regulating other cellular processes. MCPs are composed of two main domains: a ligand-binding domain (LBD) and a cytosolic signalling domain (CSD). Here, the crystallization of the LBD of the chemoreceptor McpS (McpS-LBD) is reported. McpS-LBD is responsible for sensing most of the TCA-cycle intermediates in the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida KT2440. McpS-LBD was expressed, purified and crystallized in complex with two of its natural ligands (malate and succinate). Crystals were obtained by both the counter-diffusion and the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion techniques after pre-incubation of McpS-LBD with the ligands. The crystals were isomorphous and belonged to space group C2, with two molecules per asymmetric unit. Diffraction data were collected at the ESRF synchrotron X-ray source to resolutions of 1.8 and 1.9 Å for the malate and succinate complexes, respectively

  15. Haptoglobin preferentially binds β but not α subunits cross-linked hemoglobin tetramers with minimal effects on ligand and redox reactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jia, Yiping; Wood, Francine; Buehler, Paul W; Alayash, Abdu I

    2013-01-01

    Human hemoglobin (Hb) and haptoglobin (Hp) exhibit an extremely high affinity for each other, and the dissociation of Hb tetramers into dimers is generally believed to be a prerequisite for complex formation. We have investigated Hp interactions with native Hb, αα, and ββ cross-linked Hb (ααXLHb and ββXLHb, respectively), and rapid kinetics of Hb ligand binding as well as the redox reactivity in the presence of and absence of Hp. The quaternary conformation of ββ subunit cross-linking results in a higher binding affinity than that of αα subunit cross-linked Hb. However, ββ cross-linked Hb exhibits a four fold slower association rate constant than the reaction rate of unmodified Hb with Hp. The Hp contact regions in the Hb dimer interfaces appear to be more readily exposed in ββXLHb than ααXLHb. In addition, apart from the functional changes caused by chemical modifications, Hp binding does not induce appreciable effects on the ligand binding and redox reactions of ββXLHb. Our findings may therefore be relevant to the design of safer Hb-based oxygen therapeutics by utilizing this preferential binding of ββXLHb to Hp. This may ultimately provide a safe oxidative inactivation and clearance pathway for chemically modified Hbs in circulation.

  16. Conformational changes in fragments D and double-D from human fibrin(ogen) upon binding the peptide ligand Gly-His-Arg-Pro-amide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Everse, S J; Spraggon, G; Veerapandian, L; Doolittle, R F

    1999-03-09

    The structure of fragment double-D from human fibrin has been solved in the presence and absence of the peptide ligands that simulate the two knobs exposed by the removal of fibrinopeptides A and B, respectively. All told, six crystal structures have been determined, three of which are reported here for the first time: namely, fragments D and double-D with the peptide GHRPam alone and double-D in the absence of any peptide ligand. Comparison of the structures has revealed a series of conformational changes that are brought about by the various knob-hole interactions. Of greatest interest is a moveable "flap" of two negatively charged amino acids (Glubeta397 and Aspbeta398) whose side chains are pinned back to the coiled coil with a calcium atom bridge until GHRPam occupies the beta-chain pocket. Additionally, in the absence of the peptide ligand GPRPam, GHRPam binds to the gamma-chain pocket, a new calcium-binding site being formed concomitantly.

  17. Relationship between hot spot residues and ligand binding hot spots in protein-protein interfaces.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zerbe, Brandon S; Hall, David R; Vajda, Sandor; Whitty, Adrian; Kozakov, Dima

    2012-08-27

    In the context of protein-protein interactions, the term "hot spot" refers to a residue or cluster of residues that makes a major contribution to the binding free energy, as determined by alanine scanning mutagenesis. In contrast, in pharmaceutical research, a hot spot is a site on a target protein that has high propensity for ligand binding and hence is potentially important for drug discovery. Here we examine the relationship between these two hot spot concepts by comparing alanine scanning data for a set of 15 proteins with results from mapping the protein surfaces for sites that can bind fragment-sized small molecules. We find the two types of hot spots are largely complementary; the residues protruding into hot spot regions identified by computational mapping or experimental fragment screening are almost always themselves hot spot residues as defined by alanine scanning experiments. Conversely, a residue that is found by alanine scanning to contribute little to binding rarely interacts with hot spot regions on the partner protein identified by fragment mapping. In spite of the strong correlation between the two hot spot concepts, they fundamentally differ, however. In particular, while identification of a hot spot by alanine scanning establishes the potential to generate substantial interaction energy with a binding partner, there are additional topological requirements to be a hot spot for small molecule binding. Hence, only a minority of hot spots identified by alanine scanning represent sites that are potentially useful for small inhibitor binding, and it is this subset that is identified by experimental or computational fragment screening.

  18. Sensing Conformational Changes in DNA upon Ligand Binding Using QCM-D. Polyamine Condensation and Rad51 Extension of DNA Layers

    KAUST Repository

    Sun, Lu; Frykholm, Karolin; Fornander, Louise H.; Svedhem, Sofia; Westerlund, Fredrik; Å kerman, Bjö rn

    2014-01-01

    © 2014 American Chemical Society. Biosensors, in which binding of ligands is detected through changes in the optical or electrochemical properties of a DNA layer confined to the sensor surface, are important tools for investigating DNA interactions

  19. Molecular dynamics simulations and free energy calculations of netropsin and distamycin binding to an AAAAA DNA binding site.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dolenc, Jozica; Oostenbrink, Chris; Koller, Joze; van Gunsteren, Wilfred F

    2005-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed on netropsin in two different charge states and on distamycin binding to the minor groove of the DNA duplex d(CGCGAAAAACGCG).d(CGCGTTTTTCGCG). The relative free energy of binding of the two non-covalently interacting ligands was calculated using the thermodynamic integration method and reflects the experimental result. From 2 ns simulations of the ligands free in solution and when bound to DNA, the mobility and the hydrogen-bonding patterns of the ligands were studied, as well as their hydration. It is shown that even though distamycin is less hydrated than netropsin, the loss of ligand-solvent interactions is very similar for both ligands. The relative mobilities of the ligands in their bound and free forms indicate a larger entropic penalty for distamycin when binding to the minor groove compared with netropsin, partially explaining the lower binding affinity of the distamycin molecule. The detailed structural and energetic insights obtained from the molecular dynamics simulations allow for a better understanding of the factors determining ligand-DNA binding.

  20. Murine interleukin 1 receptor. Direct identification by ligand blotting and purification to homogeneity of an interleukin 1-binding glycoprotein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bird, T.A.; Gearing, A.J.; Saklatvala, J.

    1988-01-01

    Functional receptors (IL1-R) for the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin 1 (IL1) were solubilized from plasma membranes of the NOB-1 subclone of murine EL4 6.1 thymoma cells using the zwitterionic detergent 3[(3-cholamidopropyl)dimethylammonio]-1-propanesulfonate (CHAPS). Membrane extracts were subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, transferred to nitrocellulose membranes, and ligand blotted with 125 I-labeled recombinant human IL1 alpha in order to reveal proteins capable of specifically binding IL1. A single polydisperse polypeptide of Mr approximately equal to 80,000 was identified in this way, which bound IL1 alpha and IL1 beta with the same affinity as the IL1-R on intact NOB-1 cells (approximately equal to 10(-10) M). The IL1-binding polypeptide was only seen in membranes from IL1-R-bearing cells and did not react with interleukin 2, tumor necrosis factor alpha, or interferon. IL1-R was purified to apparent homogeneity from solubilized NOB-1 membranes by affinity chromatography on wheat germ agglutinin-Sepharose and IL1 alpha-Sepharose. Gel electrophoresis and silver staining of purified preparations revealed a single protein of Mr approximately equal to 80,000 which reacted positively in the ligand-blotting procedure and which we identify as the ligand-binding moiety of the murine IL1-R. Purified IL1-R exhibited the same affinity and specificity as the receptor on intact cells. The relationship of this protein to proteins identified by covalent cross-linking studies is discussed

  1. The effect of glycation on bovine serum albumin conformation and ligand binding properties with regard to gliclazide

    Science.gov (United States)

    Żurawska-Płaksej, Ewa; Rorbach-Dolata, Anna; Wiglusz, Katarzyna; Piwowar, Agnieszka

    2018-01-01

    Albumin, the major serum protein, plays a variety of functions, including binding and transporting endogenous and exogenous ligands. Its molecular structure is sensitive to different environmental modifiers, among which glucose is one of the most significant. In vivo albumin glycation occurs under physiological conditions, but it is increased in diabetes. Since bovine serum albumin (BSA) may serve as a model protein in in vitro experiments, we aimed to investigate the impact of glucose-mediated BSA glycation on the binding capacity towards gliclazide, as well as the ability of this drug to prevent glycation of the BSA molecule. To reflect normo- and hyperglycemia, the conditions of the glycation process were established. Structural changes of albumin after interaction with gliclazide (0-14 μM) were determined using fluorescence quenching and circular dichroism spectroscopy. Moreover, thermodynamic parameters as well as energy transfer parameters were determined. Calculated Stern-Volmer quenching constants, as well as binding constants for the BSA-gliclazide complex, were lower for the glycated form of albumin than for the unmodified protein. The largest, over 2-fold, decrease in values of binding parameters was observed for the sample with 30 mM of glucose, reflecting the poorly controlled diabetic state, which indicates that the degree of glycation had a critical influence on binding with gliclazide. In contrast to significant changes in the tertiary structure of BSA upon binding with gliclazide, only slight changes in the secondary structure were observed, which was reflected by about a 3% decrease of the α-helix content of glycated BSA (regardless of glucose concentration) in comparison to unmodified BSA. The presence of gliclazide during glycation did not affect its progress. The results of this study indicate that glycation significantly changed the binding ability of BSA towards gliclazide and the scale of these changes depended on glucose concentration. It

  2. Thermodynamic Characterization of Hydration Sites from Integral Equation-Derived Free Energy Densities: Application to Protein Binding Sites and Ligand Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Güssregen, Stefan; Matter, Hans; Hessler, Gerhard; Lionta, Evanthia; Heil, Jochen; Kast, Stefan M

    2017-07-24

    Water molecules play an essential role for mediating interactions between ligands and protein binding sites. Displacement of specific water molecules can favorably modulate the free energy of binding of protein-ligand complexes. Here, the nature of water interactions in protein binding sites is investigated by 3D RISM (three-dimensional reference interaction site model) integral equation theory to understand and exploit local thermodynamic features of water molecules by ranking their possible displacement in structure-based design. Unlike molecular dynamics-based approaches, 3D RISM theory allows for fast and noise-free calculations using the same detailed level of solute-solvent interaction description. Here we correlate molecular water entities instead of mere site density maxima with local contributions to the solvation free energy using novel algorithms. Distinct water molecules and hydration sites are investigated in multiple protein-ligand X-ray structures, namely streptavidin, factor Xa, and factor VIIa, based on 3D RISM-derived free energy density fields. Our approach allows the semiquantitative assessment of whether a given structural water molecule can potentially be targeted for replacement in structure-based design. Finally, PLS-based regression models from free energy density fields used within a 3D-QSAR approach (CARMa - comparative analysis of 3D RISM Maps) are shown to be able to extract relevant information for the interpretation of structure-activity relationship (SAR) trends, as demonstrated for a series of serine protease inhibitors.

  3. Considerations for dosimetry calculations with neuroreceptor binding radioligands

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wong, D.F.; Bice, A.N.; Beck, T.; Dannals, R.F.; Links, J.M.; Wagner, H.N. Jr.

    1986-01-01

    Neuroreceptor binding radiotracers have unique characteristics which must be considered in absorbed dose calculations. In this article the authors outline some of the important issues to be considered such as the high specific binding to various receptor bearing tissue regions, the receptor kinetics, the specific activity of the injected ligand and the presence of competing unlabeled substances. As an example of these considerations they have shown the outline of the measurements for animal and human biodistribution data of the D2 dopamine receptor binding ligand 11 C-3N-methylspiperone (NMSP) and they calculated the absorbed doses for the important body organs. This includes dose estimates using various species including mice, followed by primate and human data. Because of the selective uptake of NMSP to brain regions such as the basal ganglia they calculated values specifically for these areas in the cerebellum. Since kinetic modeling and therapeutic drug monitoring employ competing unlabeled ligands such as haloperidol which alter the NMSP distribution they estimated the dose in both unblocked and cases blocked with haloperidol. In such cases the doses were about 50% lower in the blocked cases for the basal ganglia. Target organs such as the bladder using external probes and a model based upon changing urine volumes suggests a 30% decrease from mouse estimates. 13 references, 4 figures, 7 tables

  4. Binding of the ligand [3H]MK-801 to the MK-801 binding site of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor during experimental encephalopathy from acute liver failure and from acute hyperammonemia in the rabbit

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    R.J. de Knegt (Robert); J. Kornhuber (Johannes); S.W. Schalm (Solko); K. Rusche (K.); P.F. Riederer (Peter); J. Tan (J.)

    1993-01-01

    textabstractBinding of the ligand [3H]MK-801 to the MK-801 binding site of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor population on brain homogenates in rabbits was studied during experimental encephalopathy from acute liver failure and from acute hyperammonemia in the rabbit. Homogenates were

  5. In vivo binding of tritiated dopaminergic ligands in mouse brain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baudry, Michel; Martres, M.-P.; Le Sellin, Michel; Schwartz, J.-C.; Guyon, Anne; Morgat, J.-L.

    1977-01-01

    The regional distribution of various dopaminergic radiolabelled ligands has been studied in the mouse brain after their intravenous injections. Among them, 3 H-pimozide and, to a lesser extent, 3 H-apomorphine are preferentially accumulated in the striatum, a region rich in dopaminergic receptors, as compared to cerebellum, a region believed not to contain dopaminergic receptors. For 3 H-pimozide, this preferential retention is due to a more rapid disappearance from the cerebellum than from the striatum. Moreover, prior administration of various neuroleptics which do not modify 3 H-pimozide levels recovered in the cerebellum, abolishes the differential retention of 3 H-pimozide in the striatum. These results indicate that the retention of 3 H-pimozide in the brain may be regarded as the sum of two components: a non-specific retention evaluated by 3 H-pimozide level in the cerebellum and the binding to dopaminergic receptors [fr

  6. The relationship between metal toxicity and biotic ligand binding affinities in aquatic and soil organisms: a review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ardestani, Masoud M; van Straalen, Nico M; van Gestel, Cornelis A M

    2014-12-01

    The biotic ligand model (BLM) is a theoretical, potentially mechanistic approach to assess metal bioavailability in soil and aquatic systems. In a BLM, toxicity is linked to the fraction of biotic ligand occupied, which in turn, depends on the various components of the solution, including activity of the metal. Bioavailability is a key factor in determining toxicity and uptake of metals in organisms. In this study, the present status of BLM development for soil and aquatic organisms is summarized. For all species and all metals, toxicity was correlated with the conditional biotic ligand binding constants. For almost all organisms, values for Ag, Cu, and Cd were higher than those for Zn and Ni. The constants derived for aquatic systems seem to be equally valid for soil organisms, but in the case of soils, bioavailability from the soil solution is greatly influenced by the presence of the soil solid phase. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Generation of Affibody ligands binding interleukin-2 receptor alpha/CD25.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grönwall, Caroline; Snelders, Eveline; Palm, Anna Jarelöv; Eriksson, Fredrik; Herne, Nina; Ståhl, Stefan

    2008-06-01

    Affibody molecules specific for human IL-2Ralpha, the IL-2 (interleukin-2) receptor alpha subunit, also known as CD25, were selected by phage-display technology from a combinatorial protein library based on the 58-residue Protein A-derived Z domain. The IL-2R system plays a major role in T-cell activation and the regulation of cellular immune responses. Moreover, CD25 has been found to be overexpressed in organ rejections, a number of autoimmune diseases and T-cell malignancies. The phage-display selection using Fc-fused target protein generated 16 unique Affibody molecules targeting CD25. The two most promising binders were characterized in more detail using biosensor analysis and demonstrated strong and selective binding to CD25. Kinetic biosensor analysis revealed that the two monomeric Affibody molecules bound to CD25 with apparent affinities of 130 and 240 nM respectively. The Affibody molecules were, on biosensor analysis, found to compete for the same binding site as the natural ligand IL-2 and the IL-2 blocking monoclonal antibody 2A3. Hence the Affibody molecules were assumed to have an overlapping binding site with IL-2 and antibodies targeting the IL-2 blocking Tac epitope (for example, the monoclonal antibodies Daclizumab and Basiliximab, both of which have been approved for therapeutic use). Furthermore, immunofluorescence microscopy and flow-cytometric analysis of CD25-expressing cells demonstrated that the selected Affibody molecules bound to CD4+ CD25+ PMBCs (peripheral-blood mononuclear cells), the IL-2-dependent cell line NK92 and phytohaemagglutinin-activated PMBCs. The potential use of the CD25-binding Affibody molecules as targeting agents for medical imaging and for therapeutic applications is discussed.

  8. Dissecting Orthosteric Contacts for a Reverse-Fragment-Based Ligand Design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chandramohan, Arun; Tulsian, Nikhil K; Anand, Ganesh S

    2017-08-01

    Orthosteric sites on proteins are formed typically from noncontiguous interacting sites in three-dimensional space where the composite binding interaction of a biological ligand is mediated by multiple synergistic interactions of its constituent functional groups. Through these multiple interactions, ligands stabilize both the ligand binding site and the local secondary structure. However, relative energetic contributions of the individual contacts in these protein-ligand interactions are difficult to resolve. Deconvolution of the contributions of these various functional groups in natural inhibitors/ligand would greatly aid in iterative fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD). In this study, we describe an approach of progressive unfolding of a target protein using a gradient of denaturant urea to reveal the individual energetic contributions of various ligand-functional groups to the affinity of the entire ligand. Through calibrated unfolding of two protein-ligand systems: cAMP-bound regulatory subunit of Protein Kinase A (RIα) and IBMX-bound phosphodiesterase8 (PDE8), monitored by amide hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry, we show progressive disruption of individual orthosteric contacts in the ligand binding sites, allowing us to rank the energetic contributions of these individual interactions. In the two cAMP-binding sites of RIα, exocyclic phosphate oxygens of cAMP were identified to mediate stronger interactions than ribose 2'-OH in both the RIα-cAMP binding interfaces. Further, we have also ranked the relative contributions of the different functional groups of IBMX based on their interactions with the orthosteric residues of PDE8. This strategy for deconstruction of individual binding sites and identification of the strongest functional group interaction in enzyme orthosteric sites offers a rational starting point for FBDD.

  9. Structural studies of Ca2+-ATPase ligand and regulatory complexes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Drachmann, Nikolaj Düring

    2015-01-01

    , the surrounding membrane itself has a huge influence on SERCA structure and function. Changes in the membrane thickness can alter the activity of the ATPase significantly, and even cause changes in the stoichiometry of ion transport. Structural studies on SERCA in the presence of four different phosphatidyl...... choline lipids with different aliphatic chain length and saturation show three specific lipid binding sites. The four different lipids analysed bind to the same binding sites with varying degrees of disorder. The study contributes to understanding the complex interplay between the surrounding membrane...... to explore the possibilities for an efficient screening of ligand-bound SERCA structures, serial femtosecond crystallography experiments of microcrystals of SERCA1a in the Ca2+ bound state and in a vanadate stabilised E2 state was conducted. A structure obtained at 2.8 Å maximum resolution of the proof...

  10. MANAGING TIGHT BINDING RECEPTORS FOR NEW SPEARATIONS TECHNOLOGIES

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    DARYLE H BUSCH RICHARD S GIVENS

    2004-12-10

    Much of the earth's pollution involves compounds of the metallic elements, including actinides, strontium, cesium, technetium, and RCRA metals. Metal ions bind to molecules called ligands, which are the molecular tools that can manipulate the metal ions under most conditions. This DOE-EMSP sponsored program strives (1) to provide the foundations for using the most powerful ligands in transformational separations technologies and (2) to produce seminal examples of their applications to separations appropriate to the DOE EM mission. These ultra tight-binding ligands can capture metal ions in the most competitive of circumstances (from mineralized sites, lesser ligands, and even extremely dilute solutions), but they react so slowly that they are useless in traditional separations methodologies. Two attacks on this problem are underway. The first accommodates to the challenging molecular lethargy by developing a seminal slow separations methodology termed the soil poultice. The second designs ligands that are only tight-binding while wrapped around the targeted metal ion, but can be put in place by switch-binding and removed by switch-release. We envision a kind of molecular switching process to accelerate the union between metal ion and tight-binding ligand. Molecular switching processes are suggested for overcoming the slow natural equilibration rate with which ultra tight-binding ligands combine with metal ions. Ligands that bind relatively weakly combine with metal ions rapidly, so the trick is to convert a ligand from a weak, rapidly binding species to a powerful, slow releasing ligand--during the binding of the ligand to the metal ion. Such switch-binding ligands must react with themselves, and the reaction must take place under the influence of the metal ion. For example, our generation 1 ligands showed that a well-designed linear ligand with ends that readily combine, forms a cyclic molecule when it wraps around a metal ion. Our generation 2 ligands are

  11. Fast and Efficient Fragment-Based Lead Generation by Fully Automated Processing and Analysis of Ligand-Observed NMR Binding Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Chen; Frommlet, Alexandra; Perez, Manuel; Cobas, Carlos; Blechschmidt, Anke; Dominguez, Santiago; Lingel, Andreas

    2016-04-14

    NMR binding assays are routinely applied in hit finding and validation during early stages of drug discovery, particularly for fragment-based lead generation. To this end, compound libraries are screened by ligand-observed NMR experiments such as STD, T1ρ, and CPMG to identify molecules interacting with a target. The analysis of a high number of complex spectra is performed largely manually and therefore represents a limiting step in hit generation campaigns. Here we report a novel integrated computational procedure that processes and analyzes ligand-observed proton and fluorine NMR binding data in a fully automated fashion. A performance evaluation comparing automated and manual analysis results on (19)F- and (1)H-detected data sets shows that the program delivers robust, high-confidence hit lists in a fraction of the time needed for manual analysis and greatly facilitates visual inspection of the associated NMR spectra. These features enable considerably higher throughput, the assessment of larger libraries, and shorter turn-around times.

  12. The Second Transmembrane Domain of the Human Type 1 Angiotensin II Receptor Participates in the Formation of the Ligand Binding Pocket and Undergoes Integral Pivoting Movement during the Process of Receptor Activation*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domazet, Ivana; Holleran, Brian J.; Martin, Stéphane S.; Lavigne, Pierre; Leduc, Richard; Escher, Emanuel; Guillemette, Gaétan

    2009-01-01

    The octapeptide hormone angiotensin II (AngII) exerts a wide variety of cardiovascular effects through the activation of the angiotensin II type-1 (AT1) receptor, which belongs to the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. Like other G protein-coupled receptors, the AT1 receptor possesses seven transmembrane domains that provide structural support for the formation of the ligand-binding pocket. In order to identify those residues in the second transmembrane domain (TMD2) that contribute to the formation of the binding pocket of the AT1 receptor, we used the substituted cysteine accessibility method. All of the residues within the Leu-70 to Trp-94 region were mutated one at a time to a cysteine, and, after expression in COS-7 cells, the mutant receptors were treated with the sulfhydryl-specific alkylating agent methanethiosulfonate-ethylammonium (MTSEA). MTSEA reacts selectively with water-accessible, free sulfhydryl groups of endogenous or introduced point mutation cysteines. If a cysteine is found in the binding pocket, the covalent modification will affect the binding kinetics of the ligand. MTSEA substantially decreased the binding affinity of D74C-AT1, L81C-AT1, A85C-AT1, T88C-AT1, and A89C-AT1 mutant receptors, which suggests that these residues orient themselves within the water-accessible binding pocket of the AT1 receptor. Interestingly, this pattern of acquired MTSEA sensitivity was altered for TMD2 reporter cysteines engineered in a constitutively active N111G-AT1 receptor background. Indeed, mutant D74C-N111G-AT1 became insensitive to MTSEA, whereas mutant L81C-N111G-AT1 lost some sensitivity and mutant V86C-N111G-AT1 became sensitive to MTSEA. Our results suggest that constitutive activation of the AT1 receptor causes TMD2 to pivot, bringing the top of TMD2 closer to the binding pocket and pushing the bottom of TMD2 away from the binding pocket. PMID:19276075

  13. The second transmembrane domain of the human type 1 angiotensin II receptor participates in the formation of the ligand binding pocket and undergoes integral pivoting movement during the process of receptor activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domazet, Ivana; Holleran, Brian J; Martin, Stéphane S; Lavigne, Pierre; Leduc, Richard; Escher, Emanuel; Guillemette, Gaétan

    2009-05-01

    The octapeptide hormone angiotensin II (AngII) exerts a wide variety of cardiovascular effects through the activation of the angiotensin II type-1 (AT(1)) receptor, which belongs to the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. Like other G protein-coupled receptors, the AT(1) receptor possesses seven transmembrane domains that provide structural support for the formation of the ligand-binding pocket. In order to identify those residues in the second transmembrane domain (TMD2) that contribute to the formation of the binding pocket of the AT(1) receptor, we used the substituted cysteine accessibility method. All of the residues within the Leu-70 to Trp-94 region were mutated one at a time to a cysteine, and, after expression in COS-7 cells, the mutant receptors were treated with the sulfhydryl-specific alkylating agent methanethiosulfonate-ethylammonium (MTSEA). MTSEA reacts selectively with water-accessible, free sulfhydryl groups of endogenous or introduced point mutation cysteines. If a cysteine is found in the binding pocket, the covalent modification will affect the binding kinetics of the ligand. MTSEA substantially decreased the binding affinity of D74C-AT(1), L81C-AT(1), A85C-AT(1), T88C-AT(1), and A89C-AT(1) mutant receptors, which suggests that these residues orient themselves within the water-accessible binding pocket of the AT(1) receptor. Interestingly, this pattern of acquired MTSEA sensitivity was altered for TMD2 reporter cysteines engineered in a constitutively active N111G-AT(1) receptor background. Indeed, mutant D74C-N111G-AT(1) became insensitive to MTSEA, whereas mutant L81C-N111G-AT(1) lost some sensitivity and mutant V86C-N111G-AT(1) became sensitive to MTSEA. Our results suggest that constitutive activation of the AT(1) receptor causes TMD2 to pivot, bringing the top of TMD2 closer to the binding pocket and pushing the bottom of TMD2 away from the binding pocket.

  14. Molecular interactions of agonist and inverse agonist ligands at serotonin 5-HT2C G protein-coupled receptors: computational ligand docking and molecular dynamics studies validated by experimental mutagenesis results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Córdova-Sintjago, Tania C.; Liu, Yue; Booth, Raymond G.

    2015-02-01

    To understand molecular determinants for ligand activation of the serotonin 5-HT2C G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), a drug target for obesity and neuropsychiatric disorders, a 5-HT2C homology model was built according to an adrenergic β2 GPCR (β2AR) structure and validated using a 5-HT2B GPCR crystal structure. The models were equilibrated in a simulated phosphatidyl choline membrane for ligand docking and molecular dynamics studies. Ligands included (2S, 4R)-(-)-trans-4-(3'-bromo- and trifluoro-phenyl)-N,N-dimethyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene-2-amine (3'-Br-PAT and 3'-CF3-PAT), a 5-HT2C agonist and inverse agonist, respectively. Distinct interactions of 3'-Br-PAT and 3'-CF3-PAT at the wild-type (WT) 5-HT2C receptor model were observed and experimental 5-HT2C receptor mutagenesis studies were undertaken to validate the modelling results. For example, the inverse agonist 3'-CF3-PAT docked deeper in the WT 5-HT2C binding pocket and altered the orientation of transmembrane helices (TM) 6 in comparison to the agonist 3'-Br-PAT, suggesting that changes in TM orientation that result from ligand binding impact function. For both PATs, mutation of 5-HT2C residues S3.36, T3.37, and F5.47 to alanine resulted in significantly decreased affinity, as predicted from modelling results. It was concluded that upon PAT binding, 5-HT2C residues T3.37 and F5.47 in TMs 3 and 5, respectively, engage in inter-helical interactions with TMs 4 and 6, respectively. The movement of TMs 5 and 6 upon agonist and inverse agonist ligand binding observed in the 5-HT2C receptor modelling studies was similar to movements reported for the activation and deactivation of the β2AR, suggesting common mechanisms among aminergic neurotransmitter GPCRs.

  15. Homology-modeled ligand-binding domains of medaka estrogen receptors and androgen receptors: A model system for the study of reproduction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cui Jianzhou; Shen Xueyan; Yan Zuowei; Zhao Haobin; Nagahama, Yoshitaka

    2009-01-01

    Estrogen and androgen and their receptors play critical roles in physiological processes such as sexual differentiation and development. Using the available structural models for the human estrogen receptors alpha and beta and androgen receptor as templates, we designed in silico agonist and antagonist models of medaka estrogen receptor (meER) alpha, beta-1, and beta-2, and androgen receptor (meAR) alpha and beta. Using these models, we studied (1) the structural relationship between the ligand-binding domains (LBDs) of ERs and ARs of human and medaka, and (2) whether medaka ER and AR can be potential models for studying the ligand-binding activities of various agonists and antagonists of these receptors by docking analysis. A high level of conservation was observed between the sequences of the ligand-binding domains of meERα and huERα, meERβ1 and huERβ, meERβ2, and huERβ with 62.8%, 66.4%, and 65.1% identity, respectively. The sequence conservation between meARα and huAR, meARβ, and huAR was found with 70.1% and 61.0% of identity, respectively. Thirty-three selected endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), including both agonists and antagonists, were docked into the LBD of ER and AR, and the corresponding docking score for medaka models and human templates were calculated. In order to confirm the conservation of the overall geometry and the binding pocket, the backbone root mean square deviation (RMSD) for Cα atoms was derived from the structure superposition of all 10 medaka homology models to the six human templates. Our results suggested conformational conservation between the ERs and ARs of medaka and human, Thus, medaka could be highly useful as a model system for studies involving estrogen and androgen interaction with their receptors.

