论文标题
用粗粒炼金术方法探索Protac合作
Exploring PROTAC cooperativity with coarse-grained alchemical methods
论文作者
论文摘要
靶向嵌合体(Protac)的蛋白水解是一种新型的药物形态,可通过与E3连接酶接近诱导靶蛋白的降解。在这项工作中,我们提出了一个新的计算框架,以模拟Protac-E3结合与主要通过Protac诱导的蛋白质 - 蛋白质相互作用(PPI)的结合之间的合作性。由于实验测量的稀缺性和低分辨率,这些非本地PPI的物理和化学驱动因素仍有待阐明。我们开发了一种粗粒(CG)方法来模拟目标Protac-E3复合物中的相互作用,尽管扰动的规模非常规,但使用炼金术自由能计算方法可以使用炼金术自由能计算方法进行融合的热力学估计。随着参数化的最小化,我们成功地捕获了合作的基本原理,包括源自配置熵的中间Protac接头长度的最佳性。我们定性地表征了协同对Protac接头长度以及蛋白质电荷和形状的依赖性。然而,在我们当前的力场中,最小化序列和构象特异性特征的包含限制了定量建模以重现实验测量,但是CG模型的进一步开发可能允许有效的计算筛选以优化Protac合作性。
Proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) is a novel drug modality that facilitates the degradation of a target protein by inducing proximity with an E3 ligase. In this work, we present a new computational framework to model the cooperativity between PROTAC-E3 binding and PROTAC-target binding principally through protein-protein interactions (PPIs) induced by the PROTAC. Due to the scarcity and low resolution of experimental measurements, the physical and chemical drivers of these non-native PPIs remain to be elucidated. We develop a coarse-grained (CG) approach to model interactions in the target-PROTAC-E3 complexes, which enables converged thermodynamic estimations using alchemical free energy calculation methods despite an unconventional scale of perturbations. With minimal parameterization, we successfully capture fundamental principles of cooperativity, including the optimality of intermediate PROTAC linker lengths that originates from configurational entropy. We qualitatively characterize the dependency of cooperativity on PROTAC linker lengths and protein charges and shapes. Minimal inclusion of sequence- and conformation-specific features in our current forcefield, however, limits quantitative modeling to reproduce experimental measurements, but further development of the CG model may allow for efficient computational screening to optimize PROTAC cooperativity.