Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Yingfy Li. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-167).

<p>A new approach to analysis of protein-ligand interactions, termed proteochemometrics, has been developed. Contrary to traditional quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) methods that aim to correlate a description of ligands to their interactions with one particular target protein, proteochemometrics considers many targets simultaneously.</p><p>Proteochemometrics thus analyzes the experimentally determined protein-ligand interaction activity data by correlating the data to a complex description of all interaction partners and; in a more general case even to interaction environment and assaying conditions, as well. In this way, a proteochemometric model analyzes an “interaction space,” from which only one cross-section would be contemplated by any one QSAR model.</p><p>Proteochemometric models reveal the physicochemical and structural properties that are essential for protein-ligand complementarity and determine specificity of molecular interactions. From a drug design perspective, models may find use in the design of drugs with improved selectivity and in the design of drugs for multiple targets, such as mutated proteins (e.g., drug resistant mutations of pathogens).</p><p>In this thesis, a general concept for creating of proteochemometric models and approaches for validation and interpretation of models are presented. Different types of physicochemical and structural description of ligands and macromolecules are evaluated; mathematical algorithms for proteochemometric modeling, in particular for analysis of large-scale data sets, are developed. Artificial chimeric proteins constructed according to principles of statistical design are used to derive high-resolution models for small classes of proteins.</p><p>The studies of this thesis use data sets comprising ligand interactions with several families of G protein-coupled receptors. The presented approach is, however, general and can be applied to study molecular recognition mechanisms of any class of drug targets.</p>

A new approach to analysis of protein-ligand interactions, termed proteochemometrics, has been developed. Contrary to traditional quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) methods that aim to correlate a description of ligands to their interactions with one particular target protein, proteochemometrics considers many targets simultaneously. Proteochemometrics thus analyzes the experimentally determined protein-ligand interaction activity data by correlating the data to a complex description of all interaction partners and; in a more general case even to interaction environment and assaying conditions, as well. In this way, a proteochemometric model analyzes an “interaction space,” from which only one cross-section would be contemplated by any one QSAR model. Proteochemometric models reveal the physicochemical and structural properties that are essential for protein-ligand complementarity and determine specificity of molecular interactions. From a drug design perspective, models may find use in the design of drugs with improved selectivity and in the design of drugs for multiple targets, such as mutated proteins (e.g., drug resistant mutations of pathogens). In this thesis, a general concept for creating of proteochemometric models and approaches for validation and interpretation of models are presented. Different types of physicochemical and structural description of ligands and macromolecules are evaluated; mathematical algorithms for proteochemometric modeling, in particular for analysis of large-scale data sets, are developed. Artificial chimeric proteins constructed according to principles of statistical design are used to derive high-resolution models for small classes of proteins. The studies of this thesis use data sets comprising ligand interactions with several families of G protein-coupled receptors. The presented approach is, however, general and can be applied to study molecular recognition mechanisms of any class of drug targets.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2008. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographies.

The electronegativity of thiolate ligation in the hemeprotein nitric oxide synthase (NOS) proteins has been identified as an influence on autoinhibition in this enzyme. The mutation of a conserved tryptophan residue, which hydrogen bonds to the coordinating thiolate ligand and therefore influences its electronegativity, to either phenylalanine or tyrosine has had various effects including heme loss and dimer disruption in the inducible isoforms, while hyperactivity occurs in the neuronal isoforms. I have performed the analogous mutations in W180 of eNOSoxy, the endothelial isoform. UV/visible and resonance Raman spectroscopy have demonstrated that the mutants experienced increased basicity of the thiolate due to loss of the hydrogen bond between the mutated residue in the absence of the cofactor (6R)5,6,7,8-tetrahydrobiopterin (H4B). The mutants also displayed relative rates of NO2- production that were comparable to the nNOSoxy mutants, which is consistent with the nNOSoxy results. The presence of H4B alters porphyrin planarity, which enabled hydrogen bonding to occur in W180Y, thus restoring thiolate basicity to that of wild-type eNOSoxy. Reduced overall activities by the proteins suggest that H4B stabilizes the heme. The analogous W56 mutants of saNOS, a NOS oxygenase domain-like protein from Staphylococcus aureus (saNOS), have been previously characterized using resonance Raman spectroscopy. These mutants also exhibit increased thiolate electronegativity over wild-type. As the homodimers had already been investigated, saNOS was an ideal system in which to explore heterodimers. Heterodimers were generated through the co-expression of one wild-type and one mutated subunit, enabling the examination of each subunit individually through resonance Raman spectroscopy. The subunits of the resulting proteins were shown to have heme environments that resembled those of their corresponding homodimers. The activity of saNOS did not vary significantly for the various W56 mutants, suggesting that saNOS catalysis may be unaffected by thiolate electronegativity. / Thesis (Master, Chemistry) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-04 11:37:38.688