  16. E-selectin ligand-1 (ESL-1) is a novel adiponectin binding protein on cell adhesion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamoto, Hiroyasu; Kuroda, Nana; Uekita, Hiromi; Kochi, Ikoi; Matsumoto, Akane; Niinaga, Ryu; Funahashi, Tohru; Shimomura, Iichiro; Kihara, Shinji

    2016-02-05

    Adiponectin (APN) is an adipocyte-derived bioactive molecule with anti-diabetic and anti-atherogenic properties. Although anti-diabetic effects are mostly mediated by the adiponectin receptors AdipoR1 and AdipoR2, the anti-atherogenic mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. In this study, we identified E-selectin ligand (ESL)-1 as a novel APN-binding protein by mass spectrometry analysis of HepG2 cell-derived immunoprecipitant with an anti-APN antibody. Cell adhesion assays using fluorescence-labelled monocyte cell line THP-1 cells and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) revealed that APN-pre-treated THP-1 cells had reduced binding ability to HUVECs. This APN-mediated suppressive effect on monocyte binding to endothelial cells was partially abrogated by targeting ESL-1 with shRNA in THP-1 cells. In addition, serial mutagenesis analysis disclosed that five extracellular amino acids close to the N-terminus of ESL-1 were essential for binding with APN. Our results highlight the fact that interaction between APN and ESL-1 could provide a fundamental mechanism underlying the anti-atherogenic properties of APN. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  17. NetMHCpan-4.0: Improved Peptide-MHC Class I Interaction Predictions Integrating Eluted Ligand and Peptide Binding Affinity Data

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jurtz, Vanessa Isabell; Paul, Sinu; Andreatta, Massimo

    2017-01-01

    by mass spectrometry have been reported containing information about peptide-processing steps in the presentation pathway and the length distribution of naturally presented peptides. In this article, we present NetMHCpan-4.0, a method trained on binding affinity and eluted ligand data leveraging......Cytotoxic T cells are of central importance in the immune system's response to disease. They recognize defective cells by binding to peptides presented on the cell surface by MHC class I molecules. Peptide binding to MHC molecules is the single most selective step in the Ag-presentation pathway....... Therefore, in the quest for T cell epitopes, the prediction of peptide binding to MHC molecules has attracted widespread attention. In the past, predictors of peptide-MHC interactions have primarily been trained on binding affinity data. Recently, an increasing number of MHC-presented peptides identified...

  18. Adjuvant effects of mannose-binding lectin ligands on the immune response to infectious bronchitis vaccine in chickens with high or low serum mannose-binding lectin concentrations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kjærup, Rikke Munkholm; Dalgaard, Tina Sørensen; Norup, Liselotte Rothmann

    2014-01-01

    in the pathogenesis of IBV infection and the production of IBV-specific antibodies, which may be exploited in optimising IBV vaccine strategies. The present study shows that MBL has the capability to bind to IBV in vitro. Chickens from two inbred lines (L10H and L10L) selected for high or low MBL serum concentrations......, respectively, were vaccinated against IBV with or without the addition of the MBL ligands mannan, chitosan and fructooligosaccharide (FOS). The addition of MBL ligands to the IBV vaccine, especially FOS, enhanced the production of IBV-specific IgG antibody production in L10H chickens, but not L10L chickens...... to the vaccine, most pronouncedly after the first vaccination. As MBL ligands co-administered with IBV vaccine induced differences between the two chicken lines, these results indirectly suggest that MBL is involved in the immune response to IBV vaccination. Furthermore, the higher antibody response in L10H...

  19. Direct Pore Binding as a Mechanism for Isoflurane Inhibition of the Pentameric Ligand-gated Ion Channel ELIC.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Qiang; Kinde, Monica N; Arjunan, Palaniappa; Wells, Marta M; Cohen, Aina E; Xu, Yan; Tang, Pei

    2015-09-08

    Pentameric ligand-gated ion channels (pLGICs) are targets of general anesthetics, but molecular mechanisms underlying anesthetic action remain debatable. We found that ELIC, a pLGIC from Erwinia chrysanthemi, can be functionally inhibited by isoflurane and other anesthetics. Structures of ELIC co-crystallized with isoflurane in the absence or presence of an agonist revealed double isoflurane occupancies inside the pore near T237(6') and A244(13'). A pore-radius contraction near the extracellular entrance was observed upon isoflurane binding. Electrophysiology measurements with a single-point mutation at position 6' or 13' support the notion that binding at these sites renders isoflurane inhibition. Molecular dynamics simulations suggested that isoflurane binding was more stable in the resting than in a desensitized pore conformation. This study presents compelling evidence for a direct pore-binding mechanism of isoflurane inhibition, which has a general implication for inhibitory action of general anesthetics on pLGICs.

  20. Free-energy relationships in ion channels activated by voltage and ligand

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chowdhury, Sandipan

    2013-01-01

    Many ion channels are modulated by multiple stimuli, which allow them to integrate a variety of cellular signals and precisely respond to physiological needs. Understanding how these different signaling pathways interact has been a challenge in part because of the complexity of underlying models. In this study, we analyzed the energetic relationships in polymodal ion channels using linkage principles. We first show that in proteins dually modulated by voltage and ligand, the net free-energy change can be obtained by measuring the charge-voltage (Q-V) relationship in zero ligand condition and the ligand binding curve at highly depolarizing membrane voltages. Next, we show that the voltage-dependent changes in ligand occupancy of the protein can be directly obtained by measuring the Q-V curves at multiple ligand concentrations. When a single reference ligand binding curve is available, this relationship allows us to reconstruct ligand binding curves at different voltages. More significantly, we establish that the shift of the Q-V curve between zero and saturating ligand concentration is a direct estimate of the interaction energy between the ligand- and voltage-dependent pathway. These free-energy relationships were tested by numerical simulations of a detailed gating model of the BK channel. Furthermore, as a proof of principle, we estimate the interaction energy between the ligand binding and voltage-dependent pathways for HCN2 channels whose ligand binding curves at various voltages are available. These emerging principles will be useful for high-throughput mutagenesis studies aimed at identifying interaction pathways between various regulatory domains in a polymodal ion channel. PMID:23250866

  1. Predicting Nanocrystal Shape through Consideration of Surface-Ligand Interactions

    KAUST Repository

    Bealing, Clive R.; Baumgardner, William J.; Choi, Joshua J.; Hanrath, Tobias; Hennig, Richard G.

    2012-01-01

    Density functional calculations for the binding energy of oleic acid-based ligands on Pb-rich {100} and {111} facets of PbSe nanocrystals determine the surface energies as a function of ligand coverage. Oleic acid is expected to bind

  2. Receptor binding studies of the living heart

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Syrota, A.

    1988-01-01

    Receptors form a class of intrinsic membrane proteins (or glycoproteins) defined by the high affinity and specificity with which they bind ligands. Many receptors are associated directly or indirectly with membrane ion channels that open or close after a conformational change of the receptor induced by the binding of the neurotransmitter. Changes in number and/or affinity of cardiac neurotransmitter receptors have been associated with myocardial ischemia and infarction, congestive heart failure, and cardiomyopathy as well as diabetes or thyroid-induced heart muscle disease. These alterations of cardiac receptors have been demonstrated in vitro on membrane homogenates from samples collected mainly during surgery or postmortem. The disadvantage of these in vitro binding techniques is that receptors lose their natural environment and their relationships with the other components of the tissue

  3. Septide and neurokinin A are high-affinity ligands on the NK-1 receptor: evidence from homologous versus heterologous binding analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hastrup, H; Schwartz, T W

    1996-12-16

    The three main tachykinins, substance P, neurokinin A (NKA), and neurokinin B, are believed to be selective ligands for respectively the NK-1, NK-2 and NK-3 receptors. However, NKA also has actions which cannot be mediated through its normal NK-2 receptor and the synthetic peptide [pGlu6,Pro9]-Substance P9-11--called septide--is known to have tachykinin-like actions despite its apparent lack of binding to any known tachykinin receptor. In the cloned NK-1 receptor expressed in COS-7 cells NKA and septide as expected were poor competitors for radiolabeled substance P. However, by using radiolabeled NKA and septide directly, it was found that both peptides in homologous binding assays as well as in competition against each other in fact bound to the NK-1 receptor with high affinity: Kd values of 0.51 +/- 0.15 nM (NKA) and 0.55 +/- 0.03 nM (septide). It is concluded that NKA and septide are high-affinity ligands for the NK-1 receptor but that they are poor competitors for substance P, which in contrast competes very well for binding with both NKA and septide.

  4. Locating binding poses in protein-ligand systems using reconnaissance metadynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Söderhjelm, Pär; Tribello, Gareth A.; Parrinello, Michele

    2012-01-01

    A molecular dynamics-based protocol is proposed for finding and scoring protein-ligand binding poses. This protocol uses the recently developed reconnaissance metadynamics method, which employs a self-learning algorithm to construct a bias that pushes the system away from the kinetic traps where it would otherwise remain. The exploration of phase space with this algorithm is shown to be roughly six to eight times faster than unbiased molecular dynamics and is only limited by the time taken to diffuse about the surface of the protein. We apply this method to the well-studied trypsin–benzamidine system and show that we are able to refind all the poses obtained from a reference EADock blind docking calculation. These poses can be scored based on the length of time the system remains trapped in the pose. Alternatively, one can perform dimensionality reduction on the output trajectory and obtain a map of phase space that can be used in more expensive free-energy calculations. PMID:22440749

  5. CARD9 impacts colitis by altering gut microbiota metabolism of tryptophan into aryl hydrocarbon receptor ligands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lamas, Bruno; Richard, Mathias L; Leducq, Valentin; Pham, Hang-Phuong; Michel, Marie-Laure; Da Costa, Gregory; Bridonneau, Chantal; Jegou, Sarah; Hoffmann, Thomas W; Natividad, Jane M; Brot, Loic; Taleb, Soraya; Couturier-Maillard, Aurélie; Nion-Larmurier, Isabelle; Merabtene, Fatiha; Seksik, Philippe; Bourrier, Anne; Cosnes, Jacques; Ryffel, Bernhard; Beaugerie, Laurent; Launay, Jean-Marie; Langella, Philippe; Xavier, Ramnik J; Sokol, Harry

    2016-06-01

    Complex interactions between the host and the gut microbiota govern intestinal homeostasis but remain poorly understood. Here we reveal a relationship between gut microbiota and caspase recruitment domain family member 9 (CARD9), a susceptibility gene for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that functions in the immune response against microorganisms. CARD9 promotes recovery from colitis by promoting interleukin (IL)-22 production, and Card9(-/-) mice are more susceptible to colitis. The microbiota is altered in Card9(-/-) mice, and transfer of the microbiota from Card9(-/-) to wild-type, germ-free recipients increases their susceptibility to colitis. The microbiota from Card9(-/-) mice fails to metabolize tryptophan into metabolites that act as aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) ligands. Intestinal inflammation is attenuated after inoculation of mice with three Lactobacillus strains capable of metabolizing tryptophan or by treatment with an AHR agonist. Reduced production of AHR ligands is also observed in the microbiota from individuals with IBD, particularly in those with CARD9 risk alleles associated with IBD. Our findings reveal that host genes affect the composition and function of the gut microbiota, altering the production of microbial metabolites and intestinal inflammation.

  6. Spectroscopic and molecular docking studies on the charge transfer complex of bovine serum albumin with quinone in aqueous medium and its influence on the ligand binding property of the protein

    Science.gov (United States)

    Satheshkumar, Angupillai; Elango, Kuppanagounder P.

    2014-09-01

    The spectral techniques such as UV-Vis, 1H NMR and fluorescence and electrochemical experiments have been employed to investigate the interaction between 2-methoxy-3,5,6-trichloro-1,4-benzoquinone (MQ; a water soluble quinone) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) in aqueous medium. The fluorescence of BSA was quenched by MQ via formation of a 1:1 BSA-MQ charge transfer adduct with a formation constant of 3.3 × 108 L mol-1. Based on the Forster’s theory the binding distance between them is calculated as 2.65 nm indicating high probability of binding. For the first time, influence of quinone on the binding property of various types of ligands such as aspirin, ascorbic acid, nicotinimide and sodium stearate has also been investigated. The results indicated that the strong and spontaneous binding existing between BSA and MQ, decreased the intensity of binding of these ligands with BSA. Since Tryptophan (Trp) is the basic residue present in BSA, a comparison between binding property of Trp-MQ adduct with that of BSA-MQ with these ligands has also been attempted. 1H NMR titration study indicated that the Trp forms a charge transfer complex with MQ, which reduces the interaction of Trp with the ligands. Molecular docking study supported the fact that the quinone interacts with the Trp212 unit of the BSA and the free energy change of binding (ΔG) for the BSA-MQ complex was found to be -46 kJ mol-1, which is comparable to our experimental free energy of binding (-49 kJ mol-1) obtained from fluorescence study.

  7. Full domain closure of the ligand-binding core of the ionotropic glutamate receptor iGluR5 induced by the high affinity agonist dysiherbaine and the functional antagonist 8,9-dideoxyneodysiherbaine

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Frydenvang, Karla Andrea; Lash, L Leanne; Naur, Peter

    2009-01-01

    The prevailing structural model for ligand activation of ionotropic glutamate receptors posits that agonist efficacy arises from the stability and magnitude of induced domain closure in the ligand-binding core structure. Here we describe an exception to the correlation between ligand efficacy and...

  8. Steroid hormones affect binding of the sigma ligand 11C-SA4503 in tumour cells and tumour-bearing rats

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rybczynska, Anna A.; Elsinga, Philip H.; Sijbesma, Jurgen W.; Jong, Johan R. de; Vries, Erik F. de; Dierckx, Rudi A.; Waarde, Aren van; Ishiwata, Kiichi

    2009-01-01

    Sigma receptors are implicated in memory and cognitive functions, drug addiction, depression and schizophrenia. In addition, sigma receptors are strongly overexpressed in many tumours. Although the natural ligands are still unknown, steroid hormones are potential candidates. Here, we examined changes in binding of the sigma-1 agonist 11 C-SA4503 in C6 glioma cells and in living rats after modification of endogenous steroid levels. 11 C-SA4503 binding was assessed in C6 monolayers by gamma counting and in anaesthetized rats by microPET scanning. C6 cells were either repeatedly washed and incubated in steroid-free medium or exposed to five kinds of exogenous steroids (1 h or 5 min before tracer addition, respectively). Tumour-bearing male rats were repeatedly treated with pentobarbital (a condition known to result in reduction of endogenous steroid levels) or injected with progesterone. Binding of 11 C-SA4503 to C6 cells was increased (∝50%) upon removal and decreased (∝60%) upon addition of steroid hormones (rank order of potency: progesterone > allopregnanolone = testosterone = androstanolone > dehydroepiandrosterone-3-sulphate, IC 50 progesterone 33 nM). Intraperitoneally administered progesterone reduced tumour uptake and tumour-to-muscle contrast (36%). Repeated treatment of animals with pentobarbital increased the PET standardized uptake value of 11 C-SA4503 in tumour (16%) and brain (27%), whereas the kinetics of blood pool radioactivity was unaffected. The binding of 11 C-SA4503 is sensitive to steroid competition. Since not only increases but also decreases of steroid levels affect ligand binding, a considerable fraction of the sigma-1 receptor population in cultured tumour cells or tumour-bearing animals is normally occupied by endogenous steroids. (orig.)

  9. Multispectroscopic DNA-Binding studies and antimicrobial evaluation of new mixed-ligand Silver(I) complex and nanocomplex: A comparative study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Movahedi, Elaheh; Rezvani, Ali Reza

    2018-05-01

    A novel mixed-ligand Ag(I) complex, , has been synthesized and characterized by the elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy and 1HNMR. In the formula, dian and phen are N-(4,5-diazafluoren-9-ylidene)aniline and 1,10-phenanthroline, respectively. This complex also has been prepared at nano size by sonochemical technique and characterized by the FTIR and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). To evaluate the biological preferences of the Ag(I) complex and nanocomplex and verify the relationships between the structure and biological function, in vitro DNA binding and antibacterial experiments have been carried out. DNA-complex interaction has been pursued by electronic absorption titration, luminescence titration, competitive binding experiment, effect of ionic strength, thermodynamic studies, viscometric evaluation and circular dichroism spectroscopy in the physiological pH. Each compound displays significant binding trend to the CT-DNA. The mode of binding to the CT-DNA probably is a moderate intercalation mode with the partial insertion of the planar ligands between the base stacks of double-stranded DNA. The relative viscosities and circular dichroism spectra of the CT-DNA with the complex solutions, confirm the intense interactions of the Ag(I) complex and nanocomplex with DNA. An in vitro antibacterial test of the complex and nanocomplex on a series of the Gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis) and the Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) shows a remarkable antibacterial feature of the Ag(I) complex. The MIC values (minimum inhibitory concentration) of the compounds compare with silver nitrate and silver sulfadiazine. The bacterial inhibitions of the Ag(I) complex and nanocomplex are agreed to their DNA binding affinities.

  10. Force spectroscopy studies on protein-ligand interactions: a single protein mechanics perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Xiaotang; Li, Hongbin

    2014-10-01

    Protein-ligand interactions are ubiquitous and play important roles in almost every biological process. The direct elucidation of the thermodynamic, structural and functional consequences of protein-ligand interactions is thus of critical importance to decipher the mechanism underlying these biological processes. A toolbox containing a variety of powerful techniques has been developed to quantitatively study protein-ligand interactions in vitro as well as in living systems. The development of atomic force microscopy-based single molecule force spectroscopy techniques has expanded this toolbox and made it possible to directly probe the mechanical consequence of ligand binding on proteins. Many recent experiments have revealed how ligand binding affects the mechanical stability and mechanical unfolding dynamics of proteins, and provided mechanistic understanding on these effects. The enhancement effect of mechanical stability by ligand binding has been used to help tune the mechanical stability of proteins in a rational manner and develop novel functional binding assays for protein-ligand interactions. Single molecule force spectroscopy studies have started to shed new lights on the structural and functional consequence of ligand binding on proteins that bear force under their biological settings. Copyright © 2014 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Electrostatically induced recruitment of membrane peptides into clusters requires ligand binding at both interfaces.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuri N Antonenko

    Full Text Available Protein recruitment to specific membrane locations may be governed or facilitated by electrostatic attraction, which originates from a multivalent ligand. Here we explored the energetics of a model system in which this simple electrostatic recruitment mechanism failed. That is, basic poly-L-lysine binding to one leaflet of a planar lipid bilayer did not recruit the triply-charged peptide (O-Pyromellitylgramicidin. Clustering was only observed in cases where PLL was bound to both channel ends. Clustering was indicated (i by the decreased diffusional PLL mobility D(PLL and (ii by an increased lifetime τ(PLL of the clustered channels. In contrast, if PLL was bound to only one leaflet, neither D(PLL nor τ(P changed. Simple calculations suggest that electrostatic repulsion of the unbound ends prevented neighboring OPg dimers from approaching each other. We believe that a similar mechanism may also operate in cell signaling and that it may e.g. contribute to the controversial results obtained for the ligand driven dimerization of G protein-coupled receptors.

  12. A critical look at the calculation of the binding characteristics and concentration of iron complexing ligands in seawater with suggested improvements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gerringa, L.J.A.; Rijkenberg, M.J.A.; Thuróczy, C.-E.; Maas, L.R.M.

    2014-01-01

    Environmental context
    The low concentration of iron in the oceans limits growth of phytoplankton. Dissolved organic molecules, called ligands, naturally present in seawater, bind iron thereby increasing its solubility and, consequently, its availability for biological uptake by phytoplankton. The

  13. High-affinity multivalent wheat germ agglutinin ligands by one-pot click reaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Henning S. G. Beckmann

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available A series of six mono-, di-, and trivalent N,N’-diacetylchitobiose derivatives was conveniently prepared by employing a one-pot procedure for Cu(II-catalyzed diazo transfer and Cu(I-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC starting from commercially available amines. These glycoclusters were probed for their binding potencies to the plant lectin wheat germ agglutinin (WGA from Triticum vulgaris by an enzyme-linked lectin assay (ELLA employing covalently immobilized N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc as a reference ligand. IC50 values were in the low micromolar/high nanomolar range, depending on the linker between the two disaccharides. Binding enhancements β up to 1000 for the divalent ligands and 2800 for a trivalent WGA ligand, compared to N,N’-diacetylchitobiose as the corresponding monovalent ligand, were observed. Molecular modeling studies, in which the chitobiose moieties were fitted into crystallographically determined binding sites of WGA, correlate the binding enhancements of the multivalent ligands with their ability to bind to the protein in a chelating mode. The best WGA ligand is a trivalent cluster with an IC50 value of 220 nM. Calculated per mol of contained chitobiose, this is the best WGA ligand known so far.

  14. Binding of alpha-fetoprotein by immobilized monoclonal antibodies during episodes of zero-gravity obtained by parabolic flight

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spooner, Brian S.; Guikema, James A.; Barnes, Grady

    1990-01-01

    Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), a single-chain polypeptide which is synthesized by the liver and yolk sac of the human fetus, provided a model ligand for assessing the effects of microgravity on ligand binding to surface-immobilized model receptor molecules. Monoclonal antibodies, used as receptors for AFP, were immobilized by covalent attachment to latex microparticles. Zero gravity environment was obtained by parabolic flight aboard NASA 930, a modified KC-135 aircraft. Buring the onset of an episode of zero gravity, ligand and receptor were mixed. Timed incubation (20 s) was terminated by centrifugation, the supernatant removed, and microparticies were assessed for bound AFP by immunochemical methods. The extent of binding was not influenced by microgravity, when compared with 1-G controls, which suggests that aberrant cellular activities observed in microgravity are not the simple expression of altered macromolecular interactions.

  15. Abscisic Acid Regulates Inflammation via Ligand-binding Domain-independent Activation of Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor γ*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bassaganya-Riera, Josep; Guri, Amir J.; Lu, Pinyi; Climent, Montse; Carbo, Adria; Sobral, Bruno W.; Horne, William T.; Lewis, Stephanie N.; Bevan, David R.; Hontecillas, Raquel

    2011-01-01

    Abscisic acid (ABA) has shown efficacy in the treatment of diabetes and inflammation; however, its molecular targets and the mechanisms of action underlying its immunomodulatory effects remain unclear. This study investigates the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR γ) and lanthionine synthetase C-like 2 (LANCL2) as molecular targets for ABA. We demonstrate that ABA increases PPAR γ reporter activity in RAW 264.7 macrophages and increases ppar γ expression in vivo, although it does not bind to the ligand-binding domain of PPAR γ. LANCL2 knockdown studies provide evidence that ABA-mediated activation of macrophage PPAR γ is dependent on lancl2 expression. Consistent with the association of LANCL2 with G proteins, we provide evidence that ABA increases cAMP accumulation in immune cells. ABA suppresses LPS-induced prostaglandin E2 and MCP-1 production via a PPAR γ-dependent mechanism possibly involving activation of PPAR γ and suppression of NF-κB and nuclear factor of activated T cells. LPS challenge studies in PPAR γ-expressing and immune cell-specific PPAR γ null mice demonstrate that ABA down-regulates toll-like receptor 4 expression in macrophages and T cells in vivo through a PPAR γ-dependent mechanism. Global transcriptomic profiling and confirmatory quantitative RT-PCR suggest novel candidate targets and demonstrate that ABA treatment mitigates the effect of LPS on the expression of genes involved in inflammation, metabolism, and cell signaling, in part, through PPAR γ. In conclusion, ABA decreases LPS-mediated inflammation and regulates innate immune responses through a bifurcating pathway involving LANCL2 and an alternative, ligand-binding domain-independent mechanism of PPAR γ activation. PMID:21088297

  16. Abscisic acid regulates inflammation via ligand-binding domain-independent activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bassaganya-Riera, Josep; Guri, Amir J; Lu, Pinyi; Climent, Montse; Carbo, Adria; Sobral, Bruno W; Horne, William T; Lewis, Stephanie N; Bevan, David R; Hontecillas, Raquel

    2011-01-28

    Abscisic acid (ABA) has shown efficacy in the treatment of diabetes and inflammation; however, its molecular targets and the mechanisms of action underlying its immunomodulatory effects remain unclear. This study investigates the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR γ) and lanthionine synthetase C-like 2 (LANCL2) as molecular targets for ABA. We demonstrate that ABA increases PPAR γ reporter activity in RAW 264.7 macrophages and increases ppar γ expression in vivo, although it does not bind to the ligand-binding domain of PPAR γ. LANCL2 knockdown studies provide evidence that ABA-mediated activation of macrophage PPAR γ is dependent on lancl2 expression. Consistent with the association of LANCL2 with G proteins, we provide evidence that ABA increases cAMP accumulation in immune cells. ABA suppresses LPS-induced prostaglandin E(2) and MCP-1 production via a PPAR γ-dependent mechanism possibly involving activation of PPAR γ and suppression of NF-κB and nuclear factor of activated T cells. LPS challenge studies in PPAR γ-expressing and immune cell-specific PPAR γ null mice demonstrate that ABA down-regulates toll-like receptor 4 expression in macrophages and T cells in vivo through a PPAR γ-dependent mechanism. Global transcriptomic profiling and confirmatory quantitative RT-PCR suggest novel candidate targets and demonstrate that ABA treatment mitigates the effect of LPS on the expression of genes involved in inflammation, metabolism, and cell signaling, in part, through PPAR γ. In conclusion, ABA decreases LPS-mediated inflammation and regulates innate immune responses through a bifurcating pathway involving LANCL2 and an alternative, ligand-binding domain-independent mechanism of PPAR γ activation.

  17. pMD-Membrane: A Method for Ligand Binding Site Identification in Membrane-Bound Proteins.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Priyanka Prakash

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Probe-based or mixed solvent molecular dynamics simulation is a useful approach for the identification and characterization of druggable sites in drug targets. However, thus far the method has been applied only to soluble proteins. A major reason for this is the potential effect of the probe molecules on membrane structure. We have developed a technique to overcome this limitation that entails modification of force field parameters to reduce a few pairwise non-bonded interactions between selected atoms of the probe molecules and bilayer lipids. We used the resulting technique, termed pMD-membrane, to identify allosteric ligand binding sites on the G12D and G13D oncogenic mutants of the K-Ras protein bound to a negatively charged lipid bilayer. In addition, we show that differences in probe occupancy can be used to quantify changes in the accessibility of druggable sites due to conformational changes induced by membrane binding or mutation.

  18. Multiple binding modes of ibuprofen in human serum albumin identified by absolute binding free energy calculations

    KAUST Repository

    Evoli, Stefania

    2016-11-10

    Human serum albumin possesses multiple binding sites and transports a wide range of ligands that include the anti-inflammatory drug ibuprofen. A complete map of the binding sites of ibuprofen in albumin is difficult to obtain in traditional experiments, because of the structural adaptability of this protein in accommodating small ligands. In this work, we provide a set of predictions covering the geometry, affinity of binding and protonation state for the pharmaceutically most active form (S-isomer) of ibuprofen to albumin, by using absolute binding free energy calculations in combination with classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and molecular docking. The most favorable binding modes correctly reproduce several experimentally identified binding locations, which include the two Sudlow\\'s drug sites (DS2 and DS1) and the fatty acid binding sites 6 and 2 (FA6 and FA2). Previously unknown details of the binding conformations were revealed for some of them, and formerly undetected binding modes were found in other protein sites. The calculated binding affinities exhibit trends which seem to agree with the available experimental data, and drastically degrade when the ligand is modeled in a protonated (neutral) state, indicating that ibuprofen associates with albumin preferentially in its charged form. These findings provide a detailed description of the binding of ibuprofen, help to explain a wide range of results reported in the literature in the last decades, and demonstrate the possibility of using simulation methods to predict ligand binding to albumin.

