Potential off-target effects of beta-blockers on gut hormone receptors: In silico study including GUT-DOCK-A web service for small-molecule docking

PLoS One. 2019 Jan 25;14(1):e0210705. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210705. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

The prolonged use of many currently available drugs results in the severe side effect of the disruption of glucose metabolism leading to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM. Gut hormone receptors including glucagon receptor (GCGR) and the incretin hormone receptors: glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor (GLP1R) and gastric inhibitory polypeptide receptor (GIPR) are important drug targets for the treatment of T2DM, as they play roles in the regulation of glucose and insulin levels and of food intake. In this study, we hypothesized that we could compensate for the negative influences of specific drugs on glucose metabolism by the positive incretin effect enhanced by the off-target interactions with incretin GPCR receptors. As a test case, we chose to examine beta-blockers because beta-adrenergic receptors and incretin receptors are expressed in a similar location, making off-target interactions possible. The binding affinity of drugs for incretin receptors was approximated by using two docking scoring functions of Autodock VINA (GUT-DOCK) and Glide (Schrodinger) and juxtaposing these values with the medical information on drug-induced T2DM. We observed that beta-blockers with the highest theoretical binding affinities for gut hormone receptors were reported as the least harmful to glucose homeostasis in clinical trials. Notably, a recently discovered beta-blocker compound 15 ([4-((2S)-3-(((S)-3-(3-bromophenyl)-1-(methylamino)-1-oxopropan-2-yl)amino)-2-(2-cyclohexyl-2-phenylacetamido)-3-oxopropyl)benzamide was among the top-scoring drugs, potentially supporting its use in the treatment of hypertension in diabetic patients. Our recently developed web service GUT-DOCK (gut-dock.miningmembrane.com) allows for the execution of similar studies for any drug-like molecule. Specifically, users can compute the binding affinities for various class B GPCRs, gut hormone receptors, VIPR1 and PAC1R.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adrenergic beta-Antagonists / adverse effects*
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / metabolism*
  • Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Molecular Dynamics Simulation
  • Receptors, Gastrointestinal Hormone / metabolism*
  • Receptors, Glucagon / metabolism

Substances

  • Adrenergic beta-Antagonists
  • Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor
  • Receptors, Gastrointestinal Hormone
  • Receptors, Glucagon
  • gastric inhibitory polypeptide receptor

Grants and funding

DL acknowledges National Science Centre in Poland (https://www.ncn.gov.pl) for financing (Grant No. DEC-2012/07/D/NZ1/04244) and Faculty of Chemistry (http://www.chem.uw.edu.pl), Biological and Chemical Research Centre (http://cnbch.uw.edu.pl) of University of Warsaw for providing the infrastructure. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.