Characterization of Promiscuous Binding of Phosphor Ligands to Breast-Cancer-Gene 1 (BRCA1) C-Terminal (BRCT): Molecular Dynamics, Free Energy, Entropy and Inhibitor Design

Abstract

Inhibition of the protein-protein interaction (PPI) mediated by breast-cancer-gene 1 C-terminal (BRCT) is an attractive strategy to sensitize breast and ovarian cancers to chemotherapeutic agents that induce DNA damage. Such inhibitors could also be used for studies to understand the role of this PPI in DNA damage response. However, design of BRCT inhibitors is challenging because of the inherent flexibility associated with this domain. Several studies identified short phosphopeptides as tight BRCT binders. Here we investigated the thermodynamic properties of 18 phosphopeptides or peptide with phosphate mimic and three compounds with phosphate groups binding to BRCT to understand promiscuous molecular recognition and guide inhibitor design. We performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the interactions between inhibitors and BRCT and their dynamic behavior in the free and bound states. MD simulations revealed the key role of loops in altering the shape and size of the binding site to fit various ligands. The mining minima (M2) method was used for calculating binding free energy to explore the driving forces and the fine balance between configuration entropy loss and enthalpy gain. We designed a rigidified ligand, which showed unfavorable experimental binding affinity due to weakened enthalpy. This was because it lacked the ability to rearrange itself upon binding. Investigation of another phosphate group containing compound, C1, suggested that the entropy loss can be reduced by preventing significant narrowing of the energy well and introducing multiple new compound conformations in the bound states. From our computations, we designed an analog of C1 that introduced new intermolecular interactions to strengthen attractions while maintaining small entropic penalty. This study shows that flexible compounds do not always encounter larger entropy penalty, compared with other more rigid binders, and highlights a new strategy for inhibitor design.

qFit-ligand reveals widespread conformational heterogeneity of drug-like molecules in X-ray electron density maps

“…63,64 Revealing the full receptor-ligand conformational ensemble can help drug design by exploiting the balance between entropy and enthalpy in compound design 65,66 and by characterizing the effect of pre-rigidifying ligands on affinity. 67 Equally important, it can help rational design of ligand selectivity by exposing accessible molecular surfaces unique to their intended targets. 68 In the future, full integration of qFit-ligand with qFit could reveal the structural reorganization of binding pockets and allosteric signal propagation in the receptor upon ligand binding.…”

Drug-free macromolecular therapeutics: Impact of structure on induction of apoptosis in Raji B cells

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Synthesis and Solution-Phase Characterization of Sulfonated Oligothioetheramides

“…These and other examples demonstrate the need and utility of precise macromolecular flexibility, also demonstrated by the functional modes of disordered protein domains. 30-33 …”