  19. Prediction of ligand effects in platinum-amyloid-β coordination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, Matthew; Deeth, Robert J; Platts, James A

    2017-08-01

    Ligand field molecular mechanics (LFMM) and semi-empirical Parametric Model 7 (PM7) methods are applied to a series of six Pt II -Ligand systems binding to the N-terminal domain of the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide. Molecular dynamics using a combined LFMM/Assisted Model Building with Energy Refinement (AMBER) approach is used to explore the conformational freedom of the peptide fragment, and identifies favourable platinum binding modes and peptide conformations for each ligand investigated. Platinum coordination is found to depend on the nature of the ligand, providing evidence that binding mode may be controlled by suitable ligand design. Boltzmann populations at 310K indicate that each Pt-Aβ complex has a small number of thermodynamically accessible states. Ramachandran maps are constructed for the sampled Pt-Aβ conformations and secondary structural analysis of the obtained complex structures is performed and contrasted with the free peptide; coordination of these platinum complexes disrupts existing secondary structure in the Aβ peptide and promotes formation of ligand-specific turn-type secondary structure. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Accuracy comparison of several common implicit solvent models and their implementations in the context of protein-ligand binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katkova, E V; Onufriev, A V; Aguilar, B; Sulimov, V B

    2017-03-01

    In this study several commonly used implicit solvent models are compared with respect to their accuracy of estimating solvation energies of small molecules and proteins, as well as desolvation penalty in protein-ligand binding. The test set consists of 19 small proteins, 104 small molecules, and 15 protein-ligand complexes. We compared predicted hydration energies of small molecules with their experimental values; the results of the solvation and desolvation energy calculations for small molecules, proteins and protein-ligand complexes in water were also compared with Thermodynamic Integration calculations based on TIP3P water model and Amber12 force field. The following implicit solvent (water) models considered here are: PCM (Polarized Continuum Model implemented in DISOLV and MCBHSOLV programs), GB (Generalized Born method implemented in DISOLV program, S-GB, and GBNSR6 stand-alone version), COSMO (COnductor-like Screening Model implemented in the DISOLV program and the MOPAC package) and the Poisson-Boltzmann model (implemented in the APBS program). Different parameterizations of the molecules were examined: we compared MMFF94 force field, Amber12 force field and the quantum-chemical semi-empirical PM7 method implemented in the MOPAC package. For small molecules, all of the implicit solvent models tested here yield high correlation coefficients (0.87-0.93) between the calculated solvation energies and the experimental values of hydration energies. For small molecules high correlation (0.82-0.97) with the explicit solvent energies is seen as well. On the other hand, estimated protein solvation energies and protein-ligand binding desolvation energies show substantial discrepancy (up to 10kcal/mol) with the explicit solvent reference. The correlation of polar protein solvation energies and protein-ligand desolvation energies with the corresponding explicit solvent results is 0.65-0.99 and 0.76-0.96 respectively, though this difference in correlations is caused

  1. Structural and mechanistic investigations on Salmonella typhimurium acetate kinase (AckA: identification of a putative ligand binding pocket at the dimeric interface

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chittori Sagar

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium can utilize acetate as the sole source of carbon and energy. Acetate kinase (AckA and phosphotransacetylase (Pta, key enzymes of acetate utilization pathway, regulate flux of metabolites in glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, TCA cycle, glyoxylate bypass and fatty acid metabolism. Results Here we report kinetic characterization of S. typhimurium AckA (StAckA and structures of its unliganded (Form-I, 2.70 Å resolution and citrate-bound (Form-II, 1.90 Å resolution forms. The enzyme showed broad substrate specificity with kcat/Km in the order of acetate > propionate > formate. Further, the Km for acetyl-phosphate was significantly lower than for acetate and the enzyme could catalyze the reverse reaction (i.e. ATP synthesis more efficiently. ATP and Mg2+ could be substituted by other nucleoside 5′-triphosphates (GTP, UTP and CTP and divalent cations (Mn2+ and Co2+, respectively. Form-I StAckA represents the first structural report of an unliganded AckA. StAckA protomer consists of two domains with characteristic βββαβαβα topology of ASKHA superfamily of proteins. These domains adopt an intermediate conformation compared to that of open and closed forms of ligand-bound Methanosarcina thermophila AckA (MtAckA. Spectroscopic and structural analyses of StAckA further suggested occurrence of inter-domain motion upon ligand-binding. Unexpectedly, Form-II StAckA structure showed a drastic change in the conformation of residues 230–300 compared to that of Form-I. Further investigation revealed electron density corresponding to a citrate molecule in a pocket located at the dimeric interface of Form-II StAckA. Interestingly, a similar dimeric interface pocket lined with largely conserved residues could be identified in Form-I StAckA as well as in other enzymes homologous to AckA suggesting that ligand binding at this pocket may influence the function of these

  2. Quantitative autoradiography of the binding sites for [125I] iodoglyburide, a novel high-affinity ligand for ATP-sensitive potassium channels in rat brain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gehlert, D.R.; Gackenheimer, S.L.; Mais, D.E.; Robertson, D.W.

    1991-01-01

    We have developed a high specific activity ligand for localization of ATP-sensitive potassium channels in the brain. When brain sections were incubated with [ 125 I]iodoglyburide (N-[2-[[[(cyclohexylamino)carbonyl]amino]sulfonyl]ethyl]-5- 125 I-2- methoxybenzamide), the ligand bound to a single site with a KD of 495 pM and a maximum binding site density of 176 fmol/mg of tissue. Glyburide was the most potent inhibitor of specific [ 125 I]iodoglyburide binding to rat forebrain sections whereas iodoglyburide and glipizide were slightly less potent. The binding was also sensitive to ATP which completely inhibited binding at concentrations of 10 mM. Autoradiographic localization of [ 125 I]iodoglyburide binding indicated a broad distribution of the ATP-sensitive potassium channel in the brain. The highest levels of binding were seen in the globus pallidus and ventral pallidum followed by the septohippocampal nucleus, anterior pituitary, the CA2 and CA3 region of the hippocampus, ventral pallidum, the molecular layer of the cerebellum and substantia nigra zona reticulata. The hilus and dorsal subiculum of the hippocampus, molecular layer of the dentate gyrus, cerebral cortex, lateral olfactory tract nucleus, olfactory tubercle and the zona incerta contained relatively high levels of binding. A lower level of binding (approximately 3- to 4-fold) was found throughout the remainder of the brain. These results indicate that the ATP-sensitive potassium channel has a broad presence in the rat brain and that a few select brain regions are enriched in this subtype of neuronal potassium channels

  3. Restriction of Receptor Movement Alters Cellular Response: Physical Force Sensing by EphA2

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Salaita, Khalid; Nair, Pradeep M; Petit, Rebecca S; Neve, Richard M; Das, Debopriya; Gray, Joe W; Groves, Jay T

    2009-09-09

    Activation of the EphA2 receptor tyrosine kinase by ephrin-A1 ligands presented on apposed cell surfaces plays important roles in development and exhibits poorly understood functional alterations in cancer. We reconstituted this intermembrane signaling geometry between live EphA2-expressing human breast cancer cells and supported membranes displaying laterally mobile ephrin-A1. Receptor-ligand binding, clustering, and subsequent lateral transport within this junction were observed. EphA2 transport can be blocked by physical barriers nanofabricated onto the underlying substrate. This physical reorganization of EphA2 alters the cellular response to ephrin-A1, as observed by changes in cytoskeleton morphology and recruitment of a disintegrin and metalloprotease 10. Quantitative analysis of receptor-ligand spatial organization across a library of 26 mammary epithelial cell lines reveals characteristic differences that strongly correlate with invasion potential. These observations reveal a mechanism for spatio-mechanical regulation of EphA2 signaling pathways.

  4. Guanine nucleotide-binding protein regulation of melatonin receptors in lizard brain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rivkees, S.A.; Carlson, L.L.; Reppert, S.M.

    1989-01-01

    Melatonin receptors were identified and characterized in crude membrane preparations from lizard brain by using 125 I-labeled melatonin ( 125 I-Mel), a potent melatonin agonist. 125 I-Mel binding sites were saturable; Scatchard analysis revealed high-affinity and lower affinity binding sites, with apparent K d of 2.3 ± 1.0 x 10 -11 M and 2.06 ± 0.43 x 10 -10 M, respectively. Binding was reversible and inhibited by melatonin and closely related analogs but not by serotonin or norepinephrine. Treatment of crude membranes with the nonhydrolyzable GTP analog guanosine 5'-[γ-thio]triphosphate (GTP[γS]), significantly reduced the number of high-affinity receptors and increased the dissociation rate of 125 I-Mel from its receptor. Furthermore, GTP[γS] treatment of ligand-receptor complexes solubilized by Triton X-100 also led to a rapid dissociation of 125 I-Mel from solubilized ligand-receptor complexes. Gel filtration chromatography of solubilized ligand-receptor complexes revealed two major peaks of radioactivity corresponding to M r > 400,000 and M r ca. 110,000. This elution profile was markedly altered by pretreatment with GTP[γS] before solubilization; only the M r 110,000 peak was present in GTP[γS]-pretreated membranes. The results strongly suggest that 125 I-mel binding sites in lizard brain are melatonin receptors, with agonist-promoted guanine nucleotide-binding protein (G protein) coupling and that the apparent molecular size of receptors uncoupled from G proteins is about 110,000

  5. Molecular dynamics simulations and free energy calculations of netropsin and distamycin binding to an AAAAA DNA binding site

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dolenc, Jožica; Oostenbrink, Chris; Koller, Jože; van Gunsteren, Wilfred F.

    2005-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed on netropsin in two different charge states and on distamycin binding to the minor groove of the DNA duplex d(CGCGAAAAACGCG)·d(CGCGTTTTTCGCG). The relative free energy of binding of the two non-covalently interacting ligands was calculated using the thermodynamic integration method and reflects the experimental result. From 2 ns simulations of the ligands free in solution and when bound to DNA, the mobility and the hydrogen-bonding patterns of the ligands were studied, as well as their hydration. It is shown that even though distamycin is less hydrated than netropsin, the loss of ligand–solvent interactions is very similar for both ligands. The relative mobilities of the ligands in their bound and free forms indicate a larger entropic penalty for distamycin when binding to the minor groove compared with netropsin, partially explaining the lower binding affinity of the distamycin molecule. The detailed structural and energetic insights obtained from the molecular dynamics simulations allow for a better understanding of the factors determining ligand–DNA binding. PMID:15687382

  6. Probing ligand binding modes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis MurC ligase by molecular modeling, dynamics simulation and docking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anuradha, C M; Mulakayala, Chaitanya; Babajan, Banaganapalli; Naveen, M; Rajasekhar, Chikati; Kumar, Chitta Suresh

    2010-01-01

    Multi drug resistance capacity for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-Mtb) demands the profound need for developing new anti-tuberculosis drugs. The present work is on Mtb-MurC ligase, which is an enzyme involved in biosynthesis of peptidoglycan, a component of Mtb cell wall. In this paper the 3-D structure of Mtb-MurC has been constructed using the templates 1GQQ and 1P31. Structural refinement and energy minimization of the predicted Mtb-MurC ligase model has been carried out by molecular dynamics. The streochemical check failures in the energy minimized model have been evaluated through Procheck, Whatif ProSA, and Verify 3D. Further torsion angles for the side chains of amino acid residues of the developed model were determined using Predictor. Docking analysis of Mtb-MurC model with ligands and natural substrates enabled us to identify specific residues viz. Gly125, Lys126, Arg331, and Arg332, within the Mtb-MurC binding pocket to play an important role in ligand and substrate binding affinity and selectivity. The availability of Mtb-MurC ligase built model, together with insights gained from docking analysis will promote the rational design of potent and selective Mtb-MurC ligase inhibitors as antituberculosis therapeutics.

  7. Three-dimensional structure of the ligand-binding core of GluR2 in complex with the agonist (S)-ATPA

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lunn, Marie-Louise; Hogner, Anders; Stensbøl, Tine B

    2003-01-01

    Two X-ray structures of the GluR2 ligand-binding core in complex with (S)-2-amino-3-(5-tert-butyl-3-hydroxy-4-isoxazolyl)propionic acid ((S)-ATPA) have been determined with and without Zn(2+) ions. (S)-ATPA induces a domain closure of ca. 21 degrees compared to the apo form. The tert-butyl moiety...

  8. Combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) simulations for protein-ligand complexes: free energies of binding of water molecules in influenza neuraminidase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woods, Christopher J; Shaw, Katherine E; Mulholland, Adrian J

    2015-01-22

    The applicability of combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) methods for the calculation of absolute binding free energies of conserved water molecules in protein/ligand complexes is demonstrated. Here, we apply QM/MM Monte Carlo simulations to investigate binding of water molecules to influenza neuraminidase. We investigate five different complexes, including those with the drugs oseltamivir and peramivir. We investigate water molecules in two different environments, one more hydrophobic and one hydrophilic. We calculate the free-energy change for perturbation of a QM to MM representation of the bound water molecule. The calculations are performed at the BLYP/aVDZ (QM) and TIP4P (MM) levels of theory, which we have previously demonstrated to be consistent with one another for QM/MM modeling. The results show that the QM to MM perturbation is significant in both environments (greater than 1 kcal mol(-1)) and larger in the more hydrophilic site. Comparison with the same perturbation in bulk water shows that this makes a contribution to binding. The results quantify how electronic polarization differences in different environments affect binding affinity and also demonstrate that extensive, converged QM/MM free-energy simulations, with good levels of QM theory, are now practical for protein/ligand complexes.

  9. Towards ligand docking including explicit interface water molecules.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gordon Lemmon

    Full Text Available Small molecule docking predicts the interaction of a small molecule ligand with a protein at atomic-detail accuracy including position and conformation the ligand but also conformational changes of the protein upon ligand binding. While successful in the majority of cases, docking algorithms including RosettaLigand fail in some cases to predict the correct protein/ligand complex structure. In this study we show that simultaneous docking of explicit interface water molecules greatly improves Rosetta's ability to distinguish correct from incorrect ligand poses. This result holds true for both protein-centric water docking wherein waters are located relative to the protein binding site and ligand-centric water docking wherein waters move with the ligand during docking. Protein-centric docking is used to model 99 HIV-1 protease/protease inhibitor structures. We find protease inhibitor placement improving at a ratio of 9:1 when one critical interface water molecule is included in the docking simulation. Ligand-centric docking is applied to 341 structures from the CSAR benchmark of diverse protein/ligand complexes [1]. Across this diverse dataset we see up to 56% recovery of failed docking studies, when waters are included in the docking simulation.

  10. Calculation of Relative Binding Free Energy in the Water-Filled Active Site of Oligopeptide-Binding Protein A.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maurer, Manuela; de Beer, Stephanie B A; Oostenbrink, Chris

    2016-04-15

    The periplasmic oligopeptide binding protein A (OppA) represents a well-known example of water-mediated protein-ligand interactions. Here, we perform free-energy calculations for three different ligands binding to OppA, using a thermodynamic integration approach. The tripeptide ligands share a high structural similarity (all have the sequence KXK), but their experimentally-determined binding free energies differ remarkably. Thermodynamic cycles were constructed for the ligands, and simulations conducted in the bound and (freely solvated) unbound states. In the unbound state, it was observed that the difference in conformational freedom between alanine and glycine leads to a surprisingly slow convergence, despite their chemical similarity. This could be overcome by increasing the softness parameter during alchemical transformations. Discrepancies remained in the bound state however, when comparing independent simulations of the three ligands. These difficulties could be traced to a slow relaxation of the water network within the active site. Fluctuations in the number of water molecules residing in the binding cavity occur mostly on a timescale larger than the simulation time along the alchemical path. After extensive simulations, relative binding free energies that were converged to within thermal noise could be obtained, which agree well with available experimental data.

  11. Alteration of human serum albumin binding properties induced by modifications: A review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maciążek-Jurczyk, Małgorzata; Szkudlarek, Agnieszka; Chudzik, Mariola; Pożycka, Jadwiga; Sułkowska, Anna

    2018-01-01

    Albumin, a major transporting protein in the blood, is the main target of modification that affects the binding of drugs to Sudlow's site I and II. These modification of serum protein moderates its physiological function, and works as a biomarker of some diseases. The main goal of the paper was to explain the possible alteration of human serum albumin binding properties induced by modifications such as glycation, oxidation and ageing, their origin, methods of evaluation and positive and negative meaning described by significant researchers.

  12. Crystallographic analysis of murine constitutive androstane receptor ligand-binding domain complexed with 5α-androst-16-en-3α-ol

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vincent, Jeremy; Shan, Li; Fan, Ming; Brunzelle, Joseph S.; Forman, Barry M.; Fernandez, Elias J.

    2004-01-01

    The purification and structure determination of the murine constitutive androstane receptor bound to its inverse agonist/antagonist androstenol is described. The constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily. In contrast to classical nuclear receptors, which possess small-molecule ligand-inducible activity, CAR exhibits constitutive transcriptional activity in the apparent absence of ligand. CAR is among the most important transcription factors; it coordinately regulates the expression of microsomal cytochrome P450 genes and other drug-metabolizing enzymes. The murine CAR ligand-binding domain (LBD) was coexpressed with the steroid receptor coactivator protein (SRC-1) receptor-interacting domain (RID) in Escherichia coli. The mCAR LBD subunit was purified away from SRC-1 by affinity, anion-exchange and size-exclusion chromatography, crystallized with androstenol and the structure of the complex determined by molecular replacement

  13. Identification of critical residues in loop E in the 5-HT3ASR binding site

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muthalagi Mani

    2002-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The serotonin type 3 receptor (5-HT3R is a member of a superfamily of ligand gated ion channels. All members of this family share a large degree of sequence homology and presumably significant structural similarity. A large number of studies have explored the structure-function relationships of members of this family, particularly the nicotinic and GABA receptors. This information can be utilized to gain additional insights into specific structural and functional features of other receptors in this family. Results Thirteen amino acids in the mouse 5-HT3ASR that correspond to the putative E binding loop of the nicotinic α7 receptor were chosen for mutagenesis. Due to the presence of a highly conserved glycine in this region, it has been suggested that this binding loop is comprised of a hairpin turn and may form a portion of the ligand-binding site in this ion channel family. Mutation of the conserved glycine (G147 to alanine eliminated binding of the 5-HT3R antagonist [3H]granisetron. Three tyrosine residues (Y140, Y142 and Y152 also significantly altered the binding of 5-HT3R ligands. Mutations in neighboring residues had little or no effect on binding of these ligands to the 5-HT3ASR. Conclusion Our data supports a role for the putative E-loop region of the 5-HT3R in the binding of 5-HT, mCPBG, d-tc and lerisetron. 5-HT and mCPBG interact with Y142, d-tc with Y140 and lerisetron with both Y142 and Y152. Our data also provides support for the hypothesis that this region of the receptor is present in a loop structure.

  14. Challenges predicting ligand-receptor interactions of promiscuous proteins: the nuclear receptor PXR.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sean Ekins

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available Transcriptional regulation of some genes involved in xenobiotic detoxification and apoptosis is performed via the human pregnane X receptor (PXR which in turn is activated by structurally diverse agonists including steroid hormones. Activation of PXR has the potential to initiate adverse effects, altering drug pharmacokinetics or perturbing physiological processes. Reliable computational prediction of PXR agonists would be valuable for pharmaceutical and toxicological research. There has been limited success with structure-based modeling approaches to predict human PXR activators. Slightly better success has been achieved with ligand-based modeling methods including quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR analysis, pharmacophore modeling and machine learning. In this study, we present a comprehensive analysis focused on prediction of 115 steroids for ligand binding activity towards human PXR. Six crystal structures were used as templates for docking and ligand-based modeling approaches (two-, three-, four- and five-dimensional analyses. The best success at external prediction was achieved with 5D-QSAR. Bayesian models with FCFP_6 descriptors were validated after leaving a large percentage of the dataset out and using an external test set. Docking of ligands to the PXR structure co-crystallized with hyperforin had the best statistics for this method. Sulfated steroids (which are activators were consistently predicted as non-activators while, poorly predicted steroids were docked in a reverse mode compared to 5alpha-androstan-3beta-ol. Modeling of human PXR represents a complex challenge by virtue of the large, flexible ligand-binding cavity. This study emphasizes this aspect, illustrating modest success using the largest quantitative data set to date and multiple modeling approaches.

  15. Novel peptide ligand with high binding capacity for antibody purification

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lund, L. N.; Gustavsson, P. E.; Michael, R.

    2012-01-01

    Small synthetic ligands for protein purification have become increasingly interesting with the growing need for cheap chromatographic materials for protein purification and especially for the purification of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Today, Protein A-based chromatographic resins are the most...... commonly used capture step in mAb down stream processing; however, the use of Protein A chromatography is less attractive due to toxic ligand leakage as well as high cost. Whether used as an alternative to the Protein A chromatographic media or as a subsequent polishing step, small synthetic peptide...... ligands have an advantage over biological ligands; they are cheaper to produce, ligand leakage by enzymatic degradation is either eliminated or significantly reduced, and they can in general better withstand cleaning in place (CIP) conditions such as 0.1 M NaOH. Here, we present a novel synthetic peptide...

  16. Effects of electrostatic interactions on ligand dissociation kinetics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erbaş, Aykut; de la Cruz, Monica Olvera; Marko, John F.

    2018-02-01

    We study unbinding of multivalent cationic ligands from oppositely charged polymeric binding sites sparsely grafted on a flat neutral substrate. Our molecular dynamics simulations are suggested by single-molecule studies of protein-DNA interactions. We consider univalent salt concentrations spanning roughly a 1000-fold range, together with various concentrations of excess ligands in solution. To reveal the ionic effects on unbinding kinetics of spontaneous and facilitated dissociation mechanisms, we treat electrostatic interactions both at a Debye-Hückel (DH) (or implicit ions, i.e., use of an electrostatic potential with a prescribed decay length) level and by the more precise approach of considering all ionic species explicitly in the simulations. We find that the DH approach systematically overestimates unbinding rates, relative to the calculations where all ion pairs are present explicitly in solution, although many aspects of the two types of calculation are qualitatively similar. For facilitated dissociation (FD) (acceleration of unbinding by free ligands in solution) explicit-ion simulations lead to unbinding at lower free-ligand concentrations. Our simulations predict a variety of FD regimes as a function of free-ligand and ion concentrations; a particularly interesting regime is at intermediate concentrations of ligands where nonelectrostatic binding strength controls FD. We conclude that explicit-ion electrostatic modeling is an essential component to quantitatively tackle problems in molecular ligand dissociation, including nucleic-acid-binding proteins.

  17. Selective high-affinity polydentate ligands and methods of making such

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Denardo, Sally J.; Denardo, Gerald L.; Balhorn, Rodney L.

    2018-02-06

    This invention provides novel polydentate selective high affinity ligands (SHALs) that can be used in a variety of applications in a manner analogous to the use of antibodies. SHALs typically comprise a multiplicity of ligands that each bind different region son the target molecule. The ligands are joined directly or through a linker thereby forming a polydentate moiety that typically binds the target molecule with high selectivity and avidity.

  18. Binding cooperativity between a ligand carbonyl group and a hydrophobic side chain can be enhanced by additional H-bonds in a distance dependent manner: A case study with thrombin inhibitors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Said, Ahmed M; Hangauer, David G

    2015-01-01

    One of the underappreciated non-covalent binding factors, which can significantly affect ligand-protein binding affinity, is the cooperativity between ligand functional groups. Using four different series of thrombin inhibitors, we reveal a strong positive cooperativity between an H-bond accepting carbonyl functionality and the adjacent P3 hydrophobic side chain. Adding an H-bond donating amine adjacent to the P3 hydrophobic side chain further increases this positive cooperativity thereby improving the Ki by as much as 546-fold. In contrast, adding an amidine multiple H-bond/salt bridge group in the distal S1 pocket does not affect this cooperativity. An analysis of the crystallographic B-factors of the ligand groups inside the binding site indicates that the strong cooperativity is mainly due to a significant mutual reduction in the residual mobility of the hydrophobic side chain and the H-bonding functionalities that is absent when the separation distance is large. This type of cooperativity is important to encode in binding affinity prediction software, and to consider in SAR studies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  19. Effects of Catalytic Action and Ligand Binding on Conformational Ensembles of Adenylate Kinase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Onuk, Emre; Badger, John; Wang, Yu Jing; Bardhan, Jaydeep; Chishti, Yasmin; Akcakaya, Murat; Brooks, Dana H; Erdogmus, Deniz; Minh, David D L; Makowski, Lee

    2017-08-29

    Crystal structures of adenylate kinase (AdK) from Escherichia coli capture two states: an "open" conformation (apo) obtained in the absence of ligands and a "closed" conformation in which ligands are bound. Other AdK crystal structures suggest intermediate conformations that may lie on the transition pathway between these two states. To characterize the transition from open to closed states in solution, X-ray solution scattering data were collected from AdK in the apo form and with progressively increasing concentrations of five different ligands. Scattering data from apo AdK are consistent with scattering predicted from the crystal structure of AdK in the open conformation. In contrast, data from AdK samples saturated with Ap5A do not agree with that calculated from AdK in the closed conformation. Using cluster analysis of available structures, we selected representative structures in five conformational states: open, partially open, intermediate, partially closed, and closed. We used these structures to estimate the relative abundances of these states for each experimental condition. X-ray solution scattering data obtained from AdK with AMP are dominated by scattering from AdK in the open conformation. For AdK in the presence of high concentrations of ATP and ADP, the conformational ensemble shifts to a mixture of partially open and closed states. Even when AdK is saturated with Ap5A, a significant proportion of AdK remains in a partially open conformation. These results are consistent with an induced-fit model in which the transition of AdK from an open state to a closed state is initiated by ATP binding.

  20. Detection of ligand binding hot spots on protein surfaces via fragment-based methods: application to DJ-1 and glucocerebrosidase

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Landon, Melissa R.; Lieberman, Raquel L.; Hoang, Quyen Q.; Ju, Shulin; Caaveiro, Jose M.M.; Orwig, Susan D.; Kozakov, Dima; Brenke, Ryan; Chuang, Gwo-Yu; Beglov, Dmitry; Vajda, Sandor; Petsko, Gregory A.; Ringe, Dagmar; (BU-M); (Brandeis); (GIT)

    2010-08-04

    The identification of hot spots, i.e., binding regions that contribute substantially to the free energy of ligand binding, is a critical step for structure-based drug design. Here we present the application of two fragment-based methods to the detection of hot spots for DJ-1 and glucocerebrosidase (GCase), targets for the development of therapeutics for Parkinson's and Gaucher's diseases, respectively. While the structures of these two proteins are known, binding information is lacking. In this study we employ the experimental multiple solvent crystal structures (MSCS) method and computational fragment mapping (FTMap) to identify regions suitable for the development of pharmacological chaperones for DJ-1 and GCase. Comparison of data derived via MSCS and FTMap also shows that FTMap, a computational method for the identification of fragment binding hot spots, is an accurate and robust alternative to the performance of expensive and difficult crystallographic experiments.

  1. Characterisation of the zebrafish serotonin transporter functionally links TM10 to the ligand binding site

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Severinsen, Kasper; Müller, Heidi Kaastrup; Wiborg, Ove

    2008-01-01

    and [(3)H]-escitalopram binding in transiently transfected human embryonic kidney cells; HEK-293-MSR. Residues responsible for altered affinities inhibitors were pinpointed by generating cross-species chimeras and subsequent point mutations by site directed mutagenesis. drSERT has a higher affinity...

  2. Binding Mode Prediction of 5-Hydroxytryptamine 2C Receptor Ligands by Homology Modeling and Molecular Docking Analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ahmed, Asif; Nagarajan, Shanthi; Doddareddy, Munikumar Reddy; Cho, Yong Seo; Pae, Ae Nim [Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

    2011-06-15

    Serotonin or 5-hydroxytryptamine subtype 2C (5-HT{sub 2C}) receptor belongs to class A amine subfamily of Gprotein- coupled receptor (GPCR) super family and its ligands has therapeutic promise as anti-depressant and -obesity agents. So far, bovine rhodopsin from class A opsin subfamily was the mostly used X-ray crystal template to model this receptor. Here, we explained homology model using beta 2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR), the model was energetically minimized and validated by flexible ligand docking with known agonists and antagonists. In the active site Asp134, Ser138 of transmembrane 3 (TM3), Arg195 of extracellular loop 2 (ECL2) and Tyr358 of TM7 were found as important residues to interact with agonists. In addition to these, V208 of ECL2 and N351 of TM7 was found to interact with antagonists. Several conserved residues including Trp324, Phe327 and Phe328 were also found to contribute hydrophobic interaction. The predicted ligand binding mode is in good agreement with published mutagenesis and homology model data. This new template derived homology model can be useful for further virtual screening based lead identification.

  3. [Supercomputer investigation of the protein-ligand system low-energy minima].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oferkin, I V; Sulimov, A V; Katkova, E V; Kutov, D K; Grigoriev, F V; Kondakova, O A; Sulimov, V B

    2015-01-01

    The accuracy of the protein-ligand binding energy calculations and ligand positioning is strongly influenced by the choice of the docking target function. This work demonstrates the evaluation of the five different target functions used in docking: functions based on MMFF94 force field and functions based on PM7 quantum-chemical method accounting or without accounting the implicit solvent model (PCM, COSMO or SGB). For these purposes the ligand positions corresponding to the minima of the target function and the experimentally known ligand positions in the protein active site (crystal ligand positions) were compared. Each function was examined on the same test-set of 16 protein-ligand complexes. The new parallelized docking program FLM based on Monte Carlo search algorithm was developed to perform the comprehensive low-energy minima search and to calculate the protein-ligand binding energy. This study demonstrates that the docking target function based on the MMFF94 force field can be used to detect the crystal or near crystal positions of the ligand by the finding the low-energy local minima spectrum of the target function. The importance of solvent accounting in the docking process for the accurate ligand positioning is also shown. The accuracy of the ligand positioning as well as the correlation between the calculated and experimentally determined protein-ligand binding energies are improved when the MMFF94 force field is substituted by the new PM7 method with implicit solvent accounting.

  4. Binding-Site Compatible Fragment Growing Applied to the Design of β2-Adrenergic Receptor Ligands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chevillard, Florent; Rimmer, Helena; Betti, Cecilia; Pardon, Els; Ballet, Steven; van Hilten, Niek; Steyaert, Jan; Diederich, Wibke E; Kolb, Peter

    2018-02-08

    Fragment-based drug discovery is intimately linked to fragment extension approaches that can be accelerated using software for de novo design. Although computers allow for the facile generation of millions of suggestions, synthetic feasibility is however often neglected. In this study we computationally extended, chemically synthesized, and experimentally assayed new ligands for the β 2 -adrenergic receptor (β 2 AR) by growing fragment-sized ligands. In order to address the synthetic tractability issue, our in silico workflow aims at derivatized products based on robust organic reactions. The study started from the predicted binding modes of five fragments. We suggested a total of eight diverse extensions that were easily synthesized, and further assays showed that four products had an improved affinity (up to 40-fold) compared to their respective initial fragment. The described workflow, which we call "growing via merging" and for which the key tools are available online, can improve early fragment-based drug discovery projects, making it a useful creative tool for medicinal chemists during structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies.

  5. Tritium NMR spectroscopy of ligand binding to maltose-binding protein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gehring, K.; Williams, P.G.; Pelton, J.G.; Morimoto, H.; Wemmer, D.E.

