Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)

Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular Apicomplexan parasite and a causative agent of toxoplasmosis in human. It causes encephalitis, uveitis, chorioretinitis, and congenital infection. T. gondii invades the host cell by forming a moving junction (MJ) complex. This complex formation is initiated by i...

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Main Authors: Umashankar Vetrivel, Shalini Muralikumar, B Mahalakshmi, K Lily Therese, HN Madhavan, Mohamed Alameen, Indhuja Thirumudi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BioMed Central 2016-06-01
Series:Genomics & Informatics
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Online Access:http://genominfo.org/upload/pdf/gni-14-53.pdf
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author Umashankar Vetrivel
Shalini Muralikumar
B Mahalakshmi
K Lily Therese
HN Madhavan
Mohamed Alameen
Indhuja Thirumudi
author_facet Umashankar Vetrivel
Shalini Muralikumar
B Mahalakshmi
K Lily Therese
HN Madhavan
Mohamed Alameen
Indhuja Thirumudi
author_sort Umashankar Vetrivel
collection DOAJ
description Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular Apicomplexan parasite and a causative agent of toxoplasmosis in human. It causes encephalitis, uveitis, chorioretinitis, and congenital infection. T. gondii invades the host cell by forming a moving junction (MJ) complex. This complex formation is initiated by intermolecular interactions between the two secretory parasitic proteins—namely, apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA1) and rhoptry neck protein 2 (RON2) and is critically essential for the host invasion process. By this study, we propose two potential leads, NSC95522 and NSC179676 that can efficiently target the AMA1 hydrophobic cleft, which is a hotspot for targeting MJ complex formation. The proposed leads are the result of an exhaustive conformational search-based virtual screen with multilevel precision scoring of the docking affinities. These two compounds surpassed all the precision levels of docking and also the stringent post docking and cumulative molecular dynamics evaluations. Moreover, the backbone flexibility of hotspot residues in the hydrophobic cleft, which has been previously reported to be essential for accommodative binding of RON2 to AMA1, was also highly perturbed by these compounds. Furthermore, binding free energy calculations of these two compounds also revealed a significant affinity to AMA1. Machine learning approaches also predicted these two compounds to possess more relevant activities. Hence, these two leads, NSC95522 and NSC179676, may prove to be potential inhibitors targeting AMA1-RON2 complex formation towards combating toxoplasmosis.
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institution Kabale University
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spelling doaj-art-91b70643267d4e619e9e9da8f03e724b2025-02-02T20:58:44ZengBioMed CentralGenomics & Informatics1598-866X2234-07422016-06-01142536110.5808/GI.2016.14.2.53192Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)Umashankar Vetrivel0Shalini Muralikumar1B Mahalakshmi2K Lily Therese3HN Madhavan4Mohamed Alameen5Indhuja Thirumudi6Centre for Bioinformatics, Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai 600-006, India.Centre for Bioinformatics, Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai 600-006, India.L&T Microbiology Research Centre, Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai 600-006, India.L&T Microbiology Research Centre, Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai 600-006, India.L&T Microbiology Research Centre, Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai 600-006, India.Centre for Bioinformatics, Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai 600-006, India.Centre for Bioinformatics, Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai 600-006, India.Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular Apicomplexan parasite and a causative agent of toxoplasmosis in human. It causes encephalitis, uveitis, chorioretinitis, and congenital infection. T. gondii invades the host cell by forming a moving junction (MJ) complex. This complex formation is initiated by intermolecular interactions between the two secretory parasitic proteins—namely, apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA1) and rhoptry neck protein 2 (RON2) and is critically essential for the host invasion process. By this study, we propose two potential leads, NSC95522 and NSC179676 that can efficiently target the AMA1 hydrophobic cleft, which is a hotspot for targeting MJ complex formation. The proposed leads are the result of an exhaustive conformational search-based virtual screen with multilevel precision scoring of the docking affinities. These two compounds surpassed all the precision levels of docking and also the stringent post docking and cumulative molecular dynamics evaluations. Moreover, the backbone flexibility of hotspot residues in the hydrophobic cleft, which has been previously reported to be essential for accommodative binding of RON2 to AMA1, was also highly perturbed by these compounds. Furthermore, binding free energy calculations of these two compounds also revealed a significant affinity to AMA1. Machine learning approaches also predicted these two compounds to possess more relevant activities. Hence, these two leads, NSC95522 and NSC179676, may prove to be potential inhibitors targeting AMA1-RON2 complex formation towards combating toxoplasmosis.http://genominfo.org/upload/pdf/gni-14-53.pdfapical membrane antigen 1drug designhydrophobic interactionmolecular docking analysesrhoptry neck protein 2toxoplasmosis
spellingShingle Umashankar Vetrivel
Shalini Muralikumar
B Mahalakshmi
K Lily Therese
HN Madhavan
Mohamed Alameen
Indhuja Thirumudi
Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)
Genomics & Informatics
apical membrane antigen 1
drug design
hydrophobic interaction
molecular docking analyses
rhoptry neck protein 2
toxoplasmosis
title Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)
title_full Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)
title_fullStr Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)
title_full_unstemmed Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)
title_short Multilevel Precision-Based Rational Design of Chemical Inhibitors Targeting the Hydrophobic Cleft of Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1)
title_sort multilevel precision based rational design of chemical inhibitors targeting the hydrophobic cleft of apical membrane antigen 1 ama1
topic apical membrane antigen 1
drug design
hydrophobic interaction
molecular docking analyses
rhoptry neck protein 2
toxoplasmosis
url http://genominfo.org/upload/pdf/gni-14-53.pdf
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