Analysis of 300 ns (ns) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of an adenosine A2a receptor (A2a AR) model, conducted in triplicate, in 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoylphosphatidylcholine (POPC) and 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (POPE) bilayers reveals significantly different protein dynamical behavior. Principal component analysis (PCA) shows that the dissimilarities stem from interhelical rather than intrahelical motions. The difference in the hydrophobic thicknesses of these simulated lipid bilayers is potentially a significant reason for the observed difference in results. The distinct lipid headgroups might also lead to different molecular interactions and hence different protein loop motions. Overall, the A2a AR shows higher mobility and flexibility in POPC as compared to POPE.
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of membrane-embedded G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) have rapidly gained popularity among the molecular simulation community in recent years, a trend which has an obvious link to the tremendous pharmaceutical importance of this group of receptors and the increasing availability of crystal structures. In view of the widespread use of this technique, it is of fundamental importance to ensure the reliability and robustness of the methodologies so they yield valid results and enable sufficiently accurate predictions to be made. In this work, 200 ns simulations of the A2a adenosine receptor (A2a AR) have been produced and evaluated in the light of these requirements. The conformational dynamics of the target protein, as obtained from replicate simulations in both the presence and absence of an inverse agonist ligand (ZM241385), have been investigated and compared using principal component analysis (PCA). Results show that, on this time scale, convergence of the replicates is not readily evident and dependent on the types of the protein motions considered. Thus rates of inter- as opposed to intrahelical relaxation and sampling can be different. When studied individually, we find that helices III and IV have noticeably greater stability than helices I, II, V, VI, and VII in the apo form. The addition of the inverse agonist ligand greatly improves the stability of all helices.
Protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) catalyse the methylation of arginine residues of target proteins. PRMTs utilise S-adenosyl methionine (SAM) as the methyl group donor, leading to S-adenosyl homocysteine (SAH) and monomethylarginine (mMA). A combination of homology modelling, molecular docking, Active Site Pressurisation, molecular dynamic simulations and MM-PBSA free energy calculations is used to investigate the binding poses of three PRMT1 inhibitors (ligands 1-3), which target both SAM and substrate arginine binding sites by containing a guanidine group joined by short linkers with the SAM derivative. It was assumed initially that the adenine moieties of the inhibitors would bind in sub-site 1 (PHE44, GLU137, VAL136 and GLU108), the guanidine side chain would occupy sub-site 2 (GLU 161, TYR160, TYR156 and TRP302), with the amino acid side chain occupying sub-site 3 (GLU152, ARG62, GLY86 and ASP84; pose 1). However, the SAH homocysteine moiety does not fully occupy sub-site 3, suggesting another binding pose may exist (pose 2), whereby the adenine moiety binds in sub-site 1, the guanidine side chain occupies sub-site 3, and the amino acid side chain occupies sub-site 2. Our results indicate that ligand 1 (pose 1 or 2), ligand 2 (pose 2) and ligand 3 (pose 1) are the predominant binding poses and we demonstrate for the first time that sub-site 3 contains a large space that could be exploited in the future to develop novel inhibitors with higher binding affinities.
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are proteins of pharmaceutical importance, with over 30% of all drugs in clinical use targeting them. Increasing numbers of X-ray crystal (XRC) structures of GPCRs offer a wealth of data relating to ligand binding. For the β-adrenoceptors (β-ARs), XRC structures are available for human β2- and turkey β1-subtypes, in complexes with a range of ligands. While these structures provide insight into the origins of ligand structure-activity relationships (SARs), questions remain. The ligands in all published complexed XRC structures lack extensive substitution, with no obvious way the ligand-binding site can accommodate β1-AR-selective antagonists with extended side-chains para- to the common aryloxypropanolamine pharmacophore. Using standard computational docking tools with such ligands generally returns poses that fail to explain known SARs. Application of our Active Site Pressurization (ASP) modelling method to β-AR XRC structures and homology models however, reveals a dynamic area in the ligand-binding pocket that, through minor changes in amino acid side chain orientations, opens a fissure between transmembrane (TM) helices H4 and H5, exposing intra-membrane space. This fissure, which we term the 'keyhole', is ideally located to accommodate extended moieties present in many high-affinity β1-AR-selective ligands; allowing the rest of the ligand structure to adopt a canonical pose in the orthosteric binding site. We propose the keyhole may be a feature of both β1- and β2-ARs, but that subtle structural differences exist between the two, contributing to subtype-selectivity. This has consequences for the rational design of future generations of subtype-selective ligands for these therapeutically important targets.