    1991-01-01

    Tritium-labeled α- and β-maltodextrins have been used to study their complexes with maltose-binding protein (MBP), a 40-kDa bacterial protein. Five substrates, from maltose to maltohexaose, were labeled at their reducing ends and their binding studied. Tritium NMR specctroscopy of the labeled sugars showed large upfield chamical shift changes upon binding and strong anomeric specficity. At 10 degrees C, MBP bound α-maltose with 2.7 ± 0.5-fold higher affinity than β-maltose, and, for longer maltodextrins, the ratio of affinities was even larger. The maximum chemical shift change was 2.2 ppm, suggesting that the reducing end of bound α-maltodextrin makes close contact with an aromatic residue in the MBP-binding site. Experiments with maltotriose (and longer maltodextrins) also revealed the presence of two bound β-maltotriose resonances in rapid exchange. The authors interpret these two resonances as arising from two distinct sugar-protein complexes. In one complex, the β-maltodextrin is bound by its reducing end, and, in the other complex, the β-maltodextrin is bound by the middle glucose residue(s). This interpretation also suggests how MBP is able to bind both linear and circular maltodextrins

  6. Importance of the pharmacological profile of the bound ligand in enrichment on nuclear receptors: toward the use of experimentally validated decoy ligands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lagarde, Nathalie; Zagury, Jean-François; Montes, Matthieu

    2014-10-27

    The evaluation of virtual ligand screening methods is of major importance to ensure their reliability. Taking into account the agonist/antagonist pharmacological profile should improve the quality of the benchmarking data sets since ligand binding can induce conformational changes in the nuclear receptor structure and such changes may vary according to the agonist/antagonist ligand profile. We indeed found that splitting the agonist and antagonist ligands into two separate data sets for a given nuclear receptor target significantly enhances the quality of the evaluation. The pharmacological profile of the ligand bound in the binding site of the target structure was also found to be an additional critical parameter. We also illustrate that active compound data sets for a given pharmacological activity can be used as a set of experimentally validated decoy ligands for another pharmacological activity to ensure a reliable and challenging evaluation of virtual screening methods.

  7. Kinetic modeling of receptor-ligand binding applied to positron emission tomographic studies with neuroleptic tracers

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Logan, J; Wolf, A P; Shiue, C Y; Fowler, J S

    1987-01-01

    Positron emission tomography (PET) with labeled neuroleptics has made possible the study of neurotransmitter-receptor systems in vivo. In this study we investigate the kinetics of the 3,4-dihydroxyphenylethylamine (dopamine) receptor-ligand binding using PET data from a series of experiments in the baboon with the /sup 18/F-labeled drugs spiperone, haloperidol, and benperidol. Models used to describe these systems are based on first-order kinetics which applies at high specific activity (low receptor occupancy). The parameters governing the uptake and loss of drug from the brain were found by fitting PET data from regions with little or no receptor concentration (cerebellum) and from experiments in which specific binding was blocked by pretreatment with the drug (+)-butaclamol. Receptor constants were determined by fitting data from receptor-containing structures. Correcting the arterial plasma activities (the model driving function) for the presence of drug metabolites was found to be important in the modeling of these systems.

  8. Hierarchy and Assortativity as New Tools for Binding-Affinity Investigation: The Case of the TBA Aptamer-Ligand Complex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cataldo, Rosella; Alfinito, Eleonora; Reggiani, Lino

    2017-12-01

    Aptamers are single stranded DNA, RNA, or peptide sequences having the ability to bind several specific targets (proteins, molecules as well as ions). Therefore, aptamer production and selection for therapeutic and diagnostic applications is very challenging. Usually, they are generated in vitro, although computational approaches have been recently developed for the in silico production. Despite these efforts, the mechanism of aptamer-ligand formation is not completely clear, and producing high-affinity aptamers is still quite difficult. This paper aims to develop a computational model able to describe aptamer-ligand affinity. Topological tools, such as the conventional degree distribution, the rank-degree distribution (hierarchy), and the node assortativity are employed. In doing so, the macromolecules tertiary-structures are mapped into appropriate graphs. These graphs reproduce the main topological features of the macromolecules, by preserving the distances between amino acids (nucleotides). Calculations are applied to the thrombin binding aptamer (TBA), and the TBA-thrombin complex produced in the presence of Na + or K + . The topological analysis is able to detect several differences between complexes obtained in the presence of the two cations, as expected by previous investigations. These results support graph analysis as a novel computational tool for testing affinity. Otherwise, starting from the graphs, an electrical network can be obtained by using the specific electrical properties of amino acids and nucleobases. Therefore, a further analysis concerns with the electrical response, revealing that the resistance is sensitively affected by the presence of sodium or potassium, thus suggesting resistance as a useful physical parameter for testing binding affinity.

  9. Alterations in transcription factor binding in radioresistant human melanoma cells after ionizing radiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sahijdak, W.M.; Yang, Chin-Rang; Zuckerman, J.S.; Meyers, M.; Boothman, D.A.

    1994-01-01

    We analyzed alterations in transcription factor binding to specific, known promoter DNA consensus sequences between irradiated and unirradiated radioresistant human melanoma (U1-Mel) cells. The goal of this study was to begin to investigate which transcription factors and DNA-binding sites are responsible for the induction of specific transcripts and proteins after ionizing radiation. Transcription factor binding was observed using DNA band-shift assays and oligonucleotide competition analyses. Confluence-arrested U1-Mel cells were irradiated (4.5 Gy) and harvested at 4 h. Double-stranded oligonucleotides containing known DNA-binding consensus sites for specific transcription factors were used. Increased DNA binding activity after ionizing radiation was noted with oligonucleotides containing the CREB, NF-kB and Sp1 consensus sites. No changes in protein binding to AP-1, AP-2, AP-3, or CTF/NF1, GRE or Oct-1 consensus sequences were noted. X-ray activation of select transcription factors, which bind certain consensus sites in promoters, may cause specific induction or repression of gene transcription. 22 refs., 2 figs

  10. Examination of the ligand-binding and enzymatic properties of a bilin-binding protein from the poisonous caterpillar Lonomia obliqua.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana B G Veiga

    Full Text Available The bilin-binding proteins (BBP from lepidopteran insects are members of the lipocalin family of proteins and play a special role in pigmentation through the binding of biliverdin IXγ. Lopap, a BBP-like protein from the venom of the toxic caterpillar Lonomia obliqua has been reported to act as a serine protease that activates the coagulation proenzyme prothrombin. Here we show that BBPLo, a variant of lopap from the same organism binds biliverdin IXγ, forming a complex that is spectrally identical with previously described BBP proteins. Although BBPLo is nearly identical in sequence to lopap, no prothrombinase activity was detected in our recombinant preparations using reconstituted systems containing coagulation factors Xa and Va, as well as anionic phospholipids. In addition to biliverdin, BBPLo was found to form a 1:1 complex with heme prompting us to examine whether the unusual biliverdin IXγ ligand of BBPs forms as a result of oxidation of bound heme in situ rather than by a conventional heme oxygenase. Using ascorbate or a NADPH(+-ferredoxin reductase-ferredoxin system as a source of reducing equivalents, spectral changes are seen that suggest an initial reduction of heme to the Fe(II state and formation of an oxyferrous complex. The complex then disappears and a product identified as a 5-coordinate carbonyl complex of verdoheme, an intermediate in the biosynthesis of biliverdin, is formed. However, further reaction to form biliverdin was not observed, making it unlikely that biliverdin IXγ is formed by this pathway.

  11. Development of Plate Reader and On-Line Microfluidic Screening to Identify Ligands of the 5-Hydroxytryptamine Binding Protein in Venoms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reka A. Otvos

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The 5-HT3 receptor is a ligand-gated ion channel, which is expressed in the nervous system. Its antagonists are used clinically for treatment of postoperative- and radiotherapy-induced emesis and irritable bowel syndrome. In order to better understand the structure and function of the 5-HT3 receptor, and to allow for compound screening at this receptor, recently a serotonin binding protein (5HTBP was engineered with the Acetylcholine Binding Protein as template. In this study, a fluorescence enhancement assay for 5HTBP ligands was developed in plate-reader format and subsequently used in an on-line microfluidic format. Both assay types were validated using an existing radioligand binding assay. The on-line microfluidic assay was coupled to HPLC via a post-column split which allowed parallel coupling to a mass spectrometer to collect MS data. This high-resolution screening (HRS system is well suitable for compound mixture analysis. As a proof of principle, the venoms of Dendroapsis polylepis, Pseudonaja affinis and Pseudonaja inframacula snakes were screened and the accurate masses of the found bioactives were established. To demonstrate the subsequent workflow towards structural identification of bioactive proteins and peptides, the partial amino acid sequence of one of the bioactives from the Pseudonaja affinis venom was determined using a bottom-up proteomics approach.

  12. Mannobiose Binding Induces Changes in Hydrogen Bonding and Protonation States of Acidic Residues in Concanavalin A As Revealed by Neutron Crystallography

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gerlits, Oksana O. [UT/ORNL; Coates, Leighton [Biology; Woods, Robert J. [Complex; Kovalevsky, Andrey [Biology

    2017-08-30

    Plant lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins with various biomedical applications. Concanavalin A (Con A) holds promise in treating cancerous tumors. To better understand the Con A carbohydrate binding specificity, we obtained a room-temperature neutron structure of this legume lectin in complex with a disaccharide Manα1–2Man, mannobiose. The neutron structure afforded direct visualization of the hydrogen bonding between the protein and ligand, showing that the ligand is able to alter both protonation states and interactions for residues located close to and distant from the binding site. An unprecedented low-barrier hydrogen bond was observed forming between the carboxylic side chains of Asp28 and Glu8, with the D atom positioned equidistant from the oxygen atoms having an O···D···O angle of 101.5°.

  13. Signaling-sensitive amino acids surround the allosteric ligand binding site of the thyrotropin receptor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kleinau, Gunnar; Haas, Ann-Karin; Neumann, Susanne; Worth, Catherine L; Hoyer, Inna; Furkert, Jens; Rutz, Claudia; Gershengorn, Marvin C; Schülein, Ralf; Krause, Gerd

    2010-07-01

    The thyrotropin receptor [thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR)], a G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), is endogenously activated by thyrotropin, which binds to the extracellular region of the receptor. We previously identified a low-molecular-weight (LMW) agonist of the TSHR and predicted its allosteric binding pocket within the receptor's transmembrane domain. Because binding of the LMW agonist probably disrupts interactions or leads to formation of new interactions among amino acid residues surrounding the pocket, we tested whether mutation of residues at these positions would lead to constitutive signaling activity. Guided by molecular modeling, we performed site-directed mutagenesis of 24 amino acids in this spatial region, followed by functional characterization of the mutant receptors in terms of expression and signaling, measured as cAMP accumulation. We found that mutations V421I, Y466A, T501A, L587V, M637C, M637W, S641A, Y643F, L645V, and Y667A located in several helices exhibit constitutive activity. Of note is mutation M637W at position 6.48 in transmembrane helix 6, which has a significant effect on the interaction of the receptor with the LMW agonist. In summary, we found that a high proportion of residues in several helices surrounding the allosteric binding site of LMW ligands in the TSHR when mutated lead to constitutively active receptors. Our findings of signaling-sensitive residues in this region of the transmembrane bundle may be of general importance as this domain appears to be evolutionarily retained among GPCRs.

  14. Steroid hormones affect binding of the sigma ligand {sup 11}C-SA4503 in tumour cells and tumour-bearing rats

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rybczynska, Anna A.; Elsinga, Philip H.; Sijbesma, Jurgen W.; Jong, Johan R. de; Vries, Erik F. de; Dierckx, Rudi A.; Waarde, Aren van [University of Groningen, Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, University of Groningen Medical Center, Groningen (Netherlands); Ishiwata, Kiichi [Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Positron Medical Center, Tokyo (Japan)

    2009-07-15

    Sigma receptors are implicated in memory and cognitive functions, drug addiction, depression and schizophrenia. In addition, sigma receptors are strongly overexpressed in many tumours. Although the natural ligands are still unknown, steroid hormones are potential candidates. Here, we examined changes in binding of the sigma-1 agonist {sup 11}C-SA4503 in C6 glioma cells and in living rats after modification of endogenous steroid levels. {sup 11}C-SA4503 binding was assessed in C6 monolayers by gamma counting and in anaesthetized rats by microPET scanning. C6 cells were either repeatedly washed and incubated in steroid-free medium or exposed to five kinds of exogenous steroids (1 h or 5 min before tracer addition, respectively). Tumour-bearing male rats were repeatedly treated with pentobarbital (a condition known to result in reduction of endogenous steroid levels) or injected with progesterone. Binding of {sup 11}C-SA4503 to C6 cells was increased ({proportional_to}50%) upon removal and decreased ({proportional_to}60%) upon addition of steroid hormones (rank order of potency: progesterone > allopregnanolone = testosterone = androstanolone > dehydroepiandrosterone-3-sulphate, IC{sub 50} progesterone 33 nM). Intraperitoneally administered progesterone reduced tumour uptake and tumour-to-muscle contrast (36%). Repeated treatment of animals with pentobarbital increased the PET standardized uptake value of {sup 11}C-SA4503 in tumour (16%) and brain (27%), whereas the kinetics of blood pool radioactivity was unaffected. The binding of {sup 11}C-SA4503 is sensitive to steroid competition. Since not only increases but also decreases of steroid levels affect ligand binding, a considerable fraction of the sigma-1 receptor population in cultured tumour cells or tumour-bearing animals is normally occupied by endogenous steroids. (orig.)

  15. Destabilization of strigolactone receptor DWARF14 by binding of ligand and E3-ligase signaling effector DWARF3

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Li-Hua; Zhou, X Edward; Yi, Wei; Wu, Zhongshan; Liu, Yue; Kang, Yanyong; Hou, Li; de Waal, Parker W; Li, Suling; Jiang, Yi; Scaffidi, Adrian; Flematti, Gavin R; Smith, Steven M; Lam, Vinh Q; Griffin, Patrick R; Wang, Yonghong; Li, Jiayang; Melcher, Karsten; Xu, H Eric

    2015-01-01

    Strigolactones (SLs) are endogenous hormones and exuded signaling molecules in plant responses to low levels of mineral nutrients. Key mediators of the SL signaling pathway in rice include the α/β-fold hydrolase DWARF 14 (D14) and the F-box component DWARF 3 (D3) of the ubiquitin ligase SCFD3 that mediate ligand-dependent degradation of downstream signaling repressors. One perplexing feature is that D14 not only functions as the SL receptor but is also an active enzyme that slowly hydrolyzes diverse natural and synthetic SLs including GR24, preventing the crystallization of a binary complex of D14 with an intact SL as well as the ternary D14/SL/D3 complex. Here we overcome these barriers to derive a structural model of D14 bound to intact GR24 and identify the interface that is required for GR24-mediated D14-D3 interaction. The mode of GR24-mediated signaling, including ligand recognition, hydrolysis by D14, and ligand-mediated D14-D3 interaction, is conserved in structurally diverse SLs. More importantly, D14 is destabilized upon the binding of ligands and D3, thus revealing an unusual mechanism of SL recognition and signaling, in which the hormone, the receptor, and the downstream effectors are systematically destabilized during the signal transduction process. PMID:26470846

  16. Functional analysis of the citrate activator CitO from Enterococcus faecalis implicates a divalent metal in ligand binding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Victor S. Blancato

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The regulator of citrate metabolism, CitO, from Enterococcus faecalis belongs to the FCD family within the GntR superfamily. In the presence of citrate, CitO binds to cis-acting sequences located upstream of the cit promoters inducing the expression of genes involved in citrate utilization. The quantification of the molecular binding affinities, performed by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC, indicated that CitO has a high affinity for citrate (KD= 1.2±0.2 µM, while it did not recognize other metabolic intermediates. Based on a structural model of CitO where a putative small molecule and a metal binding site were identified, it was hypothesized that the metal ion is required for citrate binding. In agreement with this model, citrate binding to CitO sharply decreased when the protein was incubated with EDTA. This effect was reverted by the addition of Ni2+, and Zn2+ to a lesser extent. Structure-based site-directed mutagenesis was conducted and it was found that changes to alanine in residues Arg97 and His191 resulted in decreased binding affinities for citrate, as determined by EMSA and ITC. Further assays using lacZ fusions confirmed that these residues in CitO are involved in sensing citrate in vivo. These results indicate that the molecular modifications induced by a ligand and a metal binding in the C-terminal domain of CitO are required for optimal DNA binding activity, and consequently, transcriptional activation.

  17. d-Cysteine Ligands Control Metal Geometries within De Novo Designed Three-Stranded Coiled Coils

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ruckthong, Leela; Peacock, Anna F.A.; Pascoe, Cherilyn E.

    2017-01-01

    Although metal ion binding to naturally occurring l-amino acid proteins is well documented, understanding the impact of the opposite chirality (d-)amino acids on the structure and stereochemistry of metals is in its infancy. We examine the effect of a d-configuration cysteine within a designed l......-amino acid three-stranded coiled coil in order to enforce a precise coordination number on a metal center. The d chirality does not alter the native fold, but the side-chain re-orientation modifies the sterics of the metal binding pocket. l-Cys side chains within the coiled-coil structure have previously...... by comparison of the structure of ZnIICl(CSL16DC)3 2- to the published structure of ZnII(H2O)(GRAND-CSL12AL16LC)3 -. Moreover, spectroscopic analysis indicates that the CdII geometry observed by using l-Cys ligands (a mixture of three- and four-coordinate CdII) is altered to a single four-coordinate species...

  18. Mutations that silence constitutive signaling activity in the allosteric ligand-binding site of the thyrotropin receptor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haas, Ann-Karin; Kleinau, Gunnar; Hoyer, Inna; Neumann, Susanne; Furkert, Jens; Rutz, Claudia; Schülein, Ralf; Gershengorn, Marvin C; Krause, Gerd

    2011-01-01

    The thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) exhibits elevated cAMP signaling in the basal state and becomes fully activated by thyrotropin. Previously we presented evidence that small-molecule ligands act allosterically within the transmembrane region in contrast to the orthosteric extracellular hormone-binding sites. Our goal in this study was to identify positions that surround the allosteric pocket and that are sensitive for inactivation of TSHR. Homology modeling combined with site-directed mutagenesis and functional characterization revealed seven mutants located in the allosteric binding site that led to a decrease of basal cAMP signaling activity. The majority of these silencing mutations, which constrain the TSHR in an inactive conformation, are found in two clusters when mapped onto the 3D structural model. We suggest that the amino acid positions identified herein are indicating locations where small-molecule antagonists, both neutral antagonists and inverse agonists, might interfere with active TSHR conformations.

  19. Promiscuous ligand-dependent activation of the Ah receptor: chemicals in crude extracts from commercial and consumer products bind to and activate the Ah receptor and Ah receptor-dependent gene expression

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Denison, M.; Rogers, W.; Bohonowych, J.; Zhao, B. [Dept. of Environmental Toxicology, Univ. of California, Davis (United States)

    2004-09-15

    2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD, dioxin) and related halogenated and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (HAHs and PAHs) produce a variety of toxic and biological effects, the majority of which are mediated by their ability to bind to and activate the Ah receptor (AhR) and AhR-dependent gene expression. While previous studies suggested that the physiochemical characteristics of AhR ligands (i.e. HAH and PAH agonists) must meet a defined set of criteria, it has recently become abundantly clear that the AhR can be bound and activated by structurally diverse range of synthetic and naturally occurring chemicals. Based on the spectrum of AhR ligands identified to date, the structural promiscuity of AhR ligands is significantly more diverse than that observed for other liganddependent nuclear receptors. However, a detailed understanding of the structural diversity of AhR ligands and their respective biological and toxicological activities remains to be established and could provide insights into the identity of endogenous ligands. Over the past several years we have developed and utilized several AhR-based in vitro and cell-based bioassay systems to screen pure chemicals and chemical libraries as well as mixtures of chemicals with the goal of defining the spectrum of chemicals that can bind to and activate/inhibit the AhR and AhR-dependent gene expression. In addition, demonstration of the presence of AhR agonists/antagonists in extracts containing complex mixtures of chemicals from a variety of biological and environmental samples, coupled with AhR bioassay-based fractionation procedures, provides an avenue in which to identify novel AhR ligands. In previous preliminary screening studies we demonstrated the presence of AhR agonists in extracts of commercial and consumer products using an in vitro guinea pig hepatic AhR DNA binding and mouse gene induction assays. Here we have extended these studies and have examined the ability of crude DMSO and ethanol extracts

  20. Leptospiral outer membrane protein microarray, a novel approach to identification of host ligand-binding proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pinne, Marija; Matsunaga, James; Haake, David A

    2012-11-01

    Leptospirosis is a zoonosis with worldwide distribution caused by pathogenic spirochetes belonging to the genus Leptospira. The leptospiral life cycle involves transmission via freshwater and colonization of the renal tubules of their reservoir hosts. Infection requires adherence to cell surfaces and extracellular matrix components of host tissues. These host-pathogen interactions involve outer membrane proteins (OMPs) expressed on the bacterial surface. In this study, we developed an Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni strain Fiocruz L1-130 OMP microarray containing all predicted lipoproteins and transmembrane OMPs. A total of 401 leptospiral genes or their fragments were transcribed and translated in vitro and printed on nitrocellulose-coated glass slides. We investigated the potential of this protein microarray to screen for interactions between leptospiral OMPs and fibronectin (Fn). This approach resulted in the identification of the recently described fibronectin-binding protein, LIC10258 (MFn8, Lsa66), and 14 novel Fn-binding proteins, denoted Microarray Fn-binding proteins (MFns). We confirmed Fn binding of purified recombinant LIC11612 (MFn1), LIC10714 (MFn2), LIC11051 (MFn6), LIC11436 (MFn7), LIC10258 (MFn8, Lsa66), and LIC10537 (MFn9) by far-Western blot assays. Moreover, we obtained specific antibodies to MFn1, MFn7, MFn8 (Lsa66), and MFn9 and demonstrated that MFn1, MFn7, and MFn9 are expressed and surface exposed under in vitro growth conditions. Further, we demonstrated that MFn1, MFn4 (LIC12631, Sph2), and MFn7 enable leptospires to bind fibronectin when expressed in the saprophyte, Leptospira biflexa. Protein microarrays are valuable tools for high-throughput identification of novel host ligand-binding proteins that have the potential to play key roles in the virulence mechanisms of pathogens.

  1. Database of ligand-induced domain movements in enzymes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hayward Steven

    2009-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Conformational change induced by the binding of a substrate or coenzyme is a poorly understood stage in the process of enzyme catalysed reactions. For enzymes that exhibit a domain movement, the conformational change can be clearly characterized and therefore the opportunity exists to gain an understanding of the mechanisms involved. The development of the non-redundant database of protein domain movements contains examples of ligand-induced domain movements in enzymes, but this valuable data has remained unexploited. Description The domain movements in the non-redundant database of protein domain movements are those found by applying the DynDom program to pairs of crystallographic structures contained in Protein Data Bank files. For each pair of structures cross-checking ligands in their Protein Data Bank files with the KEGG-LIGAND database and using methods that search for ligands that contact the enzyme in one conformation but not the other, the non-redundant database of protein domain movements was refined down to a set of 203 enzymes where a domain movement is apparently triggered by the binding of a functional ligand. For these cases, ligand binding information, including hydrogen bonds and salt-bridges between the ligand and specific residues on the enzyme is presented in the context of dynamical information such as the regions that form the dynamic domains, the hinge bending residues, and the hinge axes. Conclusion The presentation at a single website of data on interactions between a ligand and specific residues on the enzyme alongside data on the movement that these interactions induce, should lead to new insights into the mechanisms of these enzymes in particular, and help in trying to understand the general process of ligand-induced domain closure in enzymes. The website can be found at: http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/dyndom/enzymeList.do

  2. The extracellular loop 2 (ECL2 of the human histamine H4 receptor substantially contributes to ligand binding and constitutive activity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Wifling

    Full Text Available In contrast to the corresponding mouse and rat orthologs, the human histamine H4 receptor (hH4R shows extraordinarily high constitutive activity. In the extracellular loop (ECL, replacement of F169 by V as in the mouse H4R significantly reduced constitutive activity. Stabilization of the inactive state was even more pronounced for a double mutant, in which, in addition to F169V, S179 in the ligand binding site was replaced by M. To study the role of the FF motif in ECL2, we generated the hH4R-F168A mutant. The receptor was co-expressed in Sf9 insect cells with the G-protein subunits Gαi2 and Gβ1γ2, and the membranes were studied in [3H]histamine binding and functional [35S]GTPγS assays. The potency of various ligands at the hH4R-F168A mutant decreased compared to the wild-type hH4R, for example by 30- and more than 100-fold in case of the H4R agonist UR-PI376 and histamine, respectively. The high constitutive activity of the hH4R was completely lost in the hH4R-F168A mutant, as reflected by neutral antagonism of thioperamide, a full inverse agonist at the wild-type hH4R. By analogy, JNJ7777120 was a partial inverse agonist at the hH4R, but a partial agonist at the hH4R-F168A mutant, again demonstrating the decrease in constitutive activity due to F168A mutation. Thus, F168 was proven to play a key role not only in ligand binding and potency, but also in the high constitutive activity of the hH4R.

  3. Statistical Profiling of One Promiscuous Protein Binding Site: Illustrated by Urokinase Catalytic Domain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cerisier, Natacha; Regad, Leslie; Triki, Dhoha; Petitjean, Michel; Flatters, Delphine; Camproux, Anne-Claude

    2017-10-01

    While recent literature focuses on drug promiscuity, the characterization of promiscuous binding sites (ability to bind several ligands) remains to be explored. Here, we present a proteochemometric modeling approach to analyze diverse ligands and corresponding multiple binding sub-pockets associated with one promiscuous binding site to characterize protein-ligand recognition. We analyze both geometrical and physicochemical profile correspondences. This approach was applied to examine the well-studied druggable urokinase catalytic domain inhibitor binding site, which results in a large number of complex structures bound to various ligands. This approach emphasizes the importance of jointly characterizing pocket and ligand spaces to explore the impact of ligand diversity on sub-pocket properties and to establish their main profile correspondences. This work supports an interest in mining available 3D holo structures associated with a promiscuous binding site to explore its main protein-ligand recognition tendency. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  4. Prediction of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor GluN1-Ligand Binding Affinity by a Novel SVM-Pose/SVM-Score Combinatorial Ensemble Docking Scheme.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leong, Max K; Syu, Ren-Guei; Ding, Yi-Lung; Weng, Ching-Feng

    2017-01-06

    The glycine-binding site of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) subunit GluN1 is a potential pharmacological target for neurodegenerative disorders. A novel combinatorial ensemble docking scheme using ligand and protein conformation ensembles and customized support vector machine (SVM)-based models to select the docked pose and to predict the docking score was generated for predicting the NMDAR GluN1-ligand binding affinity. The predicted root mean square deviation (RMSD) values in pose by SVM-Pose models were found to be in good agreement with the observed values (n = 30, r 2  = 0.928-0.988,  = 0.894-0.954, RMSE = 0.002-0.412, s = 0.001-0.214), and the predicted pK i values by SVM-Score were found to be in good agreement with the observed values for the training samples (n = 24, r 2  = 0.967,  = 0.899, RMSE = 0.295, s = 0.170) and test samples (n = 13, q 2  = 0.894, RMSE = 0.437, s = 0.202). When subjected to various statistical validations, the developed SVM-Pose and SVM-Score models consistently met the most stringent criteria. A mock test asserted the predictivity of this novel docking scheme. Collectively, this accurate novel combinatorial ensemble docking scheme can be used to predict the NMDAR GluN1-ligand binding affinity for facilitating drug discovery.

  5. Characterization of 6-mercaptopurine binding to bovine serum albumin and its displacement from the binding sites by quercetin and rutin

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ehteshami, Mehdi [Nutrition Research Center, School of Health and Nutrition, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz 51644-14766 (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Rasoulzadeh, Farzaneh [Drug Applied Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz 51644-14766 (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Mahboob, Soltanali [Nutrition Research Center, School of Health and Nutrition, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz 51644-14766 (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Rashidi, Mohammad-Reza, E-mail: rashidi@tbzmed.ac.ir [Research Center for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz 51644-14766 (Iran, Islamic Republic of)

    2013-03-15

    Binding of a drug to the serum albumins as major serum transport proteins can be influenced by other ligands leading to alteration of its pharmacological properties. In the present study, binding characteristics of 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) with bovine serum albumin (BSA) together with its displacement from its binding site by quercetin and rutin have been investigated by the spectroscopic method. According to the binding parameters, a static quenching component in overall dynamic quenching process is operative in the interaction between 6-MP and BSA. The binding of 6-MP to BSA occurred spontaneously due to entropy-driven hydrophobic interactions. The synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy study revealed that the secondary structure of BSA is changed in the presence of 6-MP and both Tyr and Trp residues participate in the interaction between 6-MP and BSA with the later one being more dominant. The binding constant value of 6-MP-BSA in the presence of quercetin and rutin increased. 6-MP was displaced by ibuprofen indicating that the binding site of 6-MP on albumin is site II. Therefore, the change of the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of 6-MP by quercetin and rutin through alteration of binding capacity of 6-MP to the serum albumin cannot be ruled out. In addition, the displacement study showed that 6-MP is located in site II of BSA. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Participation of both Tyr and particularly Trp residues in the interaction between 6-MP and BSA. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Involvement of a static quenching component in an overall dynamic quenching process. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Ability of quercetin and rutin to change the binding constants of 6-MP-BSA complex. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Binding of 6-MP to BSA through entropy-driven hydrophobic interactions.

  6. CINPA1 binds directly to constitutive androstane receptor and inhibits its activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cherian, Milu T; Chai, Sergio C; Wright, William C; Singh, Aman; Alexandra Casal, Morgan; Zheng, Jie; Wu, Jing; Lee, Richard E; Griffin, Patrick R; Chen, Taosheng

    2018-03-31

    The constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) and pregnane X receptor (PXR) are xenobiotic sensors that regulate the expression of drug-metabolizing enzymes and efflux transporters. CAR activation promotes drug elimination, thereby reducing therapeutic effectiveness, or causes adverse drug effects via toxic metabolites. CAR inhibitors could be used to attenuate these adverse drug effects. CAR and PXR share ligands and target genes, confounding the understanding of the regulation of receptor-specific activity. We previously identified a small-molecule inhibitor, CINPA1, that inhibits CAR (without activating PXR at lower concentrations) by altering CAR-coregulator interactions and reducing CAR recruitment to DNA response elements of regulated genes. However, solid evidence was not presented for the direct binding of CINPA1 to CAR. In this study, we demonstrate direct interaction of CINPA1 with the CAR ligand-binding domain (CAR-LBD) and identify key residues involved in such interactions through a combination of biophysical and computational methods. We found that CINPA1 resides in the ligand-binding pocket to stabilize the CAR-LBD in a more rigid, less fluid state. Molecular dynamics simulations, together with our previously reported docking model, enabled us to predict which CAR residues were critical for interactions with CINPA1. The importance of these residues for CINPA1 binding were then validated by directed mutations and testing the mutant CAR proteins in transcription reporter and coregulatory interaction assays. We demonstrated strong hydrogen bonding of CINPA1 with N165 and H203 and identified other residues involved in hydrophobic contacts with CINPA1. Overall, our data confirm that CINPA1 directly binds to CAR. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Discover binding pathways using the sliding binding-box docking approach: application to binding pathways of oseltamivir to avian influenza H5N1 neuraminidase

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tran, Diem-Trang T.; Le, Ly T.; Truong, Thanh N.

