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We report the selective targeting of telomeric G4 DNA with a dithienylethene ligand and demonstrate the robust visible-light mediated switching of the G4 ligand binding mode and G-tetrad structure in physiologically-relevant conditions. The toxicity of the ligand to cervical cancer cells is modulated by the photoisomeric state of the ligand, indicating for the first time the potential of G4 to serve as a target for photopharmacological strategies., MPO thanks the Bristol Chemical Synthesis Centre forDoctoral Training, funded by EPSRC (EP/L015366/1) and theUniversity of Bristol, for a PhD studentship, JRS acknowledges aMSCA fellowship (project 843720-BioNanoProbes). SH and AJMthanks EPSRC for support (grant numbers EP/M015378/1 andEP/M022609/1). This work was carried out using the computationalfacilities of the Advanced Computing Research Centre, University ofBristol – http://www.bris.ac.uk/acrc/ SS thanks the Bristol Centre ForFunctional Nanomaterials (EPSRC EP/L016648/1). JCMS thanks theSpanish Ministerio de Economı ́a y Competitividad (Grant CTQ2015-64275-P and RTI2018-099036-B-I00). MCG thanks the EuropeanResearch Council (ERC-COG: 648239

The cationic porphyrin TMPyP4 is a well-established DNA G-quadruplex (G4) binding ligand that can stabilize different topologies via multiple binding modes. However, TMPyP4 can have both a stabilizing and destabilizing effect on RNA G4 structures. The structural mechanisms that mediate RNA G4 unfolding remain unknown. Here, we report on the TMPyP4-induced RNA G4 unfolding mechanism studied by well-tempered metadynamics (WT-MetaD) with supporting biophysical experiments. The simulations predict a two-state mechanism of TMPyP4 interaction via a groove-bound and a top-face-bound conformation. The dynamics of TMPyP4 stacking on the top tetrad disrupts Hoogsteen H-bonds between guanine bases, resulting in the consecutive TMPyP4 intercalation from top-to-bottom G-tetrads. The results reveal a striking correlation between computational and experimental approaches and validate WT-MetaD simulations as a powerful tool for studying RNA G4-ligand interactions.

The cationic porphyrin, TMPyP4, is a well-established DNA G-quadruplex (G4) binding ligand that can stabilize different topologies via multiple binding modes. However, TMPyP4 has completely opposite destabilizing and unwinding effect on RNA G4 structures. The structural mechanisms that mediate RNA G4 unfolding remains unknown. Here, we report on the TMPyP4-induced RNA G4 unfolding mechanism studied by well-tempered metadynamics (WT-MetaD) with supporting biophysical experiments. The simulations predict a two-state mechanism of TMPyP4 interaction via a groove-bound and a top-face bound conformation. The dynamics of TMPyP4 stacking on the top tetrad disrupts Hoogsteen H-bonds between guanine bases resulting in the consecutive TMPyP4 intercalation from top-to-bottom G-tetrads. The results reveal a striking correlation between computational and experimental approaches and validate WT-MetaD simulations as a powerful tool for studying RNA G4-ligand interactions.

Graphene and its derivatives are useful building blocks for the bottom-up assembly of advanced functional materials. Noncovalently functionalized graphene networks offer a wide range of application...

Ligands with the capability to bind G-quadruplexes (G4s) specifically, and to control G4 structure and behaviour, offer great potential in the development of novel therapies, technologies and functional materials. Most known ligands bind to a pre-formed topology, but G4s are highly dynamic and a small number of ligands have been discovered that influence these folding equilibria. Such ligands may be useful as probes to understand the dynamic nature of G4 in vivo, or to exploit the polymorphism of G4 in the development of molecular devices. To date, these fascinating molecules have been discovered serendipitously. There is a need for tools to predict such effects to drive ligand design and development, and for molecular-level understanding of ligand binding mechanisms and associated topological perturbation of G4 structures. Here we study the G4 binding mechanisms of a family of stiff-stilbene G4 ligands to human telomeric DNA using molecular dynamics (MD) and enhanced sampling (metadynamics) MD simulations. The simulations predict a variety of binding mechanisms and effects on G4 structure for the different ligands in the series. In parallel, we characterize the binding of the ligands to the G4 target experimentally using NMR and CD spectroscopy. The results show good agreement between the simulated and experimentally observed binding modes, binding affinities and ligand-induced perturbation of the G4 structure. The simulations correctly predict ligands that perturb G4 topology. Metadynamics simulations are shown to be a powerful tool to aid development of molecules to influence G4 structure, both in interpreting experiments and to help in the design of these chemotypes., Enhanced sampling molecular dynamics simulations and solution-phase experiments come together to demonstrate the diverse effects of G4-interactive small molecules.