Thesis (M. Sc.) (Hons.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2002. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney in partial fulfilment of the rquirements for the degree of Master of Science (Honours), February, 2002. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.) (Hons)--University of Western Sydney, 2008. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Honours). Includes bibliographies.

A modelagem das interações entre macromoléculas e ligantes ainda se depara com diversos desafios na área de desenho de fármacos assistidos por computador. Apesar do crescimento da área, temas como a flexibilidade do receptor, funções de pontuação e solvatação ainda têm sido alvo de intensa investigação na comunidade científica. Com o objetivo de analisar a interação em milhares ou milhões de complexos, é imprescindível uma boa harmonização entre o custo computacional e a acurácia dos métodos computacionais que permitem a classificação de ligantes de acordo com a energia de interação. O LiBELa (Ligand Binding Energy Landscape) é um programa de docagem molecular com abordagem híbrida, ou seja, utiliza informações do ligante e do receptor durante o processo de docagem. Inicialmente, as características estéricas e eletrostáticas de um ligante de referência (cristalográfico, por exemplo) são utilizadas nos cálculos de similaridade e sobreposição, obtendo assim uma conformação inicial pré-otimizada do ligante testado. Em seguida, a energia de interação é minimizada no sítio ativo de receptor a partir de potenciais energéticos. Quatro funções de pontuação baseadas em campo de força foram testadas e otimizadas, compostas por potenciais de van der Waals, de Coulomb, e uma função empírica de solvatação denominada função de Stouten-Verkhivker (SV). A flexibilidade do sistema foi tratada através da geração de confôrmeros que amostram os graus de liberdade dos ligantes descritos como semi-rígidos e através de potenciais atenuados que suavizam a superfície de energia de interação, permitindo interações em distâncias interatômicas antes repulsivas. Como ponto de partida, os métodos implementados no programa LiBELa demonstraram resultados satisfatórios nos testes de cross- e self-docking, mostrando ser uma ferramenta eficiente em encontrar os modos de ligação cristalográficos de forma equivalente ou até melhor às dos programas comparados. Através de testes de enriquecimento nos conjuntos de dados DUD, DUDE e CM-DUD, foram otimizadas de forma sistemática as constantes dielétrica, do termo de solvatação, e dos termos de atenuação. Também foi realizado um paralelo entre as funções de pontuação, incluindo a atenuação e o termo de solvatação. Estes mesmos testes mostraram resultados superiores do LiBELa de 39% e 15% em comparação com um programa baseado puramente no receptor (DOCK 6.6), relativo à média da área sob a curva em escala semi-logarítmica nas bases de dados DUDE e DUD respectivamente. Apesar da função de solvatação SV implementada no LiBELa apresentar boa correlação com dados experimentais (r=0,72) e com o modelo Zou GB de solvatação (r=0,88), não apresentou correlação significativa com os métodos GB e PB implementados no pacote de programas disponível no AmberTools. Comparadas às funções de pontuação do LiBELa, as funções com correção para solvatação apresentaram pior enriquecimento, salvo alguns alvos específicos. Por fim, foram realizados ensaios de docagem molecular utilizando como alvo uma enzima &beta;-galactosidase da família GH42, cuja estrutura fora resolvida em nosso grupo. Os resultados permitiram conclusões acerca de como o modo de ligação interfere na preferência de ligação entre dissacarídeos de ligações glicosídicas distintas, consistentes com dados experimentais de ensaios cinéticos de ligação. / Modeling the interactions between macromolecules and ligands still faces several challenges in the computer-aided drug design area. Despite the growth in the area, subjects such as receptor flexibility, scoring functions and solvation still have been widely explored in the scientific community. In order to analyze the interaction for thousands or millions of complexes, a good harmonization between the computational cost and the accuracy of the calculation methods in molecular docking programs is essential. LiBELa (Ligand Binding Energy Landscape) is a hybrid approach program that uses both ligand and receptor information for ligand docking. Initially, the steric and electrostatic characteristics from a reference binder (crystallographic, for example) are used to similarity and overlay calculations, thus obtaining an initial conformation of the ligand tested. Then, within the receptor´s active site, the interaction energy is minimized using energetic potentials. Four force field-based scoring functions were tested and optimized, composed of van der Waals and Coulomb potentials and an empirical solvation function called Stouten-Verkhivker (SV). Concerning the system flexibility, besides the confomers generation that sample the degrees of freedom for semi-rigid ligands, attenuated potentials smooth the energy surface allowing interactions between previously repulsive interatomic distances. As a starting point, LiBELa performed satisfactorily in the cross- and self-docking tests, showing that is an eficient tool to reproduce crystallographic binding modes equivalently to or even better than reference programs. Through enrichment of DUD, DUDE and CM-DUD datasets, the dielectric constant, solvation and softening terms were systematically optimized. It also allowed a parallel between scoring functions, including attenuation and solvation term. Finally, it revealed the LiBELa showed an enhancement of 39% and 15% as compared to the purely receptor-based program DOCK 6.6, relative to the mean of the area under the curve on a semi-logarithmic scale in the DUDE and DUD databases respectively. Although the SV solvation function implemented in LiBELa showed good correlations with experimental data (r = 0.72) and with the Zou GB / SA solvation method implemented in DOCK6 (r = 0.88), it did not show significant correlation with the GB/SA and PB/SA methods implemented in AmberTools. Comparing all the LiBELa tested scoring functions, those including solvation correction showed worse enrichments, except for some specific targets. Finally, molecular docking experiments using LiBELa were conducted with a &beta;-galactosidase from GH42 family, whose structure was solved in our group. The results allowed conclusions concerning how the binding mode interferes the preference for some disaccharides of distinct glycosidic bonds, consistent with experimental data from kinetic assays.

