Proceedings - Interdisciplinary Center for Nanotoxicity
Proceedings - Interdisciplinary Center for Nanotoxicity
Proceedings - Interdisciplinary Center for Nanotoxicity
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26<br />
Conference on Current Trends in Computational Chemistry 2009<br />
An Analysis of MMB‐4 Reactivating Cholinesterases<br />
Inhibited by Nerve Agents<br />
Manikanthan Bhavaraju and Steven R. Gwaltney<br />
Department of Chemistry, <strong>Center</strong> <strong>for</strong> Environmental Health Sciences, and HPC 2 <strong>Center</strong> <strong>for</strong><br />
Computational Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762<br />
MMB‐4 (1, 1’‐methylene‐bis [(4‐hydroxyiminomethyl) pyridinium] dichloride can<br />
reactivate the enzymes acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butrylcholinesterase (BChE) when they<br />
have been inhibited by a nerve agent such as sarin and tabun. AChE hydrolyzes the<br />
neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) into acetic acid and choline. The nerve agent inhibits the<br />
active site of the enzyme by phosphonylating the active site serine, which prevents the<br />
breakdown of the ACh. MMB‐4 reacts with the nerve agent and removes it, reactivating the<br />
enzyme. In order to study the role of MMB‐4 as a reactivator, its interactions with the<br />
enzymes AChE and BChE and the nerve agents sarin and tabun were modeled.<br />
An AM1 con<strong>for</strong>mation analysis <strong>for</strong> MMB4 was per<strong>for</strong>med using Spartan’06. In order to<br />
generate atomic charges consistent with the AMBER ff99 <strong>for</strong>ce field, the lowest energy<br />
con<strong>for</strong>mers were optimized using Hartree‐Fock and the 6‐31G* basis set. RESP electrostatic<br />
potential charges were generated from the HF/6‐31G* calculations on the lowest energy<br />
con<strong>for</strong>mer. Using Autodock 4, MMB‐4 was then docked in to the active site of AChE and BChE,<br />
along with AChE and BChE inhibited with sarin and AChE and BChE inhibited with tabun.<br />
Starting from the most appropriate docked structure, molecular dynamics simulations<br />
using explicit solvent method was carried out <strong>for</strong> each of the six systems. The simulations were<br />
run <strong>for</strong> at least 10 ns using AMBER 8 and the ff99 <strong>for</strong>ce field. In this poster we present an<br />
analysis of the MD simulations.