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BeNeLux Bioinformatics Conference – Antwerp, December 7-8 <strong>2015</strong><br />

Abstract ID: P<br />

Category: Poster<br />

10th Benelux Bioinformatics Conference <strong>bbc</strong> <strong>2015</strong><br />

P25. IDENTIFICATION OF NOVEL ALLOSTERIC DRUG TARGETS<br />

USING A “DUMMY” LIGAND APPROACH<br />

Susanne M.A. Hermans, Christopher Pfleger & Holger Gohlke * .<br />

Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institute for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Heinrich-<br />

Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany. * gohlke@uni-duesseldorf.de<br />

Targeting allosteric sites is a promising strategy in drug discovery due to their regulatory role in almost all cellular<br />

processes. Currently, there is no standard method to identify novel pockets and to detect whether a pocket has a<br />

regulatory effect on the protein. Here, we present a new and efficient approach to probe information transfer through<br />

proteins in the context of dynamically dominated allostery that exploits “dummy” ligands as surrogates for allosteric<br />

modulators.<br />

INTRODUCTION<br />

Allosteric regulation is the coupling between separated<br />

sites in biomacromolecules such that an action at one site<br />

changes the function at a distant site. Allosteric drugs are<br />

popular, they often have less side effects then orthosteric<br />

drugs because the allosteric sites are less conserved. The<br />

identification of novel allosteric pockets is complicated by<br />

the large variation in allosteric regulation, ranging from<br />

rigid body motions to disorder/order transitions, with<br />

dynamically dominated allostery in between (Motlagh et<br />

al., 2014). Here we focus on dynamically dominated<br />

allostery with minimal or no conformational changes.<br />

Novel pockets do not have a known ligand, therefore we<br />

generate “dummy” ligands to function as surrogates for<br />

allosteric ligands. We have developed an efficient<br />

approach to probe information transfer through proteins<br />

using “dummy” ligands and detect if allosteric coupling is<br />

present between the novel pocket and the orthosteric site.<br />

METHODS<br />

In a preliminary study to test the general feasibility, the<br />

approach was applied to conformations extracted from a<br />

MD trajectory of the holo and apo structures of LFA1.<br />

The grid-based PocketAnalyzer program (Craig et al.,<br />

2011) is used to detect putative binding sites. “Dummy”<br />

ligands were generated for each detected pocket along the<br />

ensemble. Finally, the Constraint Network Analysis<br />

(CNA) software, which links biomacromolecular structure,<br />

(thermo-)stability, and function, is used to probe the<br />

allosteric response by monitoring altered stability<br />

characteristics of the protein due to the presence of the<br />

“dummy” ligand (Pfleger et al., 2013; Krüger et al., 2013;<br />

Pfleger, 2014). The results were compared to those of the<br />

holo structure with the bound allosteric ligand to validate<br />

the “dummy” ligand approach.<br />

RESULTS & DISCUSSION<br />

Remarkably, the usage of “dummy” ligands almost<br />

perfectly reproduced the results obtained from the known<br />

allosteric effector. Although it turned out that the intrinsic<br />

rigidity of the “dummy” ligands over-stabilizes the LFA1<br />

structure, these results are already encouraging. Even for<br />

the LFA1 apo structures, where the allosteric pocket is<br />

partially closed, the results are in agreement with known<br />

allosteric effectors. Overall, the results obtained from the<br />

validation of the “dummy” ligand approach are<br />

encouraging. This suggests that our “dummy” ligand<br />

approach for the characterization of unexplored allosteric<br />

pockets is a promising step towards identifying novel drug<br />

targets.<br />

REFERENCES<br />

Craig, I.R. et al. J. Chem. Inf. Model. 51 2666–2679 (2011).<br />

Krüger, D. M. et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 41 340–348 (2013).<br />

Motlagh, H.N. et al. Nature 508 7496 331–339 (2014).<br />

Pfleger, C. et al. J. Chem. Inf. Model. 53 1007–1015 (2013).<br />

Pfleger, C. Doctoral Thesis, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf,<br />

Germany (2014).<br />

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