Cytochrome P450 2C9 polymorphism: Effect of amino acid substitutions on protein flexibility in the presence of tamoxifen

Abstract

Tamoxifen is a prodrug and cytochrome P450 2C9 (CYP2C9) has a significant role in the formation of a therapeutically more potent metabolite (4-hydroxytamoxifen) than tamoxifen. Since CYP2C9 exhibits genetic polymorphism, it may contribute to different phenotypic drug response. Moreover, it may be misleading if the possibility of heterogeneous clinical observations of pharmacogenetic investigations is ignored. Above all, clinical investigation of all the polymorphic variants is beyond the scope of a pharmacogenetic study. Therefore, in order to understand the genotype-phenotype association, it is aimed to study the interatomic interactions of amino acid substitutions in CYP2C9 variants in the presence of tamoxifen. Computational structural biology approach was adopted to study the effect of amino acid substitutions of polymorphic variants of CYP2C9 R144C (*2), I359 L (*3), D360E (*5), R150H (*8), R335W (*11) and L90 P (*13) on the flexibility of the enzyme in the presence of tamoxifen. The mutations were selected based on previously determined associations on genotype and clinical outcome of drugs. Against the above plane, docking of tamoxifen was performed with the crystal structure representing the wild-type form of the enzyme. The docked conformation of tamoxifen was favourable for 4-hydroxylation with the site of metabolism within 5 Å of oxyferrylheme consistent with the drug metabolism pathway of tamoxifen. Further, the effect of amino acid substitutions CYP2C9 variants on the protein flexibility in the presence of tamoxifen in 4-hydroxy orientation was evaluated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Distinct protein flexibility modulations between variants were observed in F/G segment constituting the substrate access/egress channels, helix B' involved with substrate specificity and helix I associated with the holding of substrates. Root Mean Square Fluctuation analysis of the trajectories of variants exhibited fluctuations in F/G segment, B' and I helix. Dominant motions in the structure were identified by performing Principal Component Analysis on trajectories and the porcupine plot depicted displaced F/G segment in variants. Thus, the interatomic interaction study of CYP2C9 variants in the presence of tamoxifen predicts the plausible effect of the investigated variants on the therapeutic outcome of tamoxifen. It is presumed that the observations of the study would be meaningful to understand tamoxifen pharmacogenetics.

Keywords: Amino acid substitutions; Breast cancer; CYP2C9; Polymorphic variants; Tamoxifen.