    2013-08-01

    Drug binding and unbinding are transient processes which are hardly observed by experiment and difficult to analyze by computational techniques. In this paper, we employed a cost-effective method called "pathway docking" in which molecular docking was used to screen ligand-receptor binding free energy surface to reveal possible paths of ligand approaching protein binding pocket. A case study was applied on oseltamivir, the key drug against influenza a virus. The equilibrium pathways identified by this method are found to be similar to those identified in prior studies using highly expensive computational approaches.

  8. Funnel metadynamics as accurate binding free-energy method

    Science.gov (United States)

    Limongelli, Vittorio; Bonomi, Massimiliano; Parrinello, Michele

    2013-01-01

    A detailed description of the events ruling ligand/protein interaction and an accurate estimation of the drug affinity to its target is of great help in speeding drug discovery strategies. We have developed a metadynamics-based approach, named funnel metadynamics, that allows the ligand to enhance the sampling of the target binding sites and its solvated states. This method leads to an efficient characterization of the binding free-energy surface and an accurate calculation of the absolute protein–ligand binding free energy. We illustrate our protocol in two systems, benzamidine/trypsin and SC-558/cyclooxygenase 2. In both cases, the X-ray conformation has been found as the lowest free-energy pose, and the computed protein–ligand binding free energy in good agreement with experiments. Furthermore, funnel metadynamics unveils important information about the binding process, such as the presence of alternative binding modes and the role of waters. The results achieved at an affordable computational cost make funnel metadynamics a valuable method for drug discovery and for dealing with a variety of problems in chemistry, physics, and material science. PMID:23553839

  9. A novel thromboxane A2 receptor D304N variant that abrogates ligand binding in a patient with a bleeding diathesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mumford, Andrew D; Dawood, Ban B; Daly, Martina E; Murden, Sherina L; Williams, Michael D; Protty, Majd B; Spalton, Jennifer C; Wheatley, Mark; Mundell, Stuart J; Watson, Steve P

    2010-01-14

    We investigated the cause of mild mucocutaneous bleeding in a 14-year-old male patient (P1). Platelet aggregation and ATP secretion induced by arachidonic acid and the thromboxane A(2) receptor (TxA(2)R) agonist U46619 were reduced in P1 compared with controls, whereas the responses to other platelet agonists were retained. P1 was heterozygous for a transversion within the TBXA2R gene predictive of a D304N substitution in the TxA(2)R. In Chinese hamster ovary-K1 cells expressing the variant D304N TxA(2)R, U46619 did not increase cytosolic free Ca(2+) concentration, indicating loss of receptor function. The TxA(2)R antagonist [(3)H]-SQ29548 showed an approximate 50% decrease in binding to platelets from P1 but absent binding to Chinese hamster ovary-K1 cells expressing variant D304N TxA(2)R. This is the second naturally occurring TxA(2)R variant to be associated with platelet dysfunction and the first in which loss of receptor function is associated with reduced ligand binding. D304 lies within a conserved NPXXY motif in transmembrane domain 7 of the TxA(2)R that is a key structural element in family A G protein-coupled receptors. Our demonstration that the D304N substitution causes clinically significant platelet dysfunction by reducing ligand binding establishes the importance of the NPXXY motif for TxA(2)R function in vivo.

  10. Peptide–polymer ligands for a tandem WW-domain, an adaptive multivalent protein–protein interaction: lessons on the thermodynamic fitness of flexible ligands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katharina Koschek

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Three polymers, poly(N-(2-hydroxypropylmethacrylamide (pHPMA, hyperbranched polyglycerol (hPG, and dextran were investigated as carriers for multivalent ligands targeting the adaptive tandem WW-domain of formin-binding protein (FBP21. Polymer carriers were conjugated with 3–9 copies of the proline-rich decapeptide GPPPRGPPPR-NH2 (P1. Binding of the obtained peptide–polymer conjugates to the tandem WW-domain was investigated employing isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC to determine the binding affinity, the enthalpic and entropic contributions to free binding energy, and the stoichiometry of binding for all peptide–polymer conjugates. Binding affinities of all multivalent ligands were in the µM range, strongly amplified compared to the monovalent ligand P1 with a KD > 1 mM. In addition, concise differences were observed, pHPMA and hPG carriers showed moderate affinity and bound 2.3–2.8 peptides per protein binding site resulting in the formation of aggregates. Dextran-based conjugates displayed affinities down to 1.2 µM, forming complexes with low stoichiometry, and no precipitation. Experimental results were compared with parameters obtained from molecular dynamics simulations in order to understand the observed differences between the three carrier materials. In summary, the more rigid and condensed peptide–polymer conjugates based on the dextran scaffold seem to be superior to induce multivalent binding and to increase affinity, while the more flexible and dendritic polymers, pHPMA and hPG are suitable to induce crosslinking upon binding.

  11. Radioligand binding analysis of α 2 adrenoceptors with [11C]yohimbine in brain in vivo: Extended Inhibition Plot correction for plasma protein binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Phan, Jenny-Ann; Landau, Anne M; Jakobsen, Steen; Wong, Dean F; Gjedde, Albert

    2017-11-22

    We describe a novel method of kinetic analysis of radioligand binding to neuroreceptors in brain in vivo, here applied to noradrenaline receptors in rat brain. The method uses positron emission tomography (PET) of [ 11 C]yohimbine binding in brain to quantify the density and affinity of α 2 adrenoceptors under condition of changing radioligand binding to plasma proteins. We obtained dynamic PET recordings from brain of Spraque Dawley rats at baseline, followed by pharmacological challenge with unlabeled yohimbine (0.3 mg/kg). The challenge with unlabeled ligand failed to diminish radioligand accumulation in brain tissue, due to the blocking of radioligand binding to plasma proteins that elevated the free fractions of the radioligand in plasma. We devised a method that graphically resolved the masking of unlabeled ligand binding by the increase of radioligand free fractions in plasma. The Extended Inhibition Plot introduced here yielded an estimate of the volume of distribution of non-displaceable ligand in brain tissue that increased with the increase of the free fraction of the radioligand in plasma. The resulting binding potentials of the radioligand declined by 50-60% in the presence of unlabeled ligand. The kinetic unmasking of inhibited binding reflected in the increase of the reference volume of distribution yielded estimates of receptor saturation consistent with the binding of unlabeled ligand.

  12. The Bet v 1 fold: an ancient, versatile scaffold for binding of large, hydrophobic ligands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Breiteneder Heimo

    2008-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The major birch pollen allergen, Bet v 1, is a member of the ubiquitous PR-10 family of plant pathogenesis-related proteins. In recent years, a number of diverse plant proteins with low sequence similarity to Bet v 1 was identified. In addition, determination of the Bet v 1 structure revealed the existence of a large superfamily of structurally related proteins. In this study, we aimed to identify and classify all Bet v 1-related structures from the Protein Data Bank and all Bet v 1-related sequences from the Uniprot database. Results Structural comparisons of representative members of already known protein families structurally related to Bet v 1 with all entries of the Protein Data Bank yielded 47 structures with non-identical sequences. They were classified into eleven families, five of which were newly identified and not included in the Structural Classification of Proteins database release 1.71. The taxonomic distribution of these families extracted from the Pfam protein family database showed that members of the polyketide cyclase family and the activator of Hsp90 ATPase homologue 1 family were distributed among all three superkingdoms, while members of some bacterial families were confined to a small number of species. Comparison of ligand binding activities of Bet v 1-like superfamily members revealed that their functions were related to binding and metabolism of large, hydrophobic compounds such as lipids, hormones, and antibiotics. Phylogenetic relationships within the Bet v 1 family, defined as the group of proteins with significant sequence similarity to Bet v 1, were determined by aligning 264 Bet v 1-related sequences. A distance-based phylogenetic tree yielded a classification into 11 subfamilies, nine exclusively containing plant sequences and two subfamilies of bacterial proteins. Plant sequences included the pathogenesis-related proteins 10, the major latex proteins/ripening-related proteins subfamily, and

  13. Kinetics of protein–ligand unbinding: Predicting pathways, rates, and rate-limiting steps

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tiwary, Pratyush; Limongelli, Vittorio; Salvalaglio, Matteo; Parrinello, Michele

    2015-01-01

    The ability to predict the mechanisms and the associated rate constants of protein–ligand unbinding is of great practical importance in drug design. In this work we demonstrate how a recently introduced metadynamics-based approach allows exploration of the unbinding pathways, estimation of the rates, and determination of the rate-limiting steps in the paradigmatic case of the trypsin–benzamidine system. Protein, ligand, and solvent are described with full atomic resolution. Using metadynamics, multiple unbinding trajectories that start with the ligand in the crystallographic binding pose and end with the ligand in the fully solvated state are generated. The unbinding rate koff is computed from the mean residence time of the ligand. Using our previously computed binding affinity we also obtain the binding rate kon. Both rates are in agreement with reported experimental values. We uncover the complex pathways of unbinding trajectories and describe the critical rate-limiting steps with unprecedented detail. Our findings illuminate the role played by the coupling between subtle protein backbone fluctuations and the solvation by water molecules that enter the binding pocket and assist in the breaking of the shielded hydrogen bonds. We expect our approach to be useful in calculating rates for general protein–ligand systems and a valid support for drug design. PMID:25605901

  14. Synthesis, characterization, crystal structure and HSA binding of two new N,O,O-donor Schiff-base ligands derived from dihydroxybenzaldehyde and tert-butylamine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khosravi, Iman; Hosseini, Farnaz; Khorshidifard, Mahsa; Sahihi, Mehdi; Rudbari, Hadi Amiri

    2016-09-01

    Two new o-hydroxy Schiff-bases compounds, L1 and L2, were derived from the 1:1 M condensation of 2,3-dihydroxybenzaldehyde and 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde with tert-butylamine and were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopies. The crystal structure of L2 was also determined by single crystal X-ray analysis. The crystal structure of L2 showed that the compound exists as a zwitterionic form in the solid state, with the H atom of the phenol group being transferred to the imine N atom. It adopts an E configuration about the central Cdbnd N double bond. Furthermore, binding of these Schiff base ligands to Human Serum Albumin (HSA) was investigated by fluorescence quenching, absorption spectroscopy, molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods. The fluorescence emission of HSA was quenched by ligands. Also, suitable models were used to analyze the UV-vis absorption spectroscopy data for titration of HSA solution by various amounts of Schiff bases. The spectroscopic studies revealed that these Schiff bases formed 1:1 complex with HSA. Energy transfer mechanism of quenching was discussed and the values of 3.35 and 1.57 nm as the mean distances between the bound ligands and the HSA were calculated for L1 and L2, respectively. Molecular docking results indicated that the main active binding site for these Schiff bases ligands is in subdomain IB. Moreover, MD simulation results suggested that this Schiff base complex can interact with HSA, with a slight modification of its tertiary structure.

  15. Ligand-promoted protein folding by biased kinetic partitioning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hingorani, Karan S; Metcalf, Matthew C; Deming, Derrick T; Garman, Scott C; Powers, Evan T; Gierasch, Lila M

    2017-04-01

    Protein folding in cells occurs in the presence of high concentrations of endogenous binding partners, and exogenous binding partners have been exploited as pharmacological chaperones. A combined mathematical modeling and experimental approach shows that a ligand improves the folding of a destabilized protein by biasing the kinetic partitioning between folding and alternative fates (aggregation or degradation). Computationally predicted inhibition of test protein aggregation and degradation as a function of ligand concentration are validated by experiments in two disparate cellular systems.

  16. Binding-Induced Fluorescence of Serotonin Transporter Ligands: A Spectroscopic and Structural Study of 4-(4-(Dimethylamino)phenyl)-1-methylpyridinium (APP+) and APP+ Analogues

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    The binding-induced fluorescence of 4-(4-(dimethylamino)-phenyl)-1-methylpyridinium (APP+) and two new serotonin transporter (SERT)-binding fluorescent analogues, 1-butyl-4-[4-(1-dimethylamino)phenyl]-pyridinium bromide (BPP+) and 1-methyl-4-[4-(1-piperidinyl)phenyl]-pyridinium (PPP+), has been investigated. Optical spectroscopy reveals that these probes are highly sensitive to their chemical microenvironment, responding to variations in polarity with changes in transition energies and responding to changes in viscosity or rotational freedom with emission enhancements. Molecular docking calculations reveal that the probes are able to access the nonpolar and conformationally restrictive binding pocket of SERT. As a result, the probes exhibit previously not identified binding-induced turn-on emission that is spectroscopically distinct from dyes that have accumulated intracellularly. Thus, binding and transport dynamics of SERT ligands can be resolved both spatially and spectroscopically. PMID:24460204

  17. Thermodynamic compensation upon binding to exosite 1 and the active site of thrombin.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Treuheit, Nicholas A; Beach, Muneera A; Komives, Elizabeth A

    2011-05-31

    Several lines of experimental evidence including amide exchange and NMR suggest that ligands binding to thrombin cause reduced backbone dynamics. Binding of the covalent inhibitor dPhe-Pro-Arg chloromethyl ketone to the active site serine, as well as noncovalent binding of a fragment of the regulatory protein, thrombomodulin, to exosite 1 on the back side of the thrombin molecule both cause reduced dynamics. However, the reduced dynamics do not appear to be accompanied by significant conformational changes. In addition, binding of ligands to the active site does not change the affinity of thrombomodulin fragments binding to exosite 1; however, the thermodynamic coupling between exosite 1 and the active site has not been fully explored. We present isothermal titration calorimetry experiments that probe changes in enthalpy and entropy upon formation of binary ligand complexes. The approach relies on stringent thrombin preparation methods and on the use of dansyl-l-arginine-(3-methyl-1,5-pantanediyl)amide and a DNA aptamer as ligands with ideal thermodynamic signatures for binding to the active site and to exosite 1. Using this approach, the binding thermodynamic signatures of each ligand alone as well as the binding signatures of each ligand when the other binding site was occupied were measured. Different exosite 1 ligands with widely varied thermodynamic signatures cause a similar reduction in ΔH and a concomitantly lower entropy cost upon DAPA binding at the active site. The results suggest a general phenomenon of enthalpy-entropy compensation consistent with reduction of dynamics/increased folding of thrombin upon ligand binding to either the active site or exosite 1.

  18. Effect of Methamphetamine on Spectral Binding, Ligand Docking and Metabolism of Anti-HIV Drugs with CYP3A4

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ande, Anusha; Wang, Lei; Vaidya, Naveen K.; Li, Weihua; Kumar, Santosh; Kumar, Anil

    2016-01-01

    Cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4) is the major drug metabolic enzyme, and is involved in the metabolism of antiretroviral drugs, especially protease inhibitors (PIs). This study was undertaken to examine the effect of methamphetamine on the binding and metabolism of PIs with CYP3A4. We showed that methamphetamine exhibits a type I spectral change upon binding to CYP3A4 with δAmax and KD of 0.016±0.001 and 204±18 μM, respectively. Methamphetamine-CYP3A4 docking showed that methamphetamine binds to the heme of CYP3A4 in two modes, both leading to N-demethylation. We then studied the effect of methamphetamine binding on PIs with CYP3A4. Our results showed that methamphetamine alters spectral binding of nelfinavir but not the other type I PIs (lopinavir, atazanavir, tipranavir). The change in spectral binding for nelfinavir was observed at both δAmax (0.004±0.0003 vs. 0.0068±0.0001) and KD (1.42±0.36 vs.2.93±0.08 μM) levels. We further tested effect of methamphetamine on binding of 2 type II PIs; ritonavir and indinavir. Our results showed that methamphetamine alters the ritonavir binding to CYP3A4 by decreasing both the δAmax (0.0038±0.0003 vs. 0.0055±0.0003) and KD (0.043±0.0001 vs. 0.065±0.001 nM), while indinavir showed only reduced KD in presence of methamphetamine (0.086±0.01 vs. 0.174±0.03 nM). Furthermore, LC-MS/MS studies in high CYP3A4 human liver microsomes showed a decrease in the formation of hydroxy ritonavir in the presence of methamphetamine. Finally, CYP3A4 docking with lopinavir and ritonavir in the absence and presence of methamphetamine showed that methamphetamine alters the docking of ritonavir, which is consistent with the results obtained from spectral binding and metabolism studies. Overall, our results demonstrated differential effects of methamphetamine on the binding and metabolism of PIs with CYP3A4. These findings have clinical implication in terms of drug dose adjustment of antiretroviral medication, especially with ritonavir

  19. CXCR4 Ligands : The Next Big Hit?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Walenkamp, Annemiek M. E.; Lapa, Constantin; Herrmann, Ken; Wester, Hans-Juergen

    2017-01-01

    The G protein-coupled protein receptor C-X-C chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) is an attractive target for cancer diagnosis and treatment, as it is overexpressed in many solid and hematologic cancers. Binding of its ligand, C-X-C chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12), results in receptor internalization and

  20. Characterization, cell-surface expression and ligand-binding properties of different truncated N-terminal extracellular domains of the ionotropic glutamate receptor subunit GluR1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McIlhinney, R A; Molnár, E

    1996-04-01

    To identify the location of the first transmembrane segment of the GluR1 glutamate receptor subunit artificial stop codons have been introduced into the N-terminal domain at amino acid positions 442, 510, and 563, namely just before and spanning the proposed first two transmembrane regions. The resultant truncated N-terminal fragments of GluR1, termed NT1, NT2, and NT3 respectively were expressed in Cos-7 cells and their cellular distribution and cell-surface expression analysed using an N-terminal antibody to GluR1. All of the fragments were fully glycosylated and were found to be associated with cell membranes but none was secreted. Differential extraction of the cell membranes indicated that both NT1 and NT2 behave as peripheral membrane proteins. In contrast NT3, like the full subunit, has integral membrane protein properties. Furthermore only NT3 is expressed at the cell surface as determined by immunofluorescence and cell-surface biotinylation. Protease protection assays indicated that only NT3 had a cytoplasmic tail. Binding studies using the selective ligand [(3)H]alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionate ([(3)H]AMPA) demonstrated that NT3 does not bind ligand. Together these results indicate that the first transmembrane domain of the GluR1 subunit lies between residues 509 and 562, that the N-terminal domain alone cannot form a functional ligand-binding site and that this domain can be targeted to the cell surface provided that it has a transmembrane-spanning region.

  1. Radiation sensitization by an iodine-labelled DNA ligand

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Martin, R F; Murray, V; D' Cunha, G; Pardee, M; Haigh, A; Hodgson, G S [Peter MacCallum Cancer Inst., Melbourne (Australia); Kampouris, E; Kelly, D P [Melbourne Univ., Parkville (Australia)

    1990-05-01

    An iodinated DNA ligand, iodoHoechst 33258, which binds in the minor groove of DNA, enhances DNA strand breakage and cell killing by UV-A irradiation. The sites of UV-induced strand breaks reflect the known sequence specificity of the ligand. (author).

  2. LigSearch: a knowledge-based web server to identify likely ligands for a protein target

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Beer, Tjaart A. P. de; Laskowski, Roman A. [European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL–EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD (United Kingdom); Duban, Mark-Eugene [Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois (United States); Chan, A. W. Edith [University College London, London WC1E 6BT (United Kingdom); Anderson, Wayne F. [Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois (United States); Thornton, Janet M., E-mail: thornton@ebi.ac.uk [European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL–EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD (United Kingdom)

    2013-12-01

    LigSearch is a web server for identifying ligands likely to bind to a given protein. Identifying which ligands might bind to a protein before crystallization trials could provide a significant saving in time and resources. LigSearch, a web server aimed at predicting ligands that might bind to and stabilize a given protein, has been developed. Using a protein sequence and/or structure, the system searches against a variety of databases, combining available knowledge, and provides a clustered and ranked output of possible ligands. LigSearch can be accessed at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/thornton-srv/databases/LigSearch.

  3. Ligand-regulated peptide aptamers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Russell A

    2009-01-01

    The peptide aptamer approach employs high-throughput selection to identify members of a randomized peptide library displayed from a scaffold protein by virtue of their interaction with a target molecule. Extending this approach, we have developed a peptide aptamer scaffold protein that can impart small-molecule control over the aptamer-target interaction. This ligand-regulated peptide (LiRP) scaffold, consisting of the protein domains FKBP12, FRB, and GST, binds to the cell-permeable small-molecule rapamycin and the binding of this molecule can prevent the interaction of the randomizable linker region connecting FKBP12 with FRB. Here we present a detailed protocol for the creation of a peptide aptamer plasmid library, selection of peptide aptamers using the LiRP scaffold in a yeast two-hybrid system, and the screening of those peptide aptamers for a ligand-regulated interaction.

  4. Cytotoxicity of an 125I-labelled DNA ligand

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Karagiannis, T.C.; Lobachevsky, P.N.; Martin, R.F.

    2000-01-01

    The subcellular distribution and cytotoxicity of a DNA-binding ligand [ 125 I]-Hoechst 33258 following incubation of K562 cells with the drug was investigated. The ability of a radical scavenger, dimethyl sulphoxide, to protect cells from the 125 I-decay induced cell death was also studied. Three different concentrations and specific activities of the drug were used to provide different ligand : DNA binding ratios. The results demonstrated a trend toward improved delivery of the ligand to the nucleus and to chromatin at higher ligand concentrations, with concomitant increased sensitivity to 125 I-decay induced cytotoxicity and decreased protection by dimethyl sulphoxide. This correlation of radiobiological parameters with subcellular drug distribution is consistent with the classical dogma that attributes cytotoxicity to DNA double-stranded breakage in the vicinity of the site of decay, where the high LET nature of the damage confers minimal sensitivity to radical scavenging

  5. Human Adenosine A2A Receptor: Molecular Mechanism of Ligand Binding and Activation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Byron Carpenter

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Adenosine receptors (ARs comprise the P1 class of purinergic receptors and belong to the largest family of integral membrane proteins in the human genome, the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs. ARs are classified into four subtypes, A1, A2A, A2B, and A3, which are all activated by extracellular adenosine, and play central roles in a broad range of physiological processes, including sleep regulation, angiogenesis and modulation of the immune system. ARs are potential therapeutic targets in a variety of pathophysiological conditions, including sleep disorders, cancer, and dementia, which has made them important targets for structural biology. Over a decade of research and innovation has culminated with the publication of more than 30 crystal structures of the human adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR, making it one of the best structurally characterized GPCRs at the atomic level. In this review we analyze the structural data reported for A2AR that described for the first time the binding of mode of antagonists, including newly developed drug candidates, synthetic and endogenous agonists, sodium ions and an engineered G protein. These structures have revealed the key conformational changes induced upon agonist and G protein binding that are central to signal transduction by A2AR, and have highlighted both similarities and differences in the activation mechanism of this receptor compared to other class A GPCRs. Finally, comparison of A2AR with the recently solved structures of A1R has provided the first structural insight into the molecular determinants of ligand binding specificity in different AR subtypes.

  6. Identification of the ligand-binding subunit of the human 5-hydroxytryptamine1A receptor with N-(p-azido-m-[125I] iodophenethyl)spiperone, a high affinity radioiodinated photoaffinity probe

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Raymond, J.R.; Fargin, A.; Lohse, M.J.; Regan, J.W.; Senogles, S.E.; Lefkowitz, R.J.; Caron, M.G.

    1989-01-01

    The ligand-binding subunit of the human 5-hydroxytryptamine1A (5-HT1A) receptor transiently expressed in COS-7 cells and of the native human 5-HT1A receptor derived from hippocampus and frontal cortex were identified by photoaffinity labeling with N-(p-azido-m-[125I]iodophenethyl)spiperone [( 125I]N3-NAPS), previously characterized as a high affinity radioiodinated D2-dopamine receptor probe. The identity of the ligand-binding subunit was confirmed by immunoprecipitation with an antipeptide rabbit antiserum, JWR21, raised against a synthetic peptide derived from the predicted amino acid sequence of the putative third intracellular loop of the human 5-HT1A receptor. In transiently transfected COS-7 cells expressing 14 +/- 3 pmol/mg of protein human 5-HT1A receptors, a single broad 75-kDa band was photoaffinity labeled by [125I]N3-NAPS. This band displayed the expected pharmacology of the 5-HT1A receptor, as evidenced by the ability of a series of competing ligands to block [125I]N3-NAPS photoincorporation. Moreover, antiserum JWR21 specifically and quantitatively immunoprecipitated the 75-kDa photoaffinity-labeled band from a soluble extract of the transfected COS-7 cell membranes, further confirming its identity. Finally, utilizing a combination of photoaffinity labeling and immunoprecipitation, the native ligand-binding subunit of 62-64 kDa was identified in human hippocampus and frontal cortex. The availability of the high specific activity, high affinity, photoaffinity ligand [125I]N3-NAPS and of a potent immunoprecipitating antiserum (JWR21) should greatly facilitate the biochemical characterization of the human 5-HT1A receptor

  7. A method for fast energy estimation and visualization of protein-ligand interaction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tomioka, Nobuo; Itai, Akiko; Iitaka, Yoichi

    1987-10-01

    A new computational and graphical method for facilitating ligand-protein docking studies is developed on a three-dimensional computer graphics display. Various physical and chemical properties inside the ligand binding pocket of a receptor protein, whose structure is elucidated by X-ray crystal analysis, are calculated on three-dimensional grid points and are stored in advance. By utilizing those tabulated data, it is possible to estimate the non-bonded and electrostatic interaction energy and the number of possible hydrogen bonds between protein and ligand molecules in real time during an interactive docking operation. The method also provides a comprehensive visualization of the local environment inside the binding pocket. With this method, it becomes easier to find a roughly stable geometry of ligand molecules, and one can therefore make a rapid survey of the binding capability of many drug candidates. The method will be useful for drug design as well as for the examination of protein-ligand interactions.

  8. Affinity-based, biophysical methods to detect and analyze ligand binding to recombinant proteins: matching high information content with high throughput.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holdgate, Geoff A; Anderson, Malcolm; Edfeldt, Fredrik; Geschwindner, Stefan

    2010-10-01

    Affinity-based technologies have become impactful tools to detect, monitor and characterize molecular interactions using recombinant target proteins. This can aid the understanding of biological function by revealing mechanistic details, and even more importantly, enables the identification of new improved ligands that can modulate the biological activity of those targets in a desired fashion. The selection of the appropriate technology is a key step in that process, as each one of the currently available technologies offers a characteristic type of biophysical information about the ligand-binding event. Alongside the indisputable advantages of each of those technologies they naturally display diverse restrictions that are quite frequently related to the target system to be studied but also to the affinity, solubility and molecular size of the ligands. This paper discusses some of the theoretical and experimental aspects of the most common affinity-based methods, what type of information can be gained from each one of those approaches, and what requirements as well as limitations are expected from working with recombinant proteins on those platforms and how those can be optimally addressed.

  9. A feasibility study of unconventional planar ligand spacers in chalcogenide nanocrystals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lukose, Binit; Clancy, Paulette

    2016-05-18

    The solar cell efficiency of chalcogenide nanocrystals (quantum dots) has been limited in the past by the insulation between neighboring quantum dots caused by intervening, often long-chain, aliphatic ligands. We have conducted a computationally based feasibility study to investigate the use of ultra-thin, planar, charge-conducting ligands as an alternative to traditional long passive ligands. Not only might these radically unconventional ligands decrease the mean distance between adjacent quantum dots, but, since they are charge-conducting, they have the potential to actively enhance charge migration. Our ab initio studies compare the binding energies, electronic energy gaps, and absorption characteristics for both conventional and unconventional ligands, such as phthalocyanines, porphyrins and coronene. This comparison identified these unconventional ligands with the exception of titanyl phthalocyanine, that bind to themselves more strongly than to the surface of the quantum dot, which is likely to be less desirable for enhancing charge transport. The distribution of finite energy levels of the bound system is sensitive to the ligand's binding site and the levels correspond to delocalized states. We also observed a trap state localized on a single Pb atom when a sulfur-containing phenyldithiocarbamate (PTC) ligand is attached to a slightly off-stoichiometric dot in a manner that the sulfur of the ligand completes stoichiometry of the bound system. Hence, this is indicative of the source of trap state when thio-based ligands are bound to chalcogenide nanocrystals. We also predict that titanyl phthalocyanine in a mix with chalcogenide dots of diameter ∼1.5 Å can form a donor-acceptor system.

  10. PL-PatchSurfer: A Novel Molecular Local Surface-Based Method for Exploring Protein-Ligand Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bingjie Hu

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Structure-based computational methods have been widely used in exploring protein-ligand interactions, including predicting the binding ligands of a given protein based on their structural complementarity. Compared to other protein and ligand representations, the advantages of a surface representation include reduced sensitivity to subtle changes in the pocket and ligand conformation and fast search speed. Here we developed a novel method named PL-PatchSurfer (Protein-Ligand PatchSurfer. PL-PatchSurfer represents the protein binding pocket and the ligand molecular surface as a combination of segmented surface patches. Each patch is characterized by its geometrical shape and the electrostatic potential, which are represented using the 3D Zernike descriptor (3DZD. We first tested PL-PatchSurfer on binding ligand prediction and found it outperformed the pocket-similarity based ligand prediction program. We then optimized the search algorithm of PL-PatchSurfer using the PDBbind dataset. Finally, we explored the utility of applying PL-PatchSurfer to a larger and more diverse dataset and showed that PL-PatchSurfer was able to provide a high early enrichment for most of the targets. To the best of our knowledge, PL-PatchSurfer is the first surface patch-based method that treats ligand complementarity at protein binding sites. We believe that using a surface patch approach to better understand protein-ligand interactions has the potential to significantly enhance the design of new ligands for a wide array of drug-targets.