Photoresponsive ligands for G-quadruplex oligonucleotides (G4) offer exciting opportunities for the reversible regulation of these assemblies with potential applications in biological chemistry and responsive nanotechnology. However, achieving the robust regulation of G4 ligand activity with low-energy visible light sources that are easily accessible and compatible with biological systems remains a significant challenge to realizing these applications. Herein, we report the G4-binding properties of a photoresponsive dithienylethene (DTE). We demonstrate the first example of G4-specific acceleration of the photoswitching kinetics of a small molecule and the visible-light mediated switching of the G4 ligand binding mode in physiologically-relevant conditions, which in turn allows control over the G4 tetrad structure of telomeric G4 in potassium buffer. The process is fully reversible and avoids the need for high-energy UV light. This affords an efficient, practical and biologically-relevant means of control that may be applied in the generation of new responsive G4/ligand supramolecular systems.

General and reliable description of structures and energetics in protein–ligand (PL) binding using the docking/scoring methodology has until now been elusive. We address this urgent deficiency of scoring functions (SFs) by the systematic development of corrected semiempirical quantum mechanical (SQM) methods, which correctly describe all types of noncovalent interactions and are fast enough to treat systems of thousands of atoms. Two most accurate SQM methods, PM6-D3H4X and SCC-DFTB3-D3H4X, are coupled with the conductor-like screening model (COSMO) implicit solvation model in so-called “SQM/COSMO” SFs and have shown unique recognition of native ligand poses in cognate docking in four challenging PL systems, including metalloprotein. Here, we apply the two SQM/COSMO SFs to 17 diverse PL complexes and compare their performance with four widely used classical SFs (Glide XP, AutoDock4, AutoDock Vina, and UCSF Dock). We observe superior performance of the SQM/COSMO SFs and identify challenging systems. This method, due to its generality, comparability across the chemical space, and lack of need for any system-specific parameters, gives promise of becoming, after comprehensive large-scale testing in the near future, a useful computational tool in structure-based drug design and serving as a reference method for the development of other SFs.

We have recently introduced the “SQM/COSMO” scoring function which combines a semiempirical quantum mechanical description of noncovalent interactions at the PM6-D3H4X level and the COSMO implicit model of solvation. This approach outperformed standard scoring functions but faced challenges with a metalloprotein featuring a Zn2+···S– interaction. Here, we invoke SCC-DFTB3-D3H4, a higher-level SQM method, and observe improved behavior for the metalloprotein and high-quality results for the other systems. This method holds promise for diverse protein–ligand complexes including metalloproteins.

Simulations can provide detailed insight into the molecular processes involved in drug action, such as protein–ligand binding, and can therefore be a valuable tool for drug design and development. Processes with a large range of length and timescales may be involved, and understanding these different scales typically requires different types of simulation methodology. Ideally, simulations should be able to connect across scales, to analyze and predict how changes at one scale can influence another. Multiscale simulation methods, which combine different levels of treatment, are an emerging frontier with great potential in this area. Here we review multiscale frameworks of various types, and selected applications to biomolecular systems with a focus on drug–ligand binding.