Orientador: Anita Jocelyne Marsaioli / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Quimica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T11:28:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Figueiredo_IsisMartins_D.pdf: 1626484 bytes, checksum: 2c55f1a5b794f6f6e1c4a4931c394c4d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Durante as últimas décadas, muitos métodos de RMN de H foram desenvolvidos e aplicados para triagem e caracterização de interações intermoleculares e para a metabonômica. Estes são temas recentes da RMN e ambos serão abordados em dois capítulos distintos neste trabalho. No Capítulo 1 foi realizada a implantação e otimização de técnicas de RMN como (STD, WaterLOGSY, NOE pumping e DOSY-NOESY). Para tanto, utilizou-se um sistema composto por albumina de soro bovino BSA e uma mistura de cinco compostos (ác. salicílico, cafeína, ác. cítrico, ác. adipico e D-glucose) dentre os quais, apenas o ácido salicílico e a cafeína interagiram com a BSA. Além disso, uma análise comparativa entre as técnicas permitiu afirmar que os experimentos de STD e WaterLOGSY são os mais sensíveis e rápidos fornecendo complementarmente o domínio hidrofóbico e hidrofílico de ligação com o ligante. Com intuito de confirmar nossa habilidade na aplicação destas técnicas, as mesmas foram aplicadas a um sistema composto por uma Chaperone Hsp70, substratos (ATP e ADP) e um polipeptíteo Angiotensina 2 (Asp-Arg-Val-Tyr-Ile-His-Pro-Phe). A análise desse sistema por WaterLOGSY e a comparação com os resultados obtidos por STD permitiu a obtenção do epitopo 1 o qual é formado pela porção adenosina do A TP ou ADP quando estes estão complexados a Hsp70 e do epitopo 2 formado pela porção hidrofóbica da Angiotensina 2 (Val-Tyr-Ile-His-Pro-Phe) que interage com a Hsp70. Já no Capitulo 2, a RMN de H foi aplicada na investigação da metabonômica do liquido cerebroespinal de pacientes com Esclerose Múltipla (EM). A análise dos dados de RMN através de métodos quimiométricos (HCA, PCA e PLS-DA) revelou alguns metabólitos importantes, dentre os quais o b-hidroxibutirato (1,17 ppm) e um sinal de proteína (0,065 ppm) foram detectados apenas em amostras EM podendo ser considerados marcadores de reações bioquímicas de degradação de mielina. Portanto, este estudo alcançou com êxito os objetivos traçados de implementar novas técnicas de RMN aplicadas a sistemas biológicos além de trazer novas informações sobre a Hsp70 e EM / Abstract: Over the past years H NMR methods have been developed and applied to the screening and characterization of protein epitopes in ligand receptor complexes and metabonomics. These are recent NMR methods issues of the present PhD thesis. To investigate proteinligand complexes we first optimized techniques that were unavailable at IQ/UNICAMP such as STD, WaterLOGSY, NOE pumping and DOSY-NOESY which were specially designed for epitope mapping. In order to optimized these techniques we employed a mixture of five compounds (salicilic ac., caffeine, citric ac., adipic ac. and D-glucose) and bovine serum albumine (BSA). Among the studied ligands salicilic acid and caffeine were the best. From these experiments we additionally concluded that STD and WaterLOGSY were most sensitive and appropriate for epitope mapping. A second system was investigated consisting of Chaperone Hsp70, cofactor (ATP and ADP) and polypeptide Angiotensine 2 (Asp-Arg-Val-Tyr-Ile-His-Pro-Phe). Epitope I was characterized as containing a lipophylic domain in which the adenosine portion of ATP or ADP was bound to Hsp70. Epitope 2 was the polypeptide-binding site in which the apoIar portion of Angiotensine 2 (Val-Tyr-Ile-His-Pro-Phe) was tightly bound to Hsp70. In chapter 2, H NMR was the major tool employed to investigate the metabonomics of CSF of Multiple Sclerosis patients. Analyses of the H NMR data applying quimiometric methods (HCA, PCA and PLS-DA) revealed that some metabolites, from which b-hydroxybutirate (1,17 ppm) and a protein signal (0,065 ppm) were detected in EM patients only. These signals were never described as EM biomarkers before. To match these observations a full set of lipolytic and proteolytic biochemical reactions were proposed which are responsible for myelin degradation. Therefore, in this study we describe the successful implementation of these new NMR techniques that were applied to biological systems revealing new aspects of the Hsp70 and MS / Doutorado / Quimica Organica / Doutor em Ciências