  11. PL-PatchSurfer: a novel molecular local surface-based method for exploring protein-ligand interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Bingjie; Zhu, Xiaolei; Monroe, Lyman; Bures, Mark G; Kihara, Daisuke

    2014-08-27

    Structure-based computational methods have been widely used in exploring protein-ligand interactions, including predicting the binding ligands of a given protein based on their structural complementarity. Compared to other protein and ligand representations, the advantages of a surface representation include reduced sensitivity to subtle changes in the pocket and ligand conformation and fast search speed. Here we developed a novel method named PL-PatchSurfer (Protein-Ligand PatchSurfer). PL-PatchSurfer represents the protein binding pocket and the ligand molecular surface as a combination of segmented surface patches. Each patch is characterized by its geometrical shape and the electrostatic potential, which are represented using the 3D Zernike descriptor (3DZD). We first tested PL-PatchSurfer on binding ligand prediction and found it outperformed the pocket-similarity based ligand prediction program. We then optimized the search algorithm of PL-PatchSurfer using the PDBbind dataset. Finally, we explored the utility of applying PL-PatchSurfer to a larger and more diverse dataset and showed that PL-PatchSurfer was able to provide a high early enrichment for most of the targets. To the best of our knowledge, PL-PatchSurfer is the first surface patch-based method that treats ligand complementarity at protein binding sites. We believe that using a surface patch approach to better understand protein-ligand interactions has the potential to significantly enhance the design of new ligands for a wide array of drug-targets.

  12. Affinity chromatographic purification of tetrodotoxin by use of tetrodotoxin-binding high molecular weight substances in the body fluid of shore crab (Hemigrapsus sanguineus) as ligands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shiomi, K; Yamaguchi, S; Shimakura, K; Nagashima, Y; Yamamori, K; Matsui, T

    1993-12-01

    A purification method for tetrodotoxin (TTX), based on affinity chromatography using the TTX-binding high mol. wt substances in the body fluid of shore crab (Hemigrapsus sanguineus) as ligands, was developed. This method was particularly useful for analysis of TTX in biological samples with low concentrations of TTX. The affinity gel prepared was highly specific for TTX, having no ability to bind 4-epi-TTX and anhydro-TTX as well as saxitoxin.

  13. A modular approach to neutral P,N-ligands: synthesis and coordination chemistry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vladislav Vasilenko

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available We report the modular synthesis of three different types of neutral κ2-P,N-ligands comprising an imine and a phosphine binding site. These ligands were reacted with rhodium, iridium and palladium metal precursors and the structures of the resulting complexes were elucidated by means of X-ray crystallography. We observed that subtle changes of the ligand backbone have a significant influence on the binding geometry und coordination properties of these bidentate P,N-donors.

  14. Pulse radiolysis studies on DNA-Binding radioprotectors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anderson, R.F.

    1996-01-01

    Full text: Hoechst 33342 and newly-synthesised analogues exhibit radioprotective activity in cultured cells and in vivo, as described in accompanying abstracts. These minor groove binding ligands bind at discreet sites in DNA, characterised by 3 to 4 consecutive AT base pairs, and DNA sequencing studies have shown focussed radioprotection at these binding sites. There is evidence that the bound ligands also confer more 'global' protection including the intervening DNA between the binding sites. The observed focussed radioprotection could be explained by H-atom donation from the ligand to radiation-induced carbon-centred deoxyribosyl radicals, but this mechanism is unlikely to account for the global radioprotection. We now report pulse radiolysis studies on another possible mechanism, namely reduction of transient radiation-induced oxidising species on DNA by the ligand, which is consistent with the report of reduction of G + by TMPD. Oxidation of deoxyguanosine (dG) by Br 2 - , produced by radiolysis of Br- in N 2 0-saturated solutions, in the presence of Hoechst 33342 results in the appearance of a transient ligand species which is kinetically resolvable from that obtained from direct oxidation of Hoechst 33342 by Br 2 - . A plot of reaction rate versus ligand concentration indicates that the rate constant for reduction of G + is approximately 3 x 10 8 dm 3 M -1 sec -1 . Similar experiments with DNA, rather than dG, also revealed a transient species corresponding to oxidation of the ligand, but the absolute rate of oxidation was considerably slower for the DNA-bound ligand compared to that for oxidation of the free ligand by G+. These results are clearly consistent with the proposed mechanism of radioprotection by Hoechst 33342 and its analogues, moreover, pulse radiolysis may provide a very useful endpoint for screening new analogues, as a preliminary to radiobiological evaluation

  15. Laboratory automation of high-quality and efficient ligand-binding assays for biotherapeutic drug development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jin; Patel, Vimal; Burns, Daniel; Laycock, John; Pandya, Kinnari; Tsoi, Jennifer; DeSilva, Binodh; Ma, Mark; Lee, Jean

    2013-07-01

    Regulated bioanalytical laboratories that run ligand-binding assays in support of biotherapeutics development face ever-increasing demand to support more projects with increased efficiency. Laboratory automation is a tool that has the potential to improve both quality and efficiency in a bioanalytical laboratory. The success of laboratory automation requires thoughtful evaluation of program needs and fit-for-purpose strategies, followed by pragmatic implementation plans and continuous user support. In this article, we present the development of fit-for-purpose automation of total walk-away and flexible modular modes. We shared the sustaining experience of vendor collaboration and team work to educate, promote and track the use of automation. The implementation of laboratory automation improves assay performance, data quality, process efficiency and method transfer to CRO in a regulated bioanalytical laboratory environment.

  16. Allelic Variation in KIR2DL3 Generates a KIR2DL2-like Receptor with Increased Binding to Its HLA-C Ligand12

    OpenAIRE

    Frazier, William R.; Steiner, Noriko; Hou, Lihua; Dakshanamurthy, Sivanesan; Hurley, Carolyn Katovich

    2013-01-01

    Although extensive homology exists between their extracellular domains, natural killer cell inhibitory receptors KIR2DL2*001 and KIR2DL3*001 have previously been shown to differ substantially in their HLA-C binding avidity. To explore the largely uncharacterized impact of allelic diversity, the most common KIR2DL2/3 allelic products in European American and African American populations were evaluated for surface expression and binding affinity to their HLA-C group 1 and 2 ligands. Although no...

  17. Structural analysis of site-directed mutants of cellular retinoic acid-binding protein II addresses the relationship between structural integrity and ligand binding

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vaezeslami, Soheila; Jia, Xiaofei; Vasileiou, Chrysoula; Borhan, Babak; Geiger, James H.

    2008-01-01

    A water network stabilizes the structure of cellular retionic acid binding protein II. The structural integrity of cellular retinoic acid-binding protein II (CRABPII) has been investigated using the crystal structures of CRABPII mutants. The overall fold was well maintained by these CRABPII mutants, each of which carried multiple different mutations. A water-mediated network is found to be present across the large binding cavity, extending from Arg111 deep inside the cavity to the α2 helix at its entrance. This chain of interactions acts as a ‘pillar’ that maintains the integrity of the protein. The disruption of the water network upon loss of Arg111 leads to decreased structural integrity of the protein. A water-mediated network can be re-established by introducing the hydrophilic Glu121 inside the cavity, which results in a rigid protein with the α2 helix adopting an altered conformation compared with wild-type CRABPII

  18. Fatty acid modulated human serum albumin binding of the β-carboline alkaloids norharmane and harmane.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domonkos, Celesztina; Fitos, Ilona; Visy, Júlia; Zsila, Ferenc

    2013-12-02

    Harmane and norharmane are representative members of the large group of natural β-carboline alkaloids featured with diverse pharmacological activities. In blood, these agents are transported by human serum albumin (HSA) which has a profound impact on the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of many therapeutic drugs and xenobiotics. By combination of various spectroscopic methods, the present contribution is aimed to elucidate how nonesterified fatty acids (FAs), the primary endogenous ligands of HSA, affect the binding properties of harmane and norharmane. Analysis of induced circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence spectroscopic data indicates the inclusion of the neutral form of both molecules into the binding pocket of subdomain IIIA, which hosts two FA binding sites, too. The induced CD and UV absorption spectra of harmane and norharmane exhibit peculiar changes upon addition of FAs, suggesting the formation of ternary complexes in which the lipid ligands significantly alter the binding mode of the alkaloids via cooperative allosteric mechanism. To our knowledge, it is the first instance of the demonstration of drug-FA cobinding at site IIIA. In line with these results, molecular docking calculations showed two distinct binding positions of norharmane within subdomain IIIA. The profound increase in the affinity constants of β-carbolines estimated in the presence of FAs predicts that the unbound, pharmacologically active serum fraction of these compounds strongly depends on the actual lipid binding profile of HSA.

  19. Binding-Induced Fluorescence of Serotonin Transporter Ligands

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wilson, James; Ladefoged, Lucy Kate; Babinchak, Michael

    2014-01-01

    The binding-induced fluorescence of 4-(4-(dimethylamino)-phenyl)-1-methylpyridinium (APP(+)) and two new serotonin transporter (SERT)-binding fluorescent analogues, 1-butyl-4-[4-(1-dimethylamino)phenyl]-pyridinium bromide (BPP(+)) and 1-methyl-4-[4-(1-piperidinyl)phenyl]-pyridinium (PPP(+)), has...

  20. In Silico Generation of Peptides by Replica Exchange Monte Carlo: Docking-Based Optimization of Maltose-Binding-Protein Ligands.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Russo

    Full Text Available Short peptides can be designed in silico and synthesized through automated techniques, making them advantageous and versatile protein binders. A number of docking-based algorithms allow for a computational screening of peptides as binders. Here we developed ex-novo peptides targeting the maltose site of the Maltose Binding Protein, the prototypical system for the study of protein ligand recognition. We used a Monte Carlo based protocol, to computationally evolve a set of octapeptides starting from a polialanine sequence. We screened in silico the candidate peptides and characterized their binding abilities by surface plasmon resonance, fluorescence and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry assays. These experiments showed the designed binders to recognize their target with micromolar affinity. We finally discuss the obtained results in the light of further improvement in the ex-novo optimization of peptide based binders.

  1. Explaining an Unusually Fast Parasitic Enzyme: Folate Tail-Binding Residues Dictate Substrate Positioning and Catalysis in Cryptosporidium hominis Thymidylate Synthase

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Martucci,W.; Vargo, M.; Anderson, K.

    2008-01-01

    The essential enzyme TS-DHFR from Cryptosporidium hominis undergoes an unusually rapid rate of catalysis at the conserved TS domain, facilitated by two nonconserved residues, Ala287 and Ser290, in the folate tail-binding region. Mutation of these two residues to their conserved counterparts drastically affects multiple steps of the TS catalytic cycle. We have determined the crystal structures of all three mutants (A287F, S290G, and A287F/S290G) in complex with active site ligands dUMP and CB3717. The structural data show two effects of the mutations: an increased distance between the ligands in the active site and increased flexibility of the folate ligand in the partially open enzyme state that precedes conformational change to the active catalytic state. The latter effect is able to be rescued by the mutants containing the A287F mutation. In addition, the conserved water network of TS is altered in each of the mutants. The structural results point to a role of the folate tail-binding residues in closely positioning ChTS ligands and restricting ligand flexibility in the partially open state to allow for a rapid transition to the active closed state and enhanced rate of catalysis. These results provide an explanation on how folate tail-binding residues at one end of the active site affect long-range interactions throughout the TS active site and validate these residues as targets for species-specific drug design.

  2. Assessing potential peptide targeting ligands by quantification of cellular adhesion of model nanoparticles under flow conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Broda, Ellen; Mickler, Frauke Martina; Lächelt, Ulrich; Morys, Stephan; Wagner, Ernst; Bräuchle, Christoph

    2015-09-10

    Sophisticated drug delivery systems are coated with targeting ligands to improve the specific adhesion to surface receptors on diseased cells. In our study, we developed a method with which we assessed the potential of peptide ligands to specifically bind to receptor overexpressing target cells. Therefore, a microfluidic setup was used where the cellular adhesion of nanoparticles with ligand and of control nanoparticles was observed in parallel under the same experimental conditions. The effect of the ligand on cellular binding was quantified by counting the number of adhered nanoparticles with ligand and differently labeled control nanoparticles on single cells after incubation under flow conditions. To provide easy-to-synthesize, stable and reproducible nanoparticles which mimic the surface characteristics of drug delivery systems and meet the requirements for quantitative analysis, latex beads based on amine-modified polystyrene were used as model nanoparticles. Two short peptides were tested to serve as targeting ligand on the beads by increasing the specific binding to HuH7 cells. The c-Met binding peptide cMBP2 was used for hepatocyte growth factor receptor (c-Met) targeting and the peptide B6 for transferrin receptor (TfR) targeting. The impact of the targeting peptide on binding was investigated by comparing the beads with ligand to different internal control beads: 1) without ligand and tailored surface charge (electrostatic control) and 2) with scrambled peptide and similar surface charge, but a different amino acid sequence (specificity control). Our results demonstrate that the method is very useful to select suitable targeting ligands for specific nanoparticle binding to receptor overexpressing tumor cells. We show that the cMBP2 ligand specifically enhances nanoparticle adhesion to target cells, whereas the B6 peptide mediates binding to tumor cells mainly by nonspecific interactions. All together, we suggest that cMBP2 is a suitable choice for

  3. A macrocyclic ligand as receptor and Zn(II)-complex receptor for anions in water: binding properties and crystal structures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ambrosi, Gianluca; Formica, Mauro; Fusi, Vieri; Giorgi, Luca; Macedi, Eleonora; Micheloni, Mauro; Paoli, Paola; Pontellini, Roberto; Rossi, Patrizia

    2011-02-01

    Binding properties of 24,29-dimethyl-6,7,15,16-tetraoxotetracyclo[19.5.5.0(5,8).0(14,17)]-1,4,9,13,18,21,24,29-octaazaenatriaconta-Δ(5,8),Δ(14,17)-diene ligand L towards Zn(II) and anions, such as the halide series and inorganic oxoanions (phosphate (Pi), sulfate, pyrophosphate (PPi), and others), were investigated in aqueous solution; in addition, the Zn(II)/L system was tested as a metal-ion-based receptor for the halide series. Ligand L is a cryptand receptor incorporating two squaramide functions in an over-structured chain that connects two opposite nitrogen atoms of the Me(2)[12]aneN(4) polyaza macrocyclic base. It binds Zn(II) to form mononuclear species in which the metal ion, coordinated by the Me(2)[12]aneN(4) moiety, lodges inside the three-dimensional cavity. Zn(II)-containing species are able to bind chloride and fluoride at the physiologically important pH value of 7.4; the anion is coordinated to the metal center but the squaramide units play the key role in stabilizing the anion through a hydrogen-bonding network; two crystal structures reported here clearly show this aspect. Free L is able to bind fluoride, chloride, bromide, sulfate, Pi, and PPi in aqueous solution. The halides are bound at acidic pH, whereas the oxoanions are bound in a wide range of pH values ranging from acidic to basic. The cryptand cavity, abundant in hydrogen-bonding sites at all pH values, allows excellent selectivity towards Pi to be achieved mainly at physiological pH 7.4. By joining amine and squaramide moieties and using this preorganized topology, it was possible, with preservation of the solubility of the receptor, to achieve a very wide pH range in which oxoanions can be bound. The good selectivity towards Pi allows its discrimination in a manner not easily obtainable with nonmetallic systems in aqueous environment. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  4. Structure-based Understanding of Binding Affinity and Mode of Estrogen Receptor α Agonists and Antagonists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    The flexible hydrophobic ligand binding pocket (LBP) of estrogen receptor α (ERα) allows the binding of a wide variety of endocrine disruptors. Upon ligand binding, the LBP reshapes around the contours of the ligand and stabilizes the complex by complementary hydrophobic interact...

  5. Functional significance of the oligomeric structure of the Na,K-pump from radiation inactivation and ligand binding

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Norby, J.G.; Jensen, J.

    1991-01-01

    The present article is concerned with the oligomeric structure and function of the Na,K-pump (Na,K-ATPase). The questions we have addressed, using radiation inactivation and target size analysis as well as ligand binding, are whether the minimal structural unit and the functional unit have more than one molecule of the catalytic subunit, alpha. The authors first discuss the fundamentals of the radiation inactivation method and emphasize the necessity for rigorous internal standardization with enzymes of known molecular mass. They then demonstrate that the radiation inactivation of Na,K-ATPase is a stepwise process which leads to intermediary fragments of the alpha-subunit with partial catalytic activity. From the target size analysis it is most likely that the membrane-bound Na,K-ATPase is structurally organized as a diprotomer containing two alpha-subunits. Determination of ADP- and ouabain-binding site stoichiometry favors a theory with one substrate site per (alpha beta) 2. 47 references

  6. A Versatile Dinucleating Ligand Containing Sulfonamide Groups

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sundberg, Jonas; Witt, Hannes; Cameron, Lisa

    2014-01-01

    ligand can be prepared in aqueous solutions using only divalent metal ions. Two of the copper(II) complexes, [Cu2(psmp)(OH)] and [Cu2(psmp)(OAc)2]-, demonstrate the anticipated 1:2 ligand/metal stoichiometry and show that the dimetallic binding site created for exogenous ligands possesses high inherent...... of antiferromagnetic coupling. This is corroborated computationally by broken-symmetry density functional theory, which for isotropic modeling of the coupling predicts an antiferromagnetic coupling strength of J = 70.5 cm-1....

  7. Mechanistic pathways of recognition of a solvent-inaccessible cavity of protein by a ligand

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mondal, Jagannath; Pandit, Subhendu; Dandekar, Bhupendra; Vallurupalli, Pramodh

    One of the puzzling questions in the realm of protein-ligand recognition is how a solvent-inaccessible hydrophobic cavity of a protein gets recognized by a ligand. We address the topic by simulating, for the first time, the complete binding process of benzene from aqueous media to the well-known buried cavity of L99A T4 Lysozyme at an atomistic resolution. Our multiple unbiased microsecond-long trajectories, which were completely blind to the location of target binding site, are able to unequivocally identify the kinetic pathways along which benzene molecule meanders across the solvent and protein and ultimately spontaneously recognizes the deeply buried cavity of L99A T4 Lysozyme at an accurate precision. Our simulation, combined with analysis based on markov state model and free energy calculation, reveals that there are more than one distinct ligand binding pathways. Intriguingly, each of the identified pathways involves the transient opening of a channel of the protein prior to ligand binding. The work will also decipher rich mechanistic details on unbinding kinetics of the ligand as obtained from enhanced sampling techniques.

  8. HemeBIND: a novel method for heme binding residue prediction by combining structural and sequence information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hu Jianjun

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Accurate prediction of binding residues involved in the interactions between proteins and small ligands is one of the major challenges in structural bioinformatics. Heme is an essential and commonly used ligand that plays critical roles in electron transfer, catalysis, signal transduction and gene expression. Although much effort has been devoted to the development of various generic algorithms for ligand binding site prediction over the last decade, no algorithm has been specifically designed to complement experimental techniques for identification of heme binding residues. Consequently, an urgent need is to develop a computational method for recognizing these important residues. Results Here we introduced an efficient algorithm HemeBIND for predicting heme binding residues by integrating structural and sequence information. We systematically investigated the characteristics of binding interfaces based on a non-redundant dataset of heme-protein complexes. It was found that several sequence and structural attributes such as evolutionary conservation, solvent accessibility, depth and protrusion clearly illustrate the differences between heme binding and non-binding residues. These features can then be separately used or combined to build the structure-based classifiers using support vector machine (SVM. The results showed that the information contained in these features is largely complementary and their combination achieved the best performance. To further improve the performance, an attempt has been made to develop a post-processing procedure to reduce the number of false positives. In addition, we built a sequence-based classifier based on SVM and sequence profile as an alternative when only sequence information can be used. Finally, we employed a voting method to combine the outputs of structure-based and sequence-based classifiers, which demonstrated remarkably better performance than the individual classifier alone

  9. Molecular modeling and docking studies of human 5-hydroxytryptamine 2A (5-HT2A) receptor for the identification of hotspots for ligand binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kanagarajadurai, Karuppiah; Malini, Manoharan; Bhattacharya, Aditi; Panicker, Mitradas M; Sowdhamini, Ramanathan

    2009-12-01

    The serotonergic system has been implicated in emotional and cognitive function. In particular, 5-HT(2A) (5-hydroxytrytamine receptor 2A) is attributed to a number of disorders like schizophrenia, depression, eating disorders and anxiety. 5-HT(2A), being a GPCR (G-protein coupled receptor), is important in the pharmaceutical industry as a proven target for these disorders. Despite their extensive clinical importance, the structural studies of this protein is lacking due to difficulties in determining its crystal structure. We have performed sequence analysis and molecular modeling of 5-HT(2A) that has revealed a set of conserved residues and motifs considered to play an important role in maintaining structural integrity and function of the receptor. The analysis also revealed a set of residues specific to the receptor which distinguishes them from other members of the subclass and their orthologs. Further, starting from the model structure of human 5-HT(2A) receptor, docking studies were attempted to envisage how it might interact with eight of its ligands (such as serotonin, dopamine, DOI, LSD, haloperidol, ketanserin, risperidone and clozapine). The binding studies of dopamine to 5-HT(2A) receptor can bring up better understanding in the etiology of a number of neurological disorders involving both these two receptors. Our sequence analysis and study of interactions of this receptor with other ligands reveal additional residue hotspots such as Asn 363 and Tyr 370. The function of these residues can be further analyzed by rational design of site-directed mutagenesis. Two distinct binding sites are identified which could play important roles in ligand binding and signaling.

  10. Ab initio and density functional theoretical design and screening of model crown ether based ligand (host) for extraction of lithium metal ion (guest): effect of donor and electronic induction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boda, Anil; Ali, Sk Musharaf; Rao, Hanmanth; Ghosh, Sandip K

    2012-08-01

    The structures, energetic and thermodynamic parameters of model crown ethers with different donor, cavity and electron donating/ withdrawing functional group have been determined with ab initio MP2 and density functional theory in gas and solvent phase. The calculated values of binding energy/ enthalpy for lithium ion complexation are marginally higher for hard donor based aza and oxa crown compared to soft donor based thia and phospha crown. The calculated values of binding enthalpy for lithium metal ion with 12C4 at MP2 level of theory is in good agreement with the available experimental result. The binding energy is altered due to the inductive effect imparted by the electron donating/ withdrawing group in crown ether, which is well correlated with the values of electron transfer. The role of entropy for extraction of hydrated lithium metal ion by different donor and functional group based ligand has been demonstrated. The HOMO-LUMO gap is decreased and dipole moment of the ligand is increased from gas phase to organic phase because of the dielectric constant of the solvent. The gas phase binding energy is reduced in solvent phase as the solvent molecules weaken the metal-ligand binding. The theoretical values of extraction energy for LiCl salt from aqueous solution in different organic solvent is validated by the experimental trend. The study presented here should contribute to the design of model host ligand and screening of solvent for metal ion recognition and thus can contribute in planning the experiments.

  11. Characterization of the structure of the erythropoietin receptor by ligand blotting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Atkins, H.L.; Broudy, V.C.; Papayannopoulou, T.

    1991-01-01

    Erythropoietin (Epo) regulates the growth and differentiation of erythroid cells by binding to a specific receptor. We characterized the native Epo receptor on erythroleukemia cell lines by ligand blotting. Solubilized cell membrane proteins were separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, transferred onto nitrocellulose, and probed with 125I-Epo. Specificity was demonstrated by inhibition of 125I-Epo binding by unlabeled excess Epo but not other peptide growth factors and by the cellular distribution of the Epo binding protein. A single membrane protein of 61 Kd ± 4 Kd was sufficient to bind 125I Epo in both human (OCIM2, K562) and murine (GM979, Rauscher, DA-1) cell lines. This finding is consistent with the predicted size of the Epo receptor from the murine cDNA clone. However, chemical crosslinking of 125I-Epo to its receptor has identified two Epo binding proteins of 105 Kd and 85 Kd. This difference may occur because the receptor is size fractionated before Epo binding in the ligand blot, but after Epo binding in crosslinking studies. Ligand blotting demonstrates that the native Epo receptor is composed of a single 61-Kd Epo binding protein, and suggests the presence of additional proteins of 20 to 25 Kd that associate with the receptor after Epo binding

  12. Synthesis and characterization of 6,6'-bis(2-hydroxyphenyl)-2,2'-bipyridine ligand and its interaction with ct-DNA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Selamat, Norhidayah; Heng, Lee Yook; Hassan, Nurul Izzaty; Karim, Nurul Huda Abd

    2015-09-01

    The tetradentate ligand with four donor atoms OONN was synthesized. Bis(phenoxy)bipyridine ligand was prepared by Suzuki coupling reaction between 6,6'-dibromo-2,2'-bipyridyl and 2-hydroxyphenylboronic acid with presence of palladium (II) acetate. Bis(phenoxy)bipyridine ligand was also synthesized by demethylating of 6,6'-bis(2-methoxyphenyl)-2,2'-bipyridyl ligand through solvent free reaction using pyridine hydrocloride. The formation of both phenoxy and methoxy ligands was confirmed by 1H, 2D cosy and 13C NMR spectroscopy, ESI-MS spectrometry, FTIR spectroscopy. The purity of the ligand was confirmed by melting point. Binding studies of small molecules with DNA are useful to understand the reaction mechanism and to provide guidance for the application and design of new and more efficient drugs targeted to DNA. In this study, the binding interaction between the synthesized ligand with calf thymus-DNA (ct-DNA) has been investigated by UV/Vis DNA titration study. From the UV/Vis DNA study, it shows that bis(phenoxy)bipyridine ligand bind with ct-DNA via outside binding with binding contant Kb = 1.19 × 103 ± 0.08 M-1.

  13. Receptor binding kinetics equations: Derivation using the Laplace transform method.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoare, Sam R J

    Measuring unlabeled ligand receptor binding kinetics is valuable in optimizing and understanding drug action. Unfortunately, deriving equations for estimating kinetic parameters is challenging because it involves calculus; integration can be a frustrating barrier to the pharmacologist seeking to measure simple rate parameters. Here, a well-known tool for simplifying the derivation, the Laplace transform, is applied to models of receptor-ligand interaction. The method transforms differential equations to a form in which simple algebra can be applied to solve for the variable of interest, for example the concentration of ligand-bound receptor. The goal is to provide instruction using familiar examples, to enable investigators familiar with handling equilibrium binding equations to derive kinetic equations for receptor-ligand interaction. First, the Laplace transform is used to derive the equations for association and dissociation of labeled ligand binding. Next, its use for unlabeled ligand kinetic equations is exemplified by a full derivation of the kinetics of competitive binding equation. Finally, new unlabeled ligand equations are derived using the Laplace transform. These equations incorporate a pre-incubation step with unlabeled or labeled ligand. Four equations for measuring unlabeled ligand kinetics were compared and the two new equations verified by comparison with numerical solution. Importantly, the equations have not been verified with experimental data because no such experiments are evident in the literature. Equations were formatted for use in the curve-fitting program GraphPad Prism 6.0 and fitted to simulated data. This description of the Laplace transform method will enable pharmacologists to derive kinetic equations for their model or experimental paradigm under study. Application of the transform will expand the set of equations available for the pharmacologist to measure unlabeled ligand binding kinetics, and for other time

  14. Probing the diphosphoglycerate binding pocket of HbA and HbPresbyterian (beta 108Asn --> Lys).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gottfried, D S; Manjula, B N; Malavalli, A; Acharya, A S; Friedman, J M

    1999-08-31

    HbPresbyterian (beta 108Asn --> Lys, HbP) contains an additional positive charge (per alpha beta dimer) in the middle of the central cavity and exhibits a lower oxygen affinity than wild-type HbA in the presence of chloride. However, very little is known about the molecular origins of its altered functional properties. In this study, we have focused on the beta beta cleft of the Hb tetramer. Recently, we developed an approach for quantifying the ligand binding affinity to the beta-end of the Hb central cavity using fluorescent analogues of the natural allosteric effector 2, 3-diphosphoglycerate (DPG) [Gottfried, D. S., et al. (1997) J. Biol. Chem. 272, 1571-1578]. Time-correlated single-photon counting fluorescence lifetime studies were used to assess the binding of pyrenetetrasulfonate to both HbA and HbP in the deoxy and CO ligation states under acidic and neutral pH conditions. Both the native and mutant proteins bind the probe at a weak binding site and a strong binding site; in all cases, the binding to HbP was stronger than to HbA. The most striking finding was that for HbA the binding affinity varies as follows: deoxy (pH 6.35) > deoxy (pH 7.20) > CO (pH 6.35); however, the binding to HbP is independent of ligation or pH. The mutant oxy protein also hydrolyzes p-nitrophenyl acetate, through a reversible acyl-imidazole pathway linked to the His residues of the beta beta cleft, at a considerably higher rate than does HbA. This implies a perturbation of the microenvironment of these residues at the DPG binding pocket. Structural consequences due to the presence of the new positive charge in the middle of the central cavity have been transmitted to the beta beta cleft of the protein, even in its liganded conformation. This is consistent with a newly described quaternary state (B) for liganded HbPresbyterian and an associated change in the allosteric control mechanism.

  15. Palmitate and stearate binding to human serum albumin. Determination of relative binding constants

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vorum, H; Fisker, K; Honoré, B

    1997-01-01

    Multiple binding equilibria of two apparently insoluble ligands, palmitate and stearate, to defatted human serum albumin were studied in a 66 mM sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) at 37 degrees C, by determination of dialytic exchange rates of ligands among identical equilibrium solutions. The expe...