The polymorphic nature of G‐quadruplex (G4) DNA structures points to a range of potential applications in nanodevices and an opportunity to control G4 in biological settings. Light is an attractive means for the regulation of oligonucleotide structure as it can be delivered with high spatiotemporal precision. However, surprisingly little attention has been devoted towards the development of ligands for G4 that allow photoregulation of G4 folding. We report a novel G4‐binding chemotype derived from stiff‐stilbene. Surprisingly however, whilst the ligand induces high stabilization in the potassium form of human telomeric DNA, it causes the unfolding of the same G4 sequence in sodium buffer. This effect can be reversed on demand by irradiation with 400 nm light through deactivation of the ligand by photo‐oxidation. By fuelling the system with the photolabile ligand, the conformation of G4 DNA was switched five times.

Drug–target binding kinetics has recently emerged as a sometimes critical determinant of in vivo efficacy and toxicity. Its rational optimization to improve potency or reduce side effects of drugs is, however, extremely difficult. Molecular simulations can play a crucial role in identifying features and properties of small ligands and their protein targets affecting the binding kinetics, but significant challenges include the long time scales involved in (un)binding events and the limited accuracy of empirical atomistic force fields (lacking, e.g., changes in electronic polarization). In an effort to overcome these hurdles, we propose a method that combines state-of-the-art enhanced sampling simulations and quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) calculations at the BLYP/VDZ level to compute association free energy profiles and characterize the binding kinetics in terms of structure and dynamics of the transition state ensemble. We test our combined approach on the binding of the anticancer drug Imatinib to Src kinase, a well-characterized target for cancer therapy with a complex binding mechanism involving significant conformational changes. The results indicate significant changes in polarization along the binding pathways, which affect the predicted binding kinetics. This is likely to be of widespread importance in binding of ligands to protein targets.

Dissociation energies (D0) of 11 H-bonded and 11 dispersion-bound complexes were calculated as the sum of interaction energies and the change of zero-point vibrational energies (ΔZPVE). The structures of H-bonded complexes were optimized at the RI-MP2/cc-pVTZ level, at which deformation and harmonic ΔZPVE energies were also calculated. The structures of dispersion-bound complexes were optimized at the DFT-D3 level, and harmonic ΔZPVE energies were determined at the same level as well. For comparison, CCSD(T)/CBS D0 energies were also evaluated for both types of complexes. The CCSD(T)/CBS interaction energy was constructed as the sum of MP2/CBS interaction energy, extrapolated from aug-cc-pVTZ and aug-cc-pVQZ basis sets, and ΔCCSD(T) correction, determined with the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set. The ΔZPVE energies were determined for all complexes at the harmonic level and for selected complexes, these energies were also calculated using second-order vibration perturbation (VPT2) theory. For H-bonded complexes, the harmonic CCSD(T)/CBS D0 energies were in better agreement with the experimental values (with a mean relative error (MRE) of 6.2%) than the RI-MP2/cc-pVTZ D0 (a MRE of 12.3%). The same trend was found for dispersion-bound complexes (6.2% (MRE) at CCSD(T)/CBS and 7.7% (MRE) at the DFT-D3 level). When the anharmonic ΔZPVE term was included instead of harmonic one, the agreement between theoretical and experimental D0 deteriorated for H-bonded as well as dispersion-bound complexes. Finally, the applicability of "diagonal approximation" for determining the anharmonic ΔZPVE was shown. For the phenolH2O complex, the ΔZPVE energy calculated at the VPT2 level and on the basis of "diagonal approximation" differed by less than 0.1 kcal mol(-1).

We present comprehensive testing of solvent representation in quantum mechanics (QM)-based scoring of protein-ligand affinities. To this aim, we prepared 21 new inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) with the pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine core, whose activities spanned three orders of magnitude. The crystal structure of a potent inhibitor bound to the active CDK2/cyclin A complex revealed that the biphenyl substituent at position 5 of the pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine scaffold was located in a previously unexplored pocket and that six water molecules resided in the active site. Using molecular dynamics, protein-ligand interactions and active-site water H-bond networks as well as thermodynamics were probed. Thereafter, all the inhibitors were scored by the QM approach utilizing the COSMO implicit solvent model. Such a standard treatment failed to produce a correlation with the experiment (R-2 = 0.49). However, the addition of the active-site waters resulted in significant improvement (R-2 = 0.68). The activities of the compounds could thus be interpreted by taking into account their specific noncovalent interactions with CDK2 and the active-site waters. In summary, using a combination of several experimental and theoretical approaches we demonstrate that the inclusion of explicit solvent effects enhance QM/COSMO scoring to produce a reliable structure activity relationship with physical insights. More generally, this approach is envisioned to contribute to increased accuracy of the computational design of novel inhibitors. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

