Biomedical subjects

Qingsen Yu

Publications and source records attributed to Qingsen Yu.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

Insight into the activity of SARS main protease: Molecular dynamics study of dimeric and monomeric form of enzyme.

The phenomenon that SARS coronavirus main protease (SARS M(pro)) dimer is the main functional form has been confirmed by experiment. However, because of the absence of structural information of the monomer, the reasons for this remain unknown. To investigate it, two molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in water for dimer and monomer models have been carried out, using the crystal structure of protomer A of the dimer as the starting structure for the monomer. During the MD simulation of dimer, three interest phenomena of protomer A have been observed: (i) the distance between NE2 of His41 and SG of Cys145 averages 3.72 A, which agrees well with the experimental observations made by X-ray crystallography; (ii) His163 and Glu166 form the "tooth" conformational properties, resulting in the specificity for glutamine at substrate P1 site; and (iii) the substrate-binding pocket formed by loop 140-146 and loop 184-197 is large enough to accommodate the substrate analog. However, during the MD simulation of the monomer complex, the three structural characteristics are all absent, which results directly in the inactivation of the monomer. Throughout the MD simulation of the dimer, the N-terminus of protomer B forms stable hydrogen bonds with Phe140 and Glu166, through which His163, Glu166, and loop 140-146 are kept active form. Furthermore, a water-bridge has been found between the N-terminus of protomer B and Gly170, which stabilizes His172 and avoids it moving toward Tyr161 to disrupt the H-bond between Tyr161 and His163, stabilizing the conformation of His163. The interactions between the N-terminus and another monomer maintain the activity of dimer.

Catalytic Domain↗

PubMed2006

3D QSAR for GSK-3beta inhibition by indirubin analogues.

Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK-3) plays an important role in a diverse number of regulatory pathways by phosphorylation of several different cellular targets and its inhibitors have been evaluated as promising drug candidates. Indirubin analogues show favorable inhibitory activity targeting GSK-3beta, which is closely related to the property and position of substituents. Two methods were used to build 3D-QSAR models for indirubin derivatives. The conventional 3D-QSAR (ligand-based) studies were performed based on the lower energy conformations employing atom fit alignment rule. The receptor-based 3D-QSAR models were also derived using bioactive conformations obtained by docking the compounds to the active site of GSK-3. Conclusions of models based on two methods are similar and reliable. The results indicate that both ligand-based and receptor-based are feasible tools to build 3D-QSAR models. Contour maps of the receptor-based CoMSIA model (q(2) = 0.766, r(2) = 0.908, N (number of components) = 5) including the steric, electronic and hydrophobic fields were taken as representative to explain factors affecting activities of inhibitors.

Antibiotics, Antineoplastic↗

PubMed2005

Triangular halogen trimers. A DFT study of the structure, cooperativity, and vibrational properties.

Triangular halogen trimers (RX)3, where X = Br, I and R represents H, H3C, H2FC, HF2C, F3C, CH2=CH, CH[triple bond]C, and Ph, have been investigated using the density functional theory in the Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof method. We report herein the optimized geometries of the stable structures, their vibrational frequencies, and binding energies with the two- and three-body terms. All trimer structures possess a cyclic array of halogen atoms in the type II approach by virtue of the nonspherical atomic charge distribution around the halogens. The Br...Br interactions in trimers are very weak, whereas the I...I interactions in trimers are relatively stronger. While all bromine trimers and most of iodine trimers are predicted to be noncooperative, three of iodine trimers show weak cooperativity. The analysis of vibration modes reveals that all halogen trimers exhibit no especially remarkable frequency shifts. It is also shown that the electrostatic contribution plays a major role in the halogen...halogen interactions in halogen trimers. In contrast to bromine trimers, the relative contribution of charge-transfer component to the halogen...halogen interactions becomes more important for iodine trimers.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2005

Some insights into the stereochemistry of inhibition of macrophage migration inhibitory factor with 2-fluoro-p-hydroxycinnamate and its analogues from molecular dynamics simulations.

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) exhibits tautomerase activity on phenylpyruvate and has E-stereochemistry preference. To investigate the binding modes of its competitive inhibitors and evaluate their binding affinities, molecular dynamics simulations together with MM-PBSA (molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area) analysis were performed on MIF complexed with (E)-2-fluoro-p-hydroxycinnamate and five analogues. Pro-1 was discovered to form a bifurcated hydrogen bond between its protonated nitrogen and carboxylate oxygens of E-ligands and Tyr-36. No hydrogen bonds were found between Pro-1 and Z-ligands. This distinct binding characteristic of E- and Z-ligands with Pro-1 may be the main factor for the large difference in their binding affinities, which is consistent with the previous report that Pro-1 is essential for the catalytic activity of MIF. MM-PBSA analysis revealed that energy components including van der Waals, electrostatic, and hydrophobic interactions are in favor of binding, among which electrostatic interactions are predominant to the binding affinity difference.

Cinnamates↗

PubMed2005

3D QSAR studies on GSK-3 inhibition by aloisines.

GSK-3 is involved in various physiological processes and its inhibitors have been evaluated as promising drug candidates for a lot of unmet pathologies. In this paper, inhibition of GSK-3 by aloisines is investigated by 3D QSAR studies. Two alignment rules were applied to check the influence of spatial alignment of the compounds. Both the CoMFA and CoMSIA techniques were carried out and ASS procedure was applied for CoMFA to find a satisfactory model. The best QSAR model obtained is a CoMSIA model characterized with r(2) of 0.938 and q(2) of 0.673 including steric, electrostatic and hydrophobic fields, possessing good predicting ability. To get a better understanding of the relationship between chemical structure and biological activity, a complex structure of aloisine with GSK-3 was obtained by superimposing GSK-3 into the known cocrystal structure of aloisine-CDK2, and then factors that affect the inhibition activity were investigated further, combining the QSAR study with the complex structure, the results of which are in good accordance and complementary to each other.

Binding Sites↗

PubMed2002

3D-QSAR studies on 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase inhibitors by comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA).

A comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) of alkanoic acid 3-oxo-cyclohex-1-enyl ester and 2-acylcyclohexane-1,3-dione derivatives of 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase inhibitors has been performed to determine the factors required for the activity of these compounds. The substrate's conformation abstracted from dynamic modeling of the enzyme-substrate complex was used to build the initial structures of the inhibitors. Satisfactory results were obtained after an all-space searching procedure, performing a leave-one out (LOO) cross-validation study with cross-validation q(2) and conventional r(2) values of 0.779 and 0.989, respectively. The results provide the tools for predicting the affinity of related compounds, and for guiding the design and synthesis of new HPPD ligands with predetermined affinities.

4-Hydroxyphenylpyruvate Dioxygenase↗