Rational design of an enzyme mutant for anti-cocaine therapeutics

J Comput Aided Mol Des. 2008 Sep;22(9):661-71. doi: 10.1007/s10822-007-9144-9. Epub 2007 Nov 8.

Abstract

(-)-Cocaine is a widely abused drug and there is no available anti-cocaine therapeutic. The disastrous medical and social consequences of cocaine addiction have made the development of an effective pharmacological treatment a high priority. An ideal anti-cocaine medication would be to accelerate (-)-cocaine metabolism producing biologically inactive metabolites. The main metabolic pathway of cocaine in body is the hydrolysis at its benzoyl ester group. Reviewed in this article is the state-of-the-art computational design of high-activity mutants of human butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) against (-)-cocaine. The computational design of BChE mutants have been based on not only the structure of the enzyme, but also the detailed catalytic mechanisms for BChE-catalyzed hydrolysis of (-)-cocaine and (+)-cocaine. Computational studies of the detailed catalytic mechanisms and the structure-and-mechanism-based computational design have been carried out through the combined use of a variety of state-of-the-art techniques of molecular modeling. By using the computational insights into the catalytic mechanisms, a recently developed unique computational design strategy based on the simulation of the rate-determining transition state has been employed to design high-activity mutants of human BChE for hydrolysis of (-)-cocaine, leading to the exciting discovery of BChE mutants with a considerably improved catalytic efficiency against (-)-cocaine. One of the discovered BChE mutants (i.e., A199S/S287G/A328W/Y332G) has a approximately 456-fold improved catalytic efficiency against (-)-cocaine. The encouraging outcome of the computational design and discovery effort demonstrates that the unique computational design approach based on the transition-state simulation is promising for rational enzyme redesign and drug discovery.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Butyrylcholinesterase / chemistry*
  • Butyrylcholinesterase / genetics
  • Butyrylcholinesterase / metabolism
  • Catalysis
  • Cocaine / antagonists & inhibitors*
  • Cocaine / metabolism
  • Cocaine-Related Disorders / drug therapy*
  • Computer Simulation
  • Drug Design*
  • Humans
  • Mutation

Substances

  • Butyrylcholinesterase
  • Cocaine