  16. Labeling by [3H]1,3-di(2-tolyl)guanidine of two high affinity binding sites in guinea pig brain: Evidence for allosteric regulation by calcium channel antagonists and pseudoallosteric modulation by sigma ligands

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rothman, R.B.; Reid, A.; Mahboubi, A.; Kim, C.H.; De Costa, B.R.; Jacobson, A.E.; Rice, K.C.

    1991-01-01

    Equilibrium binding studies with the sigma receptor ligand [ 3 H]1,3-di(2-tolyl)guanidine ([ 3 H]DTG) demonstrated two high affinity binding sites in membranes prepared from guinea pig brain. The apparent Kd values of DTG for sites 1 and 2 were 11.9 and 37.6 nM, respectively. The corresponding Bmax values were 1045 and 1423 fmol/mg of protein. Site 1 had high affinity for (+)-pentazocine, haloperidol, (R)-(+)-PPP, carbepentane, and other sigma ligands, suggesting a similarity with the dextromethorphan/sigma 1 binding site described by Musacchio et al. [Life Sci. 45:1721-1732 (1989)]. Site 2 had high affinity for DTG and haloperidol (Ki = 36.1 nM) and low affinity for most other sigma ligands. Kinetic experiments demonstrated that [ 3 H]DTG dissociated in a biphasic manner from both site 1 and site 2. DTG and haloperidol increased the dissociation rate of [ 3 H]DTG from site 1 and site 2, demonstrating the presence of pseudoallosteric interactions. Inorganic calcium channel blockers such as Cd2+ selectively increased the dissociation rate of [ 3 H]DTG from site 2, suggesting an association of this binding site with calcium channels

  17. Molecular determinants of epidermal growth factor binding: a molecular dynamics study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeffrey M Sanders

    Full Text Available The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR is a member of the receptor tyrosine kinase family that plays a role in multiple cellular processes. Activation of EGFR requires binding of a ligand on the extracellular domain to promote conformational changes leading to dimerization and transphosphorylation of intracellular kinase domains. Seven ligands are known to bind EGFR with affinities ranging from sub-nanomolar to near micromolar dissociation constants. In the case of EGFR, distinct conformational states assumed upon binding a ligand is thought to be a determining factor in activation of a downstream signaling network. Previous biochemical studies suggest the existence of both low affinity and high affinity EGFR ligands. While these studies have identified functional effects of ligand binding, high-resolution structural data are lacking. To gain a better understanding of the molecular basis of EGFR binding affinities, we docked each EGFR ligand to the putative active state extracellular domain dimer and 25.0 ns molecular dynamics simulations were performed. MM-PBSA/GBSA are efficient computational approaches to approximate free energies of protein-protein interactions and decompose the free energy at the amino acid level. We applied these methods to the last 6.0 ns of each ligand-receptor simulation. MM-PBSA calculations were able to successfully rank all seven of the EGFR ligands based on the two affinity classes: EGF>HB-EGF>TGF-α>BTC>EPR>EPG>AR. Results from energy decomposition identified several interactions that are common among binding ligands. These findings reveal that while several residues are conserved among the EGFR ligand family, no single set of residues determines the affinity class. Instead we found heterogeneous sets of interactions that were driven primarily by electrostatic and Van der Waals forces. These results not only illustrate the complexity of EGFR dynamics but also pave the way for structure-based design of

  18. Cavity-ligand binding in a simple two-dimensional water model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. Mazovec

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available By means of Monte Carlo computer simulations in the isothermal-isobaric ensemble, we investigated the interaction of a hydrophobic ligand with the hydrophobic surfaces of various curvatures (planar, convex and concave. A simple two-dimensional model of water, hydrophobic ligand and surface was used. Hydration/dehidration phenomena concerning water molecules confined close to the molecular surface were investigated. A notable dewetting of the hydrophobic surfaces was observed together with the reorientation of the water molecules close to the surface. The hydrogen bonding network was formed to accommodate cavities next to the surfaces as well as beyond the first hydration shell. The effects were most strongly pronounced in the case of concave surfaces having large curvature. This simplified model can be further used to evaluate the thermodynamic fingerprint of the docking of hydrophobic ligands.

  19. Autoradiographic localization of benzomorphan binding sites in rat brain

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Crain, B.J.; Kwenjen Chang; McNamara, J.O.; Valdes, F.

    1985-07-17

    The benzomorphan subpopulation of opiate binding sites was labeled by (TH)diprenorphine in the presence of unlabeled ligands selected to quench and delta opiate binding sites. The distribution of benzomorphan binding sites was then localized autoradiographically. The distribution differs from the distributions of , delta and kappa opiate binding and is quite similar to the distribution of US -endorphin immunoreactivity. These observations support the hypothesis, based on biochemical studies in brain membranes, that benzomorphan binding sites may represent the ligand recognition sites of putative epsilon receptors. (Auth.). 34 refs.; 3 figs.

  20. Analysis of ligand-protein exchange by Clustering of Ligand Diffusion Coefficient Pairs (CoLD-CoP)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Snyder, David A.; Chantova, Mihaela; Chaudhry, Saadia

    2015-06-01

    NMR spectroscopy is a powerful tool in describing protein structures and protein activity for pharmaceutical and biochemical development. This study describes a method to determine weak binding ligands in biological systems by using hierarchic diffusion coefficient clustering of multidimensional data obtained with a 400 MHz Bruker NMR. Comparison of DOSY spectrums of ligands of the chemical library in the presence and absence of target proteins show translational diffusion rates for small molecules upon interaction with macromolecules. For weak binders such as compounds found in fragment libraries, changes in diffusion rates upon macromolecular binding are on the order of the precision of DOSY diffusion measurements, and identifying such subtle shifts in diffusion requires careful statistical analysis. The "CoLD-CoP" (Clustering of Ligand Diffusion Coefficient Pairs) method presented here uses SAHN clustering to identify protein-binders in a chemical library or even a not fully characterized metabolite mixture. We will show how DOSY NMR and the "CoLD-CoP" method complement each other in identifying the most suitable candidates for lysozyme and wheat germ acid phosphatase.

  1. Conformational Transitions and Convergence of Absolute Binding Free Energy Calculations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lapelosa, Mauro; Gallicchio, Emilio; Levy, Ronald M.

    2011-01-01

    The Binding Energy Distribution Analysis Method (BEDAM) is employed to compute the standard binding free energies of a series of ligands to a FK506 binding protein (FKBP12) with implicit solvation. Binding free energy estimates are in reasonably good agreement with experimental affinities. The conformations of the complexes identified by the simulations are in good agreement with crystallographic data, which was not used to restrain ligand orientations. The BEDAM method is based on λ -hopping Hamiltonian parallel Replica Exchange (HREM) molecular dynamics conformational sampling, the OPLS-AA/AGBNP2 effective potential, and multi-state free energy estimators (MBAR). Achieving converged and accurate results depends on all of these elements of the calculation. Convergence of the binding free energy is tied to the level of convergence of binding energy distributions at critical intermediate states where bound and unbound states are at equilibrium, and where the rate of binding/unbinding conformational transitions is maximal. This finding mirrors similar observations in the context of order/disorder transitions as for example in protein folding. Insights concerning the physical mechanism of ligand binding and unbinding are obtained. Convergence for the largest FK506 ligand is achieved only after imposing strict conformational restraints, which however require accurate prior structural knowledge of the structure of the complex. The analytical AGBNP2 model is found to underestimate the magnitude of the hydrophobic driving force towards binding in these systems characterized by loosely packed protein-ligand binding interfaces. Rescoring of the binding energies using a numerical surface area model corrects this deficiency. This study illustrates the complex interplay between energy models, exploration of conformational space, and free energy estimators needed to obtain robust estimates from binding free energy calculations. PMID:22368530

  2. Differential TAM receptor-ligand-phospholipid interactions delimit differential TAM bioactivities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lew, Erin D; Oh, Jennifer; Burrola, Patrick G; Lax, Irit; Zagórska, Anna; Través, Paqui G; Schlessinger, Joseph; Lemke, Greg

    2014-09-29

    The TAM receptor tyrosine kinases Tyro3, Axl, and Mer regulate key features of cellular physiology, yet the differential activities of the TAM ligands Gas6 and Protein S are poorly understood. We have used biochemical and genetic analyses to delineate the rules for TAM receptor-ligand engagement and find that the TAMs segregate into two groups based on ligand specificity, regulation by phosphatidylserine, and function. Tyro3 and Mer are activated by both ligands but only Gas6 activates Axl. Optimal TAM signaling requires coincident TAM ligand engagement of both its receptor and the phospholipid phosphatidylserine (PtdSer): Gas6 lacking its PtdSer-binding 'Gla domain' is significantly weakened as a Tyro3/Mer agonist and is inert as an Axl agonist, even though it binds to Axl with wild-type affinity. In two settings of TAM-dependent homeostatic phagocytosis, Mer plays a predominant role while Axl is dispensable, and activation of Mer by Protein S is sufficient to drive phagocytosis.

  3. Specific binding assay technique; standardization of reagent

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huggins, K.G.; Roitt, I.M.

    1979-01-01

    The standardization of a labelled constituent, such as anti-IgE, for use in a specific binding assay method is disclosed. A labelled ligand, such as IgE, is standardized against a ligand reference substance, such as WHO standard IgE, to determine the weight of IgE protein represented by the labelled ligand. Anti-light chain antibodies are contacted with varying concentrations of the labelled ligand. The ligand is then contacted with the labelled constituent which is then quantitated in relation to the amount of ligand protein present. The preparation of 131 I-labelled IgE is described. Also disclosed is an improved specific binding assay test method for determining the potency of an allergen extract in serum from an allergic individual. The improvement involved using a parallel model system of a second complex which consisted of anti-light chain antibodies, labelled ligand and the standardized labelled constituent (anti-IgE). The amount of standardized labelled constituent bound to the ligand in the first complex was determined, as described above, and the weight of ligand inhibited by addition of soluble allergen was then used as a measure of the potency of the allergen extract. (author)

  4. GluVII:06--a highly conserved and selective anchor point for non-peptide ligands in chemokine receptors

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rosenkilde, Mette M; Schwartz, Thue W

    2006-01-01

    ligands and that the two peripheral chemical moieties of the ligands from this central point in the receptor structure explore each of the two halves of the main ligand binding pocket. It is envisioned that knowledge of this binding mode can be exploited in structure-based discovery and design of novel...

  5. Some new IIB group complexes of an imidazolidine ligand ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    The spectral data indicate that the ligand is coordinated to zinc(II) as a bidentate ligand in imidazolidine form but it binds to ..... confirmed by determination of the minimum inhibitory ...... Yue F, Gang L, Xiu-Mei T, Ji-De W and Wei W 2008. Chin.

  6. The effect of aqueous speciation and cellular ligand binding on the biotransformation and bioavailability of methylmercury in mercury-resistant bacteria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ndu, Udonna; Barkay, Tamar; Schartup, Amina Traore; Mason, Robert P; Reinfelder, John R

    2016-02-01

    Mercury resistant bacteria play a critical role in mercury biogeochemical cycling in that they convert methylmercury (MeHg) and inorganic mercury to elemental mercury, Hg(0). To date there are very few studies on the effects of speciation and bioavailability of MeHg in these organisms, and even fewer studies on the role that binding to cellular ligands plays on MeHg uptake. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of thiol complexation on the uptake of MeHg by measuring the intracellular demethylation-reduction (transformation) of MeHg to Hg(0) in Hg-resistant bacteria. Short-term intracellular transformation of MeHg was quantified by monitoring the loss of volatile Hg(0) generated during incubations of bacteria containing the complete mer operon (including genes from putative mercury transporters) exposed to MeHg in minimal media compared to negative controls with non-mer or heat-killed cells. The results indicate that the complexes MeHgOH, MeHg-cysteine, and MeHg-glutathione are all bioavailable in these bacteria, and without the mer operon there is very little biological degradation of MeHg. In both Pseudomonas stutzeri and Escherichia coli, there was a pool of MeHg that was not transformed to elemental Hg(0), which was likely rendered unavailable to Mer enzymes by non-specific binding to cellular ligands. Since the rates of MeHg accumulation and transformation varied more between the two species of bacteria examined than among MeHg complexes, microbial bioavailability, and therefore microbial demethylation, of MeHg in aquatic systems likely depends more on the species of microorganism than on the types and relative concentrations of thiols or other MeHg ligands present.

  7. Metal-ligand interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ervin, Kent M.

    Experimental studies of the interactions of small transition-metal cluster anions with carbonyl ligands are reviewed and compared with neutral and cationic clusters. Under thermal conditions, the reaction rates of transition-metal clusters with carbon monoxide are measured as a function of cluster size. Saturation limits for carbon monoxide addition can be related to the geometric structures of the clusters. Both energy-resolved threshold collision-induced dissociation experiments and time-resolved photodissociation experiments are used to measure metal-carbonyl binding energies. For platinum and palladium trimer anions, the carbonyl binding energies are assigned to different geometric binding sites. Platinum and palladium cluster anions catalyse the oxidation of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide in a full catalytic cycle at thermal energies.

  8. Mapping small molecule binding data to structural domains.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kruger, Felix A; Rostom, Raghd; Overington, John P

    2012-01-01

    Large-scale bioactivity/SAR Open Data has recently become available, and this has allowed new analyses and approaches to be developed to help address the productivity and translational gaps of current drug discovery. One of the current limitations of these data is the relative sparsity of reported interactions per protein target, and complexities in establishing clear relationships between bioactivity and targets using bioinformatics tools. We detail in this paper the indexing of targets by the structural domains that bind (or are likely to bind) the ligand within a full-length protein. Specifically, we present a simple heuristic to map small molecule binding to Pfam domains. This profiling can be applied to all proteins within a genome to give some indications of the potential pharmacological modulation and regulation of all proteins. In this implementation of our heuristic, ligand binding to protein targets from the ChEMBL database was mapped to structural domains as defined by profiles contained within the Pfam-A database. Our mapping suggests that the majority of assay targets within the current version of the ChEMBL database bind ligands through a small number of highly prevalent domains, and conversely the majority of Pfam domains sampled by our data play no currently established role in ligand binding. Validation studies, carried out firstly against Uniprot entries with expert binding-site annotation and secondly against entries in the wwPDB repository of crystallographic protein structures, demonstrate that our simple heuristic maps ligand binding to the correct domain in about 90 percent of all assessed cases. Using the mappings obtained with our heuristic, we have assembled ligand sets associated with each Pfam domain. Small molecule binding has been mapped to Pfam-A domains of protein targets in the ChEMBL bioactivity database. The result of this mapping is an enriched annotation of small molecule bioactivity data and a grouping of activity classes

  9. Search for β2 adrenergic receptor ligands by virtual screening via grid computing and investigation of binding modes by docking and molecular dynamics simulations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qifeng Bai

    Full Text Available We designed a program called MolGridCal that can be used to screen small molecule database in grid computing on basis of JPPF grid environment. Based on MolGridCal program, we proposed an integrated strategy for virtual screening and binding mode investigation by combining molecular docking, molecular dynamics (MD simulations and free energy calculations. To test the effectiveness of MolGridCal, we screened potential ligands for β2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR from a database containing 50,000 small molecules. MolGridCal can not only send tasks to the grid server automatically, but also can distribute tasks using the screensaver function. As for the results of virtual screening, the known agonist BI-167107 of β2AR is ranked among the top 2% of the screened candidates, indicating MolGridCal program can give reasonable results. To further study the binding mode and refine the results of MolGridCal, more accurate docking and scoring methods are used to estimate the binding affinity for the top three molecules (agonist BI-167107, neutral antagonist alprenolol and inverse agonist ICI 118,551. The results indicate agonist BI-167107 has the best binding affinity. MD simulation and free energy calculation are employed to investigate the dynamic interaction mechanism between the ligands and β2AR. The results show that the agonist BI-167107 also has the lowest binding free energy. This study can provide a new way to perform virtual screening effectively through integrating molecular docking based on grid computing, MD simulations and free energy calculations. The source codes of MolGridCal are freely available at http://molgridcal.codeplex.com.

  10. Thermodynamic parameters for binding of some halogenated inhibitors of human protein kinase CK2

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Winiewska, Maria; Makowska, Małgorzata; Maj, Piotr; Wielechowska, Monika; Bretner, Maria; Poznański, Jarosław; Shugar, David

    2015-01-01

    Highlights: • Two new compounds being potential human CK2a inhibitors are studied. • Their IC50 values were determined in vitro. • The heats of binding and kbind were estimated using DSC. • The increased stability of protein–ligand complexes was followed by fluorescence. • Methylated TBBt derivative (MeBr3Br) is almost as active as TBBt. - Abstract: The interaction of human CK2α with a series of tetrabromobenzotriazole (TBBt) and tetrabromobenzimidazole (TBBz) analogs, in which one of the bromine atoms proximal to the triazole/imidazole ring is replaced by a methyl group, was studied by biochemical (IC 50 ) and biophysical methods (thermal stability of protein–ligand complex monitored by DSC and fluorescence). Two newly synthesized tri-bromo derivatives display inhibitory activity comparable to that of the reference compounds, TBBt and TBBz, respectively. DSC analysis of the stability of protein–ligand complexes shows that the heat of ligand binding (H bind ) is driven by intermolecular electrostatic interactions involving the triazole/imidazole ring, as indicated by a strong correlation between H bind and ligand pK a . Screening, based on fluorescence-monitored thermal unfolding of protein–ligand complexes, gave comparable results, clearly identifying ligands that most strongly bind to the protein. Overall results, additionally supported by molecular modeling, confirm that a balance of hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions contribute predominantly, relative to possible intermolecular halogen bonding, in binding of the ligands to the CK2α ATP-binding site

  11. Thermodynamic parameters for binding of some halogenated inhibitors of human protein kinase CK2

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Winiewska, Maria; Makowska, Małgorzata [Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS, Warszawa (Poland); Maj, Piotr [Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS, Warszawa (Poland); Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS, Warszawa (Poland); Wielechowska, Monika; Bretner, Maria [Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Warszawa (Poland); Poznański, Jarosław, E-mail: jarek@ibb.waw.pl [Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS, Warszawa (Poland); Shugar, David [Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS, Warszawa (Poland)

    2015-01-02

    Highlights: • Two new compounds being potential human CK2a inhibitors are studied. • Their IC50 values were determined in vitro. • The heats of binding and kbind were estimated using DSC. • The increased stability of protein–ligand complexes was followed by fluorescence. • Methylated TBBt derivative (MeBr3Br) is almost as active as TBBt. - Abstract: The interaction of human CK2α with a series of tetrabromobenzotriazole (TBBt) and tetrabromobenzimidazole (TBBz) analogs, in which one of the bromine atoms proximal to the triazole/imidazole ring is replaced by a methyl group, was studied by biochemical (IC{sub 50}) and biophysical methods (thermal stability of protein–ligand complex monitored by DSC and fluorescence). Two newly synthesized tri-bromo derivatives display inhibitory activity comparable to that of the reference compounds, TBBt and TBBz, respectively. DSC analysis of the stability of protein–ligand complexes shows that the heat of ligand binding (H{sub bind}) is driven by intermolecular electrostatic interactions involving the triazole/imidazole ring, as indicated by a strong correlation between H{sub bind} and ligand pK{sub a}. Screening, based on fluorescence-monitored thermal unfolding of protein–ligand complexes, gave comparable results, clearly identifying ligands that most strongly bind to the protein. Overall results, additionally supported by molecular modeling, confirm that a balance of hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions contribute predominantly, relative to possible intermolecular halogen bonding, in binding of the ligands to the CK2α ATP-binding site.

  12. In vivo (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepam binding: imaging of receptor regulation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ciliax, B.J.; Penney, J.B. Jr.; Young, A.B.

    1986-08-01

    The use of (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepam as a ligand to measure alterations in benzodiazepine receptors in vivo in rats was investigated. Animals were injected with (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepam i.v., arterial samples of (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepam were obtained and, later, the animals were sacrificed to assay brain binding. (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepam enters the brain rapidly and binds to benzodiazepine receptors. About two-thirds of this binding is blocked by predosing the animals with 5 mg/kg of clonazepam. The amount of remaining (nonspecific) binding correlates very well (r = 0.88) with the amount of radioactivity found in plasma at the time of death. A series of rats were lesioned unilaterally with kainic acid in the caudate-putamen several months before the infusion of (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepam. In vivo autoradiography in lesioned rats showed that benzodiazepine binding in globus pallidus and substantia nigra on the side of the lesion was increased significantly as compared to the intact side. The observed changes in benzodiazepine binding were similar to those observed previously in lesioned rats using in vitro techniques. Thus, benzodiazepine receptor regulation can be imaged quantitatively using in vivo binding techniques.

  13. Calculation of relative free energies for ligand-protein binding, solvation, and conformational transitions using the GROMOS software.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riniker, Sereina; Christ, Clara D; Hansen, Halvor S; Hünenberger, Philippe H; Oostenbrink, Chris; Steiner, Denise; van Gunsteren, Wilfred F

    2011-11-24

    The calculation of the relative free energies of ligand-protein binding, of solvation for different compounds, and of different conformational states of a polypeptide is of considerable interest in the design or selection of potential enzyme inhibitors. Since such processes in aqueous solution generally comprise energetic and entropic contributions from many molecular configurations, adequate sampling of the relevant parts of configurational space is required and can be achieved through molecular dynamics simulations. Various techniques to obtain converged ensemble averages and their implementation in the GROMOS software for biomolecular simulation are discussed, and examples of their application to biomolecules in aqueous solution are given. © 2011 American Chemical Society

  14. Label-Free, LC-MS-Based Assays to Quantitate Small-Molecule Antagonist Binding to the Mammalian BLT1 Receptor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Xun; Stout, Steven; Mueller, Uwe; Boykow, George; Visconti, Richard; Siliphaivanh, Phieng; Spencer, Kerrie; Presland, Jeremy; Kavana, Michael; Basso, Andrea D; McLaren, David G; Myers, Robert W

    2017-08-01

    We have developed and validated label-free, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based equilibrium direct and competition binding assays to quantitate small-molecule antagonist binding to recombinant human and mouse BLT1 receptors expressed in HEK 293 cell membranes. Procedurally, these binding assays involve (1) equilibration of the BLT1 receptor and probe ligand, with or without a competitor; (2) vacuum filtration through cationic glass fiber filters to separate receptor-bound from free probe ligand; and (3) LC-MS analysis in selected reaction monitoring mode for bound probe ligand quantitation. Two novel, optimized probe ligands, compounds 1 and 2, were identified by screening 20 unlabeled BLT1 antagonists for direct binding. Saturation direct binding studies confirmed the high affinity, and dissociation studies established the rapid binding kinetics of probe ligands 1 and 2. Competition binding assays were established using both probe ligands, and the affinities of structurally diverse BLT1 antagonists were measured. Both binding assay formats can be executed with high specificity and sensitivity and moderate throughput (96-well plate format) using these approaches. This highly versatile, label-free method for studying ligand binding to membrane-associated receptors should find broad application as an alternative to traditional methods using labeled ligands.

  15. Predicting Flavin and Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide-Binding Sites in Proteins Using the Fragment Transformation Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chih-Hao Lu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available We developed a computational method to identify NAD- and FAD-binding sites in proteins. First, we extracted from the Protein Data Bank structures of proteins that bind to at least one of these ligands. NAD-/FAD-binding residue templates were then constructed by identifying binding residues through the ligand-binding database BioLiP. The fragment transformation method was used to identify structures within query proteins that resembled the ligand-binding templates. By comparing residue types and their relative spatial positions, potential binding sites were identified and a ligand-binding potential for each residue was calculated. Setting the false positive rate at 5%, our method predicted NAD- and FAD-binding sites at true positive rates of 67.1% and 68.4%, respectively. Our method provides excellent results for identifying FAD- and NAD-binding sites in proteins, and the most important is that the requirement of conservation of residue types and local structures in the FAD- and NAD-binding sites can be verified.

  16. Solution structure of human intestinal fatty acid binding protein: Implications for ligand entry and exit

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhang Fengli [Boston University School of Medicine, Department of Biophysics (United States); Luecke, Christian [Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitaet (Germany); Baier, Leslie J. [NIDDK, NIH, Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch (United States); Sacchettini, James C. [Texas A and M University, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics (United States); Hamilton, James A. [Boston University School of Medicine, Department of Biophysics (United States)

    1997-04-15

    The human intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP) is a small (131 amino acids) protein which binds dietary long-chain fatty acids in the cytosol of enterocytes. Recently, an alanine to threonine substitution at position 54 in I-FABP has been identified which affects fatty acid binding and transport, and is associated with the development of insulin resistance in several populations including Mexican-Americans and Pima Indians. To investigate the molecular basis of the binding properties of I-FABP, the 3D solution structure of the more common form of human I-FABP (Ala54) was studied by multidimensional NMR spectroscopy.Recombinant I-FABP was expressed from E. coli in the presence and absence of 15N-enriched media. The sequential assignments for non-delipidated I-FABP were completed by using 2D homonuclear spectra (COSY, TOCSY and NOESY) and 3D heteronuclear spectra(NOESY-HMQC and TOCSY-HMQC). The tertiary structure of human I-FABP was calculated by using the distance geometry program DIANA based on 2519 distance constraints obtained from the NMR data. Subsequent energy minimization was carried out by using the program SYBYL in the presence of distance constraints. The conformation of human I-FABP consists of 10 antiparallel {beta}-strands which form two nearly orthogonal {beta}-sheets of five strands each, and two short {alpha}-helices that connect the {beta}-strands A and B. The interior of the protein consists of a water-filled cavity between the two {beta}-sheets. The NMR solution structure of human I-FABP is similar to the crystal structure of rat I-FABP.The NMR results show significant conformational variability of certain backbone segments around the postulated portal region for the entry and exit of fatty acid ligand.

  17. Solution structure of human intestinal fatty acid binding protein: Implications for ligand entry and exit

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Fengli; Luecke, Christian; Baier, Leslie J.; Sacchettini, James C.; Hamilton, James A.

    1997-01-01

    The human intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP) is a small (131 amino acids) protein which binds dietary long-chain fatty acids in the cytosol of enterocytes. Recently, an alanine to threonine substitution at position 54 in I-FABP has been identified which affects fatty acid binding and transport, and is associated with the development of insulin resistance in several populations including Mexican-Americans and Pima Indians. To investigate the molecular basis of the binding properties of I-FABP, the 3D solution structure of the more common form of human I-FABP (Ala54) was studied by multidimensional NMR spectroscopy.Recombinant I-FABP was expressed from E. coli in the presence and absence of 15N-enriched media. The sequential assignments for non-delipidated I-FABP were completed by using 2D homonuclear spectra (COSY, TOCSY and NOESY) and 3D heteronuclear spectra(NOESY-HMQC and TOCSY-HMQC). The tertiary structure of human I-FABP was calculated by using the distance geometry program DIANA based on 2519 distance constraints obtained from the NMR data. Subsequent energy minimization was carried out by using the program SYBYL in the presence of distance constraints. The conformation of human I-FABP consists of 10 antiparallel β-strands which form two nearly orthogonal β-sheets of five strands each, and two short α-helices that connect the β-strands A and B. The interior of the protein consists of a water-filled cavity between the two β-sheets. The NMR solution structure of human I-FABP is similar to the crystal structure of rat I-FABP.The NMR results show significant conformational variability of certain backbone segments around the postulated portal region for the entry and exit of fatty acid ligand

  18. Photoaffinity labeling of mammalian α1-adrenergic receptors: identification of the ligand binding subunit with a high affinity radioiodinated probe

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leeb-Lundberg, L.M.F.; Dickinson, K.E.J.; Heald, S.L.

    1984-01-01

    A description is given of the synthesised and characterization of a novel high affinity radioiodinated α 1 -adrenergic receptor photoaffinity probe, 4-amino-6,7-dimethoxy-2-[4-[5-(4-azido-3-[ 125 I]iodophenyl)pentanoyl]-1-piperazinyl] quinazoline. In the absence of light, this ligand binds with high affinity (K/sub d/ = 130 pm) in a reverisble and saturable manner to sites in rat hepatic plasma membranes. The binding is stereoselective and competitively inhibited by adrenergic agonists and antagonists with an α 1 -adrenergic specificity. Upon photolysis, this ligand incorporates irreversibly into plasma membranes prepared from several mammalian tissues including rat liver, rat, guinea pig, and rabbit spleen, rabbit lung, and rabbit aorta vascular smooth muscle cells, also with typical α 1 -adrenergic specificity. Autoradiograms of such membrane samples subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis reveal a major specifically labeled polypeptide at M/sub 4/ = 78,000-85,000, depending on the tissue used, in addition to some lower molecular weight peptides. Protease inhibitors, in particular EDTA, a metalloprotease inhibitor, dramatically increases the predominance of the M/sub r/ = 78,000-85,000 polypeptide while attenuating the labeling of the lower molecular weight bands. This new high affinity radioiodinated photoaffinity probe should be of great value for the molecular characterization of the α 1 -adrenergic receptor

  19. Interaction of the phosphorylated DNA-binding domain in nuclear receptor CAR with its ligand-binding domain regulates CAR activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shizu, Ryota; Min, Jungki; Sobhany, Mack; Pedersen, Lars C; Mutoh, Shingo; Negishi, Masahiko

    2018-01-05

    The nuclear protein constitutive active/androstane receptor (CAR or NR1I3) regulates several liver functions such as drug and energy metabolism and cell growth or death, which are often involved in the development of diseases such as diabetes and hepatocellular carcinoma. CAR undergoes a conversion from inactive homodimers to active heterodimers with retinoid X receptor α (RXRα), and phosphorylation of the DNA-binding domain (DBD) at Thr-38 in CAR regulates this conversion. Here, we uncovered the molecular mechanism by which this phosphorylation regulates the intramolecular interaction between CAR's DBD and ligand-binding domain (LBD), enabling the homodimer-heterodimer conversion. Phosphomimetic substitution of Thr-38 with Asp increased co-immunoprecipitation of the CAR DBD with CAR LBD in Huh-7 cells. Isothermal titration calorimetry assays also revealed that recombinant CAR DBD-T38D, but not nonphosphorylated CAR DBD, bound the CAR LBD peptide. This DBD-LBD interaction masked CAR's dimer interface, preventing CAR homodimer formation. Of note, EGF signaling weakened the interaction of CAR DBD T38D with CAR LBD, converting CAR to the homodimer form. The DBD-T38D-LBD interaction also prevented CAR from forming a heterodimer with RXRα. However, this interaction opened up a CAR surface, allowing interaction with protein phosphatase 2A. Thr-38 dephosphorylation then dissociated the DBD-LBD interaction, allowing CAR heterodimer formation with RXRα. We conclude that the intramolecular interaction of phosphorylated DBD with the LBD enables CAR to adapt a transient monomer configuration that can be converted to either the inactive homodimer or the active heterodimer.

