Thesis Abstract and Dissertation Abstracts
Molecular modelling and simulation of retroviral proteins and nanobiocomposites
Abstract Category: Science
Course / Degree: MD/PhD
Institution / University: Würzburg University, Germany
Published in: 2011
Molecular modelling and simulation are powerful methods in providing important information on different biological systems to elucidate their structural and functional properties, which cannot be determined in experiment. These methods are applied to analyse versatile biological systems: lipid membrane bilayers stabilized by an intercalated single wall carbon nanotube and retroviral proteins such as HIV protease and integrase.
HIV-1 integrase has nuclear localization signals (NLS) which play a crucial role in nuclear import of viral preintegration complex (PIC). However, the detailed mechanisms of PIC formation and its nuclear transport are not known. Previously it was shown that NLSs bind to the cell transport machinery e.g. proteins of nuclear pore complex such as transportins. I investigated the interaction of this viral protein HIV-1 integrase with proteins of the nuclear pore complex such as transportin-SR2 (Shityakov et al., 2010). I showed that the transportin-SR2 in nuclear import is required due to its interaction with the HIV-1 integrase. I analyzed key domain interaction, and hydrogen bond formation in transportin-SR2. These results were discussed in comparison to other retroviral species such as foamy viruses to better understand this specific and efficient retroviral trafficking route.
The retroviral nuclear import was next analyzed in experiments regarding the retroviral ability to infect nondividing cells. To accomplish the gene transfer task successfully, retroviruses must efficiently transduce different cell cultures at different phases of cell cycle. However, promising and safe foamy viral vectors used for gene transfer are unable to efficiently infect quiescent cells. This drawback was due to their inability to create a preintegration complex (PIC) for nuclear import of retroviral DNA. On the contrary, the lentiviral vectors are not dependant on cell cycle. In the course of reverse transcription the polypurine tract (PPT) is believed to be crucial for PIC formation.
In this thesis, I compared the transduction frequencies of PPT modified FV vectors with lentiviral vectors in nondividing and dividing alveolar basal epithelial cells from human adenocarcinoma (A549) by using molecular cloning, transfection and transduction techniques and several other methods. In contrast to lentiviral vectors, FV vectors were not able to efficiently transduce nondividing cell (Shityakov and Rethwilm, unpublished data). Despite the findings, which support the use of FV vectors as a safe and efficient alternative to lentiviral vectors, major limitation in terms of foamy-based retroviral vector gene transfer in quiescent cells still remains.
Many attempts have been made recently to search for the potential molecules as possible drug candidates to treat HIV infection for over decades now. These molecules can be retrieved from chemical libraries or can be designed on a computer screen and then synthesized in a laboratory. Most notably, one could use the computerized structure as a reference to determine the types of molecules that might block the enzyme. Such structure-based drug design strategies have the potential to save off years and millions of dollars compared to a more traditional trial-and-error drug development process.
After the crystal structure of the HIV-encoded protease enzyme had been elucidated, computer-aided drug design played a pivotal role in the development of new compounds that inhibit this enzyme which is responsible for HIV maturation and infectivity. Promising representatives of these compounds have recently found their way to patients. Protease inhibitors show a powerful sustained suppression of HIV-1 replication, especially when used in combination therapy regimens. However, these drugs are becoming less effective to more resistant HIV strains due to multiple mutations in the retroviral proteases.
In computational drug design I used molecular modelling methods such as lead expansion algorithm (Tripos®) to create a virtual library of compounds with different binding affinities to protease binding site. In addition, I heavily applied computer assisted combinatorial chemistry approaches to design and optimize virtual libraries of protease inhibitors and performed in silico screening and pharmacophore-similarity scoring of these drug candidates. Further computational analyses revealed one unique compound with different protease binding ability from the initial hit and its role for possible new class of protease inhibitors is discussed (Shityakov and Dandekar, 2009).
A number of atomistic models were developed to elucidate the nanotube behaviour in lipid bilayers. However, none of them provided useful information for CNT effect upon the lipid membrane bilayer for implementing all-atom models that will allow us to calculate the deviations of lipid molecules from CNT with atomistic precision. Unfortunately, the direct experimental investigation of nanotube behaviour in lipid bilayer remains quite a tricky problem opening the door before the molecular simulation techniques. In this regard, more detailed multi-scale simulations are needed to clearly understand the stabilization characteristics of CNTs in hydrophobic environment.
The phenomenon of an intercalated single-wall carbon nanotube in the center of lipid membrane was extensively studied and analyzed. The root mean square deviation and root mean square fluctuation functions were calculated in order to measure stability of lipid membranes.
The results indicated that an intercalated carbon nanotube restrains the conformational freedom of adjacent lipids and hence has an impact on the membrane stabilization dynamics (Shityakov and Dandekar, 2011). On the other hand, different lipid membranes may have dissimilarities due to the differing abilities to create a bridge formation between the adherent lipid molecules. The results derived from this thesis will help to develop stable nanobiocomposites for construction of novel biomaterials and delivery of various biomolecules for medicine and biology.
Dissertation Keywords/Search Tags:
viral proteins, docking, molecular dynamics, nanobiocomposites
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Submission Details: Dissertation Abstract submitted by Sergey Shityakov from Germany on 17-May-2011 15:24.
Abstract has been viewed 3523 times (since 7 Mar 2010).
Sergey Shityakov Contact Details: Email: shityakoff@mail.ru
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