<p>Detection and quantification of protein-ligand binding interactions is extremely important for understanding interactions that occur in biological systems. Since traditional techniques for characterizing these types of interactions cannot be performed in complex systems such as cell lysates, a series of energetics-based techniques that are capable of assessing protein stability and measuring ligand binding affinities have been developed to overcome some of the limitations of previous techniques. Now that the capabilities of the energetics-based techniques have been exhibited in model systems, the false-positive rates of the techniques, the range of biological questions to which the techniques can be addressed, and the use of the techniques to discover novel interactions in unknown systems remained to be shown. The Stability of Proteins from Rates of Oxidation (SPROX) technique and the Pulse Proteolysis (PP) technique were applied to a wide range of biological questions in both yeast and human cell lysates to evaluate the scope of these experimental workflows. The false-positive rate of iTRAQ-SPROX protein target discovery on orbitrap mass spectrometer systems was determined to be < 0.8 %. The iTRAQ-SPROX technique was successfully applied to the discovery of both known and novel protein-protein, protein-ATP, and protein-drug interactions, leading to the quantification of protein-ligand binding affinities in each of these studies. In the pursuit of discovering geldanamycin protein interactors, the use of iTRAQ-SPROX and SILAC-PP in combination was determined to be advantageous for confirming protein-ligand interactions since the techniques utilize different quantitation strategies that are subject to separate technical errors in quantitation. Finally, the iTRAQ-SPROX and SILAC-PP techniques were used to evaluate the interactions of manassantin A in a human cell lysate. In this work, a previously unknown protein target of manassantin A, Filamin A, was detected as a hit protein using both the iTRAQ-SPROX and SILAC-PP protocols. The work completed in this dissertation has expanded the understanding of the limitations of energetics-based techniques and shown that biological replicate analyses are essential to confirm ligand interactions with novel protein targets.</p> / Dissertation