  20. Structure-based design of ligands for protein basic domains: Application to the HIV-1 Tat protein

    Science.gov (United States)

    Filikov, Anton V.; James, Thomas L.

    1998-05-01

    A methodology has been developed for designing ligands to bind a flexible basic protein domain where the structure of the domain is essentially known. It is based on an empirical binding free energy function developed for highly charged complexes and on Monte Carlo simulations in internal coordinates with both the ligand and the receptor being flexible. HIV-1 encodes a transactivating regulatory protein called Tat. Binding of the basic domain of Tat to TAR RNA is required for efficient transcription of the viral genome. The structure of a biologically active peptide containing the Tat basic RNA-binding domain is available from NMR studies. The goal of the current project is to design a ligand which will bind to that basic domain and potentially inhibit the TAR-Tat interaction. The basic domain contains six arginine and two lysine residues. Our strategy was to design a ligand for arginine first and then a superligand for the basic domain by joining arginine ligands with a linker. Several possible arginine ligands were obtained by searching the Available Chemicals Directory with DOCK 3.5 software. Phytic acid, which can potentially bind multiple arginines, was chosen as a building block for the superligand. Calorimetric binding studies of several compounds to methylguanidine and Arg-/Lys-containing peptides were performed. The data were used to develop an empirical binding free energy function for prediction of affinity of the ligands for the Tat basic domain. Modeling of the conformations of the complexes with both the superligand and the basic domain being flexible has been carried out via Biased Probability Monte Carlo (BPMC) simulations in internal coordinates (ICM 2.6 suite of programs). The simulations used parameters to ensure correct folding, i.e., consistent with the experimental NMR structure of a 25-residue Tat peptide, from a random starting conformation. Superligands for the basic domain were designed by joining together two molecules of phytic acid with

  1. Labeling by ( sup 3 H)1,3-di(2-tolyl)guanidine of two high affinity binding sites in guinea pig brain: Evidence for allosteric regulation by calcium channel antagonists and pseudoallosteric modulation by sigma ligands

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rothman, R.B.; Reid, A.; Mahboubi, A.; Kim, C.H.; De Costa, B.R.; Jacobson, A.E.; Rice, K.C. (National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD (USA))

    1991-02-01

    Equilibrium binding studies with the sigma receptor ligand ({sup 3}H)1,3-di(2-tolyl)guanidine (({sup 3}H)DTG) demonstrated two high affinity binding sites in membranes prepared from guinea pig brain. The apparent Kd values of DTG for sites 1 and 2 were 11.9 and 37.6 nM, respectively. The corresponding Bmax values were 1045 and 1423 fmol/mg of protein. Site 1 had high affinity for (+)-pentazocine, haloperidol, (R)-(+)-PPP, carbepentane, and other sigma ligands, suggesting a similarity with the dextromethorphan/sigma 1 binding site described by Musacchio et al. (Life Sci. 45:1721-1732 (1989)). Site 2 had high affinity for DTG and haloperidol (Ki = 36.1 nM) and low affinity for most other sigma ligands. Kinetic experiments demonstrated that ({sup 3}H)DTG dissociated in a biphasic manner from both site 1 and site 2. DTG and haloperidol increased the dissociation rate of ({sup 3}H)DTG from site 1 and site 2, demonstrating the presence of pseudoallosteric interactions. Inorganic calcium channel blockers such as Cd2+ selectively increased the dissociation rate of ({sup 3}H)DTG from site 2, suggesting an association of this binding site with calcium channels.

  2. An in silico analysis of the binding modes and binding affinities of small molecule modulators of PDZ-peptide interactions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Garima Tiwari

    Full Text Available Inhibitors of PDZ-peptide interactions have important implications in a variety of biological processes including treatment of cancer and Parkinson's disease. Even though experimental studies have reported characterization of peptidomimetic inhibitors of PDZ-peptide interactions, the binding modes for most of them have not been characterized by structural studies. In this study we have attempted to understand the structural basis of the small molecule-PDZ interactions by in silico analysis of the binding modes and binding affinities of a set of 38 small molecules with known K(i or K(d values for PDZ2 and PDZ3 domains of PSD-95 protein. These two PDZ domains show differential selectivity for these compounds despite having a high degree of sequence similarity and almost identical peptide binding pockets. Optimum binding modes for these ligands for PDZ2 and PDZ3 domains were identified by using a novel combination of semi-flexible docking and explicit solvent molecular dynamics (MD simulations. Analysis of the binding modes revealed most of the peptidomimectic ligands which had high K(i or K(d moved away from the peptide binding pocket, while ligands with high binding affinities remained in the peptide binding pocket. The differential specificities of the PDZ2 and PDZ3 domains primarily arise from differences in the conformation of the loop connecting βB and βC strands, because this loop interacts with the N-terminal chemical moieties of the ligands. We have also computed the MM/PBSA binding free energy values for these 38 compounds with both the PDZ domains from multiple 5 ns MD trajectories on each complex i.e. a total of 228 MD trajectories of 5 ns length each. Interestingly, computational binding free energies show good agreement with experimental binding free energies with a correlation coefficient of approximately 0.6. Thus our study demonstrates that combined use of docking and MD simulations can help in identification of potent inhibitors

  3. Three classes of ligands each bind to distinct sites on the orphan G protein-coupled receptor GPR84.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahmud, Zobaer Al; Jenkins, Laura; Ulven, Trond; Labéguère, Frédéric; Gosmini, Romain; De Vos, Steve; Hudson, Brian D; Tikhonova, Irina G; Milligan, Graeme

    2017-12-20

    Medium chain fatty acids can activate the pro-inflammatory receptor GPR84 but so also can molecules related to 3,3'-diindolylmethane. 3,3'-Diindolylmethane and decanoic acid acted as strong positive allosteric modulators of the function of each other and analysis showed the affinity of 3,3'-diindolylmethane to be at least 100 fold higher. Methyl decanoate was not an agonist at GPR84. This implies a key role in binding for the carboxylic acid of the fatty acid. Via homology modelling we predicted and confirmed an integral role of arginine 172 , located in the 2nd extracellular loop, in the action of decanoic acid but not of 3,3'-diindolylmethane. Exemplars from a patented series of GPR84 antagonists were able to block agonist actions of both decanoic acid and 3,3'-diindolylmethane at GPR84. However, although a radiolabelled form of a related antagonist, [ 3 H]G9543, was able to bind with high affinity to GPR84, this was not competed for by increasing concentrations of either decanoic acid or 3,3'-diindolylmethane and was not affected adversely by mutation of arginine 172 . These studies identify three separable ligand binding sites within GPR84 and suggest that if medium chain fatty acids are true endogenous regulators then co-binding with a positive allosteric modulator would greatly enhance their function in physiological settings.

  4. A high pressure study of calmodulin-ligand interactions using small-angle X-ray and elastic incoherent neutron scattering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cinar, Süleyman; Al-Ayoubi, Samy; Sternemann, Christian; Peters, Judith; Winter, Roland; Czeslik, Claus

    2018-01-31

    Calmodulin (CaM) is a Ca 2+ sensor and mediates Ca 2+ signaling through binding of numerous target ligands. The binding of ligands by Ca 2+ -saturated CaM (holo-CaM) is governed by attractive hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions that are weakened under high pressure in aqueous solutions. Moreover, the potential formation of void volumes upon ligand binding creates a further source of pressure sensitivity. Hence, high pressure is a suitable thermodynamic variable to probe protein-ligand interactions. In this study, we compare the binding of two different ligands to holo-CaM as a function of pressure by using X-ray and neutron scattering techniques. The two ligands are the farnesylated hypervariable region (HVR) of the K-Ras4B protein, which is a natural binding partner of holo-CaM, and the antagonist trifluoperazine (TFP), which is known to inhibit holo-CaM activity. From small-angle X-ray scattering experiments performed up to 3000 bar, we observe a pressure-induced partial unfolding of the free holo-CaM in the absence of ligands, where the two lobes of the dumbbell-shaped protein are slightly swelled. In contrast, upon binding TFP, holo-CaM forms a closed globular conformation, which is pressure stable at least up to 3000 bar. The HVR of K-Ras4B shows a different binding behavior, and the data suggest the dissociation of the holo-CaM/HVR complex under high pressure, probably due to a less dense protein contact of the HVR as compared to TFP. The elastic incoherent neutron scattering experiments corroborate these findings. Below 2000 bar, pressure induces enhanced atomic fluctuations in both holo-CaM/ligand complexes, but those of the holo-CaM/HVR complex seem to be larger. Thus, the inhibition of holo-CaM by TFP is supported by a low-volume ligand binding, albeit this is not associated with a rigidification of the complex structure on the sub-ns Å-scale.

  5. Altered epidermal growth factor-like sequences provide evidence for a role of Notch as a receptor in cell fate decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heitzler, P; Simpson, P

    1993-03-01

    In Drosophila each neural precursor is chosen from a group of cells through cell interactions mediated by Notch and Delta which may function as receptor and ligand (signal), respectively, in a lateral signalling pathway. The cells of a group are equipotential and express both Notch and Delta. Hyperactive mutant Notch molecules, (Abruptex), probably have an enhanced affinity for the ligand. When adjacent to wild-type cells, cells bearing the Abruptex proteins are unable to produce the signal. It is suggested that in addition to the binding of Notch molecules on one cell to the Delta molecules of opposing cells, the Notch and Delta proteins on the surface of the same cell may interact. Binding between a cell's own Notch and Delta molecules would alter the availability of these proteins to interact with their counterparts on adjacent cells.

  6. Endocytosis via galactose receptors in vivo. Ligand size directs uptake by hepatocytes and/or liver macrophages

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schlepper-Schaefer, J.; Huelsmann, D.; Djovkar, A.; Meyer, H.E.; Herbertz, L.; Kolb, H.; Kolb-Bachofen, V.

    1986-01-01

    The intrahepatic binding and uptake of variously sized ligands with terminal galactosyl residues is rat liver was followed. The ligands were administered to prefixed livers in binding studies and in vivo and in situ (serum-free perfused livers) in uptake studies. Gold sols with different particle diameters were prepared: 5 nm (Au 5 ), 17 nm (Au 17 ), 50 nm (Au 50 ) and coated with galactose exposing glycoproteins (asialofetuin (ASF) or lactosylated BSA (LacBSA)). Electron microscopy of mildly prefixed livers perfused with LacBSA-Au 5 in serum-free medium showed ligand binding to liver macrophages, hepatocytes and endothelial cells. Ligands bound to prefixed cell surfaces reflect the initial distribution of receptor activity: pre-aggregated clusters of ligands are found on liver macrophages, single particles statistically distributed on hepatocytes and pre-aggregated clusters of particles restricted to coated pits on endothelial cells. Ligand binding is prevented in the presence of 80 mM N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc), while N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) is without effect. Electron microscopy of livers after ligand injection into the tail vein shows that in vivo uptake of electron-dense galactose particles by liver cells is size-dependent. In vivo uptake by liver macrophages is mediated by galactose-specific recognition as shown by inhibition with GalNAc

  7. CD4-binding site alterations in CCR5-using HIV-1 envelopes influencing gp120-CD4 interactions and fusogenicity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sterjovski, Jasminka; Churchill, Melissa J.; Roche, Michael; Ellett, Anne; Farrugia, William; Wesselingh, Steven L.; Cunningham, Anthony L.; Ramsland, Paul A.; Gorry, Paul R.

    2011-01-01

    CD4-binding site (CD4bs) alterations in gp120 contribute to different pathophysiological phenotypes of CCR5-using (R5) HIV-1 strains, but the potential structural basis is unknown. Here, we characterized functionally diverse R5 envelope (Env) clones (n = 16) to elucidate potential structural alterations within the gp120 CD4bs that influence Env function. Initially, we showed that the magnitude of gp120-CD4-binding correlates with increased fusogenicity and reduced CD4 dependence. Analysis of three-dimensional gp120 structural models revealed two CD4bs variants, D279 and N362, that were associated with reduced CD4 dependence. Further structural analysis showed that a wider aperture of the predicted CD4bs cavity, as constrained by the inner-most atoms at the gp120 V1V2 stem and the V5 loop, was associated with amino acid alterations within V5 and correlated with increased gp120-CD4 binding and increased fusogenicity. Our results provide evidence that the gp120 V5 loop may alter CD4bs conformation and contribute to increased gp120-CD4 interactions and Env fusogenicity.

  8. Molecular simulations and Markov state modeling reveal the structural diversity and dynamics of a theophylline-binding RNA aptamer in its unbound state.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Becka M Warfield

    Full Text Available RNA aptamers are oligonucleotides that bind with high specificity and affinity to target ligands. In the absence of bound ligand, secondary structures of RNA aptamers are generally stable, but single-stranded and loop regions, including ligand binding sites, lack defined structures and exist as ensembles of conformations. For example, the well-characterized theophylline-binding aptamer forms a highly stable binding site when bound to theophylline, but the binding site is unstable and disordered when theophylline is absent. Experimental methods have not revealed at atomic resolution the conformations that the theophylline aptamer explores in its unbound state. Consequently, in the present study we applied 21 microseconds of molecular dynamics simulations to structurally characterize the ensemble of conformations that the aptamer adopts in the absence of theophylline. Moreover, we apply Markov state modeling to predict the kinetics of transitions between unbound conformational states. Our simulation results agree with experimental observations that the theophylline binding site is found in many distinct binding-incompetent states and show that these states lack a binding pocket that can accommodate theophylline. The binding-incompetent states interconvert with binding-competent states through structural rearrangement of the binding site on the nanosecond to microsecond timescale. Moreover, we have simulated the complete theophylline binding pathway. Our binding simulations supplement prior experimental observations of slow theophylline binding kinetics by showing that the binding site must undergo a large conformational rearrangement after the aptamer and theophylline form an initial complex, most notably, a major rearrangement of the C27 base from a buried to solvent-exposed orientation. Theophylline appears to bind by a combination of conformational selection and induced fit mechanisms. Finally, our modeling indicates that when Mg2+ ions are

  9. Molecular mechanism of ligand recognition by NR3 subtype glutamate receptors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yao, Yongneng; Harrison, Chris B.; Freddolino, Peter L.; Schulten, Klaus; Mayer, Mark L. (UIUC); (NIH)

    2008-10-27

    NR3 subtype glutamate receptors have a unique developmental expression profile, but are the least well-characterized members of the NMDA receptor gene family, which have key roles in synaptic plasticity and brain development. Using ligand binding assays, crystallographic analysis, and all atom MD simulations, we investigate mechanisms underlying the binding by NR3A and NR3B of glycine and D-serine, which are candidate neurotransmitters for NMDA receptors containing NR3 subunits. The ligand binding domains of both NR3 subunits adopt a similar extent of domain closure as found in the corresponding NR1 complexes, but have a unique loop 1 structure distinct from that in all other glutamate receptor ion channels. Within their ligand binding pockets, NR3A and NR3B have strikingly different hydrogen bonding networks and solvent structures from those found in NR1, and fail to undergo a conformational rearrangement observed in NR1 upon binding the partial agonist ACPC. MD simulations revealed numerous interdomain contacts, which stabilize the agonist-bound closed-cleft conformation, and a novel twisting motion for the loop 1 helix that is unique in NR3 subunits.

  10. Convergence of Domain Architecture, Structure, and Ligand Affinity in Animal and Plant RNA-Binding Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dias, Raquel; Manny, Austin; Kolaczkowski, Oralia; Kolaczkowski, Bryan

    2017-06-01

    Reconstruction of ancestral protein sequences using phylogenetic methods is a powerful technique for directly examining the evolution of molecular function. Although ancestral sequence reconstruction (ASR) is itself very efficient, downstream functional, and structural studies necessary to characterize when and how changes in molecular function occurred are often costly and time-consuming, currently limiting ASR studies to examining a relatively small number of discrete functional shifts. As a result, we have very little direct information about how molecular function evolves across large protein families. Here we develop an approach combining ASR with structure and function prediction to efficiently examine the evolution of ligand affinity across a large family of double-stranded RNA binding proteins (DRBs) spanning animals and plants. We find that the characteristic domain architecture of DRBs-consisting of 2-3 tandem double-stranded RNA binding motifs (dsrms)-arose independently in early animal and plant lineages. The affinity with which individual dsrms bind double-stranded RNA appears to have increased and decreased often across both animal and plant phylogenies, primarily through convergent structural mechanisms involving RNA-contact residues within the β1-β2 loop and a small region of α2. These studies provide some of the first direct information about how protein function evolves across large gene families and suggest that changes in molecular function may occur often and unassociated with major phylogenetic events, such as gene or domain duplications. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

  11. Hotspot autoimmune T cell receptor binding underlies pathogen and insulin peptide cross-reactivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cole, David K.; Bulek, Anna M.; Dolton, Garry; Schauenberg, Andrea J.; Szomolay, Barbara; Trimby, Andrew; Jothikumar, Prithiviraj; Fuller, Anna; Skowera, Ania; Rossjohn, Jamie; Zhu, Cheng; Miles, John J.; Wooldridge, Linda; Rizkallah, Pierre J.; Sewell, Andrew K.

    2016-01-01

    The cross-reactivity of T cells with pathogen- and self-derived peptides has been implicated as a pathway involved in the development of autoimmunity. However, the mechanisms that allow the clonal T cell antigen receptor (TCR) to functionally engage multiple peptide–major histocompatibility complexes (pMHC) are unclear. Here, we studied multiligand discrimination by a human, preproinsulin reactive, MHC class-I–restricted CD8+ T cell clone (1E6) that can recognize over 1 million different peptides. We generated high-resolution structures of the 1E6 TCR bound to 7 altered peptide ligands, including a pathogen-derived peptide that was an order of magnitude more potent than the natural self-peptide. Evaluation of these structures demonstrated that binding was stabilized through a conserved lock-and-key–like minimal binding footprint that enables 1E6 TCR to tolerate vast numbers of substitutions outside of this so-called hotspot. Highly potent antigens of the 1E6 TCR engaged with a strong antipathogen-like binding affinity; this engagement was governed though an energetic switch from an enthalpically to entropically driven interaction compared with the natural autoimmune ligand. Together, these data highlight how T cell cross-reactivity with pathogen-derived antigens might break self-tolerance to induce autoimmune disease. PMID:27183389

  12. Is there a link between selectivity and binding thermodynamics profiles?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tarcsay, Ákos; Keserű, György M

    2015-01-01

    Thermodynamics of ligand binding is influenced by the interplay between enthalpy and entropy contributions of the binding event. The impact of these binding free energy components, however, is not limited to the primary target only. Here, we investigate the relationship between binding thermodynamics and selectivity profiles by combining publicly available data from broad off-target assay profiling and the corresponding thermodynamics measurements. Our analysis indicates that compounds binding their primary targets with higher entropy contributions tend to hit more off-targets compared with those ligands that demonstrated enthalpy-driven binding. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Synthesis and characterization of 6,6’-bis(2-hydroxyphenyl)-2,2’-bipyridine ligand and its interaction with ct-DNA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Selamat, Norhidayah; Heng, Lee Yook; Hassan, Nurul Izzaty; Karim, Nurul Huda Abd

    2015-01-01

    The tetradentate ligand with four donor atoms OONN was synthesized. Bis(phenoxy)bipyridine ligand was prepared by Suzuki coupling reaction between 6,6’-dibromo-2,2’-bipyridyl and 2-hydroxyphenylboronic acid with presence of palladium (II) acetate. Bis(phenoxy)bipyridine ligand was also synthesized by demethylating of 6,6’-bis(2-methoxyphenyl)-2,2’-bipyridyl ligand through solvent free reaction using pyridine hydrocloride. The formation of both phenoxy and methoxy ligands was confirmed by 1 H, 2D cosy and 13 C NMR spectroscopy, ESI-MS spectrometry, FTIR spectroscopy. The purity of the ligand was confirmed by melting point. Binding studies of small molecules with DNA are useful to understand the reaction mechanism and to provide guidance for the application and design of new and more efficient drugs targeted to DNA. In this study, the binding interaction between the synthesized ligand with calf thymus-DNA (ct-DNA) has been investigated by UV/Vis DNA titration study. From the UV/Vis DNA study, it shows that bis(phenoxy)bipyridine ligand bind with ct-DNA via outside binding with binding contant K b = 1.19 × 10 3 ± 0.08 M −1

  14. Using the fast fourier transform in binding free energy calculations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nguyen, Trung Hai; Zhou, Huan-Xiang; Minh, David D L

    2018-04-30

    According to implicit ligand theory, the standard binding free energy is an exponential average of the binding potential of mean force (BPMF), an exponential average of the interaction energy between the unbound ligand ensemble and a rigid receptor. Here, we use the fast Fourier transform (FFT) to efficiently evaluate BPMFs by calculating interaction energies when rigid ligand configurations from the unbound ensemble are discretely translated across rigid receptor conformations. Results for standard binding free energies between T4 lysozyme and 141 small organic molecules are in good agreement with previous alchemical calculations based on (1) a flexible complex ( R≈0.9 for 24 systems) and (2) flexible ligand with multiple rigid receptor configurations ( R≈0.8 for 141 systems). While the FFT is routinely used for molecular docking, to our knowledge this is the first time that the algorithm has been used for rigorous binding free energy calculations. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  15. Molecular Characterization of the Interactions between Vascular Selectins and Glycoprotein Ligands on Human Hematopoietic Stem/Progenitor Cells

    KAUST Repository

    Abu Samra, Dina Bashir Kamil

    2016-01-01

    The first objective was to fill the knowledge gap in the in vitro characterization of the mechanisms used by selectins to mediate the initial step in the HSPCs homing by developing a real time immunoprecipitation-based assay on a surface plasmon resonance chip. This novel assay bypass the difficulties of purifying ligands, enables the use of natively glycosylated forms of selectin ligands from any model cell of interest and study its binding affinities under flow. We provide the first comprehensive quantitative binding kinetics of two well-documented ligands, CD44 and PSGL-1, with E-selectin. Both ligands bind monomeric E-selectin transiently with fast on- and off-rates while they bind dimeric E-selectin with remarkably slow on- and off-rates with the on-rate, but not the off-rate, is dependent on salt concentration. Thus, suggest a mechanism through which monomeric selectins mediate initial fast-on and -off binding to capture the circulating cells out of shear-flow; subsequently, tight binding by dimeric/oligomeric selectins is enabled to slow rolling significantly. The second objective is to fully identify and characterize E/P-selectin ligand candidates expressed on CD34+ HSPCs which cause enhanced migration after intravenous transplantation compared to their CD34- counterparts. CD34 is widely recognized marker of human HSPCs but its natural ligand and function on these cells remain elusive. Proteomics identified CD34 as an E-selL candidate on human HSPCs, whose binding to E-selectin was confirmed using some static and flow-based assays. E-selectin binds to CD34 with an affinity comparable to the well-described E-selLs CD44/HCELL and PSGL-1. CD34 knockdown resulted in faster-rolling velocities compared to control cells especially at and above three dyne/cm2. CD34 is the first selectin ligand since PSGL-1 reported to bind E-/P-/L-selectins and likely plays a key role in directing the migration of human HSPCs to the bone marrow.

  16. Secreted and transmembrane 1A is a novel co-stimulatory ligand.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Duncan Howie

    Full Text Available Most T cell responses to pathogens or self antigens are modulated through the action of regulatory T cells and tissue-specific inhibitory mechanisms. To this end, several receptor-ligand pairs have evolved which either augment or diminish T cell function. Here we describe the tissue ligand SECTM1A (Secreted and transmembrane1A as an alternative murine CD7 ligand. We show that SECTM1A, like SECTM1B, binds strongly to CD7, and that SECTM1B was able to compete with SECTM1A for CD7 binding. SECTM1A is ubiquitously expressed and has two major alternative transcripts which differ in expression between tissues. Both immobilised soluble forms of SECTM1A and SECTM1B and cell surface anchored forms demonstrated opposing effects on CD4+ T cell activation. Whereas SECTM1A acted as a co-stimulator of T cells, enhancing IL-2 production and proliferation, SECTM1B proved inhibitory to TCR mediated T cell activation. Surprisingly, both functional outcomes proved to be CD7-independent, indicating the existence of alternative receptors for both ligands. We used a SECTM1A-Fc fusion protein to immunoprecipitate potential alternative ligands from detergent lysates of CD7(-/- T cells and, using mass spectrometry, identified GITR as a SECTM1A binder. SECTM1A was found to bind to activated CD4+ and CD8+ T cells as well as to CHO cells expressing cell surface GITR. Binding of SECTM1A to activated primary T cells was inhibited by either GITRL-Fc or anti GITR antibodies. Thus SECTM1A and SECTM1B represent novel reciprocal alternative ligands which may function to modulate the activation of effector and regulatory T cells. The ability of SECTM1A to activate T cells may be explained by its ability to bind to GITR.

  17. Incremental binding free energies of aluminum (III) vs. magnesium (II) complexes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mercero, Jose M.; Mujika, Jon I.; Matxain, Jon M.; Lopez, Xabier; Ugalde, Jesus M.

    2003-01-01

    A sequential ligand addition to the aluminum (III) cation has been studied using the B3LYP functional and a combined all-electron/pseudopotentials basis set. The aluminum complexes are compared with analogous magnesium (II) complexes. Different thermodynamical data, such as incremental binding energies, enthalpies, entropies and free energies, are presented for these addition reactions. While the magnesium (II) cation can only accommodate three negatively charged ligands, aluminum (III) accommodates four even after including bulk solvent effects. The main differences between both cations complexing with the neutral ligands, is that aluminum (III) is not able to form complexes with methanol until the number of methanol ligands is equal to 3. Magnesium (II) prefers to bind methanol and formamide when the number of ligands is small, while aluminum prefers formamide. For the largest complexes both cations prefer to bind water

  18. Generating "fragment-based virtual library" using pocket similarity search of ligand-receptor complexes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khashan, Raed S

    2015-01-01

    As the number of available ligand-receptor complexes is increasing, researchers are becoming more dedicated to mine these complexes to aid in the drug design and development process. We present free software which is developed as a tool for performing similarity search across ligand-receptor complexes for identifying binding pockets which are similar to that of a target receptor. The search is based on 3D-geometric and chemical similarity of the atoms forming the binding pocket. For each match identified, the ligand's fragment(s) corresponding to that binding pocket are extracted, thus forming a virtual library of fragments (FragVLib) that is useful for structure-based drug design. The program provides a very useful tool to explore available databases.

  19. Analysis and functional characterization of sequence variations in ligand binding domain of thyroid hormone receptors in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalikiri, Mahesh Kumar; Mamidala, Madhu Poornima; Rao, Ananth N; Rajesh, Vidya

    2017-12-01

    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neuro developmental disorder, reported to be on a rise in the past two decades. Thyroid hormone-T3 plays an important role in early embryonic and central nervous system development. T3 mediates its function by binding to thyroid hormone receptors, TRα and TRβ. Alterations in T3 levels and thyroid receptor mutations have been earlier implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders and have been linked to environmental toxins. Limited reports from earlier studies have shown the effectiveness of T3 treatment with promising results in children with ASD and that the thyroid hormone levels in these children was also normal. This necessitates the need to explore the genetic variations in the components of the thyroid hormone pathway in ASD children. To achieve this objective, we performed genetic analysis of ligand binding domain of THRA and THRB receptor genes in 30 ASD subjects and in age matched controls from India. Our study for the first time reports novel single nucleotide polymorphisms in the THRA and THRB receptor genes of ASD individuals. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1919-1928. ©2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Thyroid hormone (T3) and thyroid receptors (TRα and TRβ) are the major components of the thyroid hormone pathway. The link between thyroid pathway and neuronal development is proven in clinical medicine. Since the thyroid hormone levels in Autistic children are normal, variations in their receptors needs to be explored. To achieve this objective, changes in THRA and THRB receptor genes was studied in 30 ASD and normal children from India. The impact of some of these mutations on receptor function was also studied. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  20. Ligand modeling and design

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hay, B.P. [Pacific Northwest National Lab., Richland, WA (United States)

    1997-10-01

    The purpose of this work is to develop and implement a molecular design basis for selecting organic ligands that would be used in the cost-effective removal of specific radionuclides from nuclear waste streams. Organic ligands with metal ion specificity are critical components in the development of solvent extraction and ion exchange processes that are highly selective for targeted radionuclides. The traditional approach to the development of such ligands involves lengthy programs of organic synthesis and testing, which in the absence of reliable methods for screening compounds before synthesis, results in wasted research effort. The author`s approach breaks down and simplifies this costly process with the aid of computer-based molecular modeling techniques. Commercial software for organic molecular modeling is being configured to examine the interactions between organic ligands and metal ions, yielding an inexpensive, commercially or readily available computational tool that can be used to predict the structures and energies of ligand-metal complexes. Users will be able to correlate the large body of existing experimental data on structure, solution binding affinity, and metal ion selectivity to develop structural design criteria. These criteria will provide a basis for selecting ligands that can be implemented in separations technologies through collaboration with other DOE national laboratories and private industry. The initial focus will be to select ether-based ligands that can be applied to the recovery and concentration of the alkali and alkaline earth metal ions including cesium, strontium, and radium.