The adsorption of the DNA bases and base pairs on the hydrophobic silica surface has been investigated by ab initio quantum mechanical (QM) methods (DFT–D) and molecular mechanics (MM) and also by biased molecular dynamics (MD) simulations (metadynamics). The structures of all the clusters (surface with single-bases and base pairs) predicted by means of the force field are compared with the results of direct QM calculations. The MM interaction energies for all clusters agreed well with the QM ones, which justifies the use of MM methods in the evaluation of accurate adsorption free energies. Rigid rotor–harmonic oscillator–ideal gas (RR–HO–IG) calculations based on QM and MM entropies as well as biased metadynamics (MTD) simulations based on MM demonstrated that mA–mT (Adenine–Thymine) and mG–mC (Guanine–Cytosine) base pairs are adsorbed on a fully solvated silica surface in different H-bonded forms. Both QM and MM techniques convincingly demonstrated that adsorptions of any H-bonded (Watson–Crick (WC), no...

Various cluster models of graphene and a periodic graphene with two organic electron acceptors (tetracyanoethylene and tetracyanoquinodimethane) were investigated by means of several quantum chemical and molecular mechanical approaches. The benchmark interaction energies of the coronene complexes were calculated at the MP2.5/CBS/6-31G*(0.25) level of theory. The SCS-MI-MP2, BLYP-D3 and, surprisingly, also AMBER showed modest agreement in the absolute as well as relative interaction energies. Consequently, larger complexes were investigated at these lower levels of theory including also DFTB-D. Charge transfer was calculated on the basis of Mulliken and NBO analysis. A high correlation between the interaction energies and charge transfer was observed. Further, vibrational analysis of the complexes revealed the association free energies for the gas phase and aqueous environment at the DFTB-D and AMBER levels. Extensive potential of mean force molecular dynamics simulations were carried out for all of the gr...

RNA hairpins capped by 5'-GNRA-3' or 5'-UNCG-3' tetraloops (TLs) are prominent RNA structural motifs. Despite their small size, a wealth of experimental data, and recent progress in theoretical simulations of their structural dynamics and folding, our understanding of the folding and unfolding processes of these small RNA elements is still limited. Theoretical description of the folding and unfolding processes requires robust sampling, which can be achieved by either an exhaustive time scale in standard molecular dynamics simulations or sophisticated enhanced sampling methods, using temperature acceleration or biasing potentials. Here, we study structural dynamics of 5'-GNRA-3' and 5'-UNCG-3' TLs by 15-μs-long standard simulations and a series of well-tempered metadynamics, attempting to accelerate sampling by bias in a few chosen collective variables (CVs). Both methods provide useful insights. The unfolding and refolding mechanisms of the GNRA TL observed by well-tempered metadynamics agree with the (reverse) folding mechanism suggested by recent replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations. The orientation of the glycosidic bond of the GL4 nucleobase is critical for the UUCG TL folding pathway, and our data strongly support the hypothesis that GL4-anti forms a kinetic trap along the folding pathway. Along with giving useful insight, our study also demonstrates that using only a few CVs apparently does not capture the full folding landscape of the RNA TLs. Despite using several sophisticated selections of the CVs, formation of the loop appears to remain a hidden variable, preventing a full convergence of the metadynamics. Finally, our data suggest that the unfolded state might be overstabilized by the force fields used.

The effect of halogen-to-hydrogen bond substitution on the binding energetics and biological activity of a human aldose reductase inhibitor has been studied using X-ray crystallography, IC50 measurements, advanced binding free energy calculations, and simulations. The replacement of Br or I atoms by an amine (NH2) group has not induced changes in the original geometry of the complex, which made it possible to study the isolated features of selected noncovalent interactions in a biomolecular complex.