Core site-moiety maps reveal inhibitors and binding mechanisms of orthologous proteins by screening compound libraries

PLoS One. 2012;7(2):e32142. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032142. Epub 2012 Feb 29.

Abstract

Members of protein families often share conserved structural subsites for interaction with chemically similar moieties despite low sequence identity. We propose a core site-moiety map of multiple proteins (called CoreSiMMap) to discover inhibitors and mechanisms by profiling subsite-moiety interactions of immense screening compounds. The consensus anchor, the subsite-moiety interactions with statistical significance, of a CoreSiMMap can be regarded as a "hot spot" that represents the conserved binding environments involved in biological functions. Here, we derive the CoreSiMMap with six consensus anchors and identify six inhibitors (IC(50)<8.0 µM) of shikimate kinases (SKs) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Helicobacter pylori from the NCI database (236,962 compounds). Studies of site-directed mutagenesis and analogues reveal that these conserved interacting residues and moieties contribute to pocket-moiety interaction spots and biological functions. These results reveal that our multi-target screening strategy and the CoreSiMMap can increase the accuracy of screening in the identification of novel inhibitors and subsite-moiety environments for elucidating the binding mechanisms of targets.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Binding Sites
  • Circular Dichroism
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Databases, Protein
  • Drug Design
  • Enzyme Inhibitors / pharmacology
  • Gene Library
  • Helicobacter pylori / metabolism
  • Inhibitory Concentration 50
  • Microbial Sensitivity Tests
  • Mutagenesis, Site-Directed
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis / metabolism
  • Phosphotransferases (Alcohol Group Acceptor) / antagonists & inhibitors
  • Protein Binding
  • Reproducibility of Results

Substances

  • Enzyme Inhibitors
  • Phosphotransferases (Alcohol Group Acceptor)
  • shikimate kinase