E487K-Induced Disorder in Functionally Relevant Dynamics of Mitochondrial Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 2.

Mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2), which is a homotetramer assembled by two equivalent dimers, is an important enzyme that metabolizes ethanol-derived acetaldehyde to acetate in a coenzyme-dependent manner. The highly reactive acetaldehyde exhibits a toxic effect, indicating that the proper functioning of ALDH2 is essential to counteract aldehyde-associated diseases. It is known that the catalytic activity of ALDH2 is drastically impaired by a frequently observed mutation, E487K, in a dominant fashion. However, the molecular basis of the inactivation mechanism is elusive because of the complex nature of the dynamic behavior. Here, we performed microsecond-timescale molecular dynamics simulations of the proteins complexed with coenzymes. The E487K mutation elevated the conformational heterogeneity of the dimer interfaces, which are relatively distal from the substituted residue. Dynamic network analyses showed that Glu487 and the dimer interface were dynamically communicated, and the dynamic community further spanned throughout all of the subunits in the wild-type; however, this network was completely rearranged by the E487K mutation. The perturbation of the dynamic properties led to alterations of the global conformational motions and destabilization of the coenzyme binding required for receiving a proton from the catalytic nucleophile. The insights into the dynamic behavior of the dominant negative mutant in this work will provide clues to restore its function.

Improvement in predicting drug sensitivity changes associated with protein mutations using a molecular dynamics based alchemical mutation method.

While molecular-targeted drugs have demonstrated strong therapeutic efficacy against diverse diseases such as cancer and infection, the appearance of drug resistance associated with genetic variations in individual patients or pathogens has severely limited their clinical efficacy. Therefore, precision medicine approaches based on the personal genomic background provide promising strategies to enhance the effectiveness of molecular-targeted therapies. However, identifying drug resistance mutations in individuals by combining DNA sequencing and in vitro analyses is generally time consuming and costly. In contrast, in silico computation of protein-drug binding free energies allows for the rapid prediction of drug sensitivity changes associated with specific genetic mutations. Although conventional alchemical free energy computation methods have been used to quantify mutation-induced drug sensitivity changes in some protein targets, these methods are often adversely affected by free energy convergence. In this paper, we demonstrate significant improvements in prediction performance and free energy convergence by employing an alchemical mutation protocol, MutationFEP, which directly estimates binding free energy differences associated with protein mutations in three types of a protein and drug system. The superior performance of MutationFEP appears to be attributable to its more-moderate perturbation scheme. Therefore, this study provides a deeper level of insight into computer-assisted precision medicine.

Author Correction: Mechanism-based tuning of insect 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde synthase for synthetic bioproduction of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids.

In the original version of this Article, the abbreviation of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde synthase presented in the first paragraph of the Discussion section was given incorrectly as DYPAA. The correct abbreviation for this enzyme is DHPAAS. This error has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

Molecular dynamics simulation-guided drug sensitivity prediction for lung cancer with rare EGFR mutations.

Next generation sequencing (NGS)-based tumor profiling identified an overwhelming number of uncharacterized somatic mutations, also known as variants of unknown significance (VUS). The therapeutic significance of EGFR mutations outside mutational hotspots, consisting of >50 types, in nonsmall cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) is largely unknown. In fact, our pan-nation screening of NSCLC without hotspot EGFR mutations (n = 3,779) revealed that the majority (>90%) of cases with rare EGFR mutations, accounting for 5.5% of the cohort subjects, did not receive EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) as a first-line treatment. To tackle this problem, we applied a molecular dynamics simulation-based model to predict the sensitivity of rare EGFR mutants to EGFR-TKIs. The model successfully predicted the diverse in vitro and in vivo sensitivities of exon 20 insertion mutants, including a singleton, to osimertinib, a third-generation EGFR-TKI (R2 = 0.72, P = 0.0037). Additionally, our model showed a higher consistency with experimentally obtained sensitivity data than other prediction approaches, indicating its robustness in analyzing complex cancer mutations. Thus, the in silico prediction model will be a powerful tool in precision medicine for NSCLC patients carrying rare EGFR mutations in the clinical setting. Here, we propose an insight to overcome mutation diversity in lung cancer.

Mechanism-based tuning of insect 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde synthase for synthetic bioproduction of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids.

Previous studies have utilized monoamine oxidase (MAO) and L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine decarboxylase (DDC) for microbe-based production of tetrahydropapaveroline (THP), a benzylisoquinoline alkaloid (BIA) precursor to opioid analgesics. In the current study, a phylogenetically distinct Bombyx mori 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde synthase (DHPAAS) is identified to bypass MAO and DDC for direct production of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde (DHPAA) from L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA). Structure-based enzyme engineering of DHPAAS results in bifunctional switching between aldehyde synthase and decarboxylase activities. Output of dopamine and DHPAA products is fine-tuned by engineered DHPAAS variants with Phe79Tyr, Tyr80Phe and Asn192His catalytic substitutions. Balance of dopamine and DHPAA products enables improved THP biosynthesis via a symmetrical pathway in Escherichia coli. Rationally engineered insect DHPAAS produces (R,S)-THP in a single enzyme system directly from L-DOPA both in vitro and in vivo, at higher yields than that of the wild-type enzyme. However, DHPAAS-mediated downstream BIA production requires further improvement.

Improving the Accuracy of Protein-Ligand Binding Mode Prediction Using a Molecular Dynamics-Based Pocket Generation Approach.

Protein-drug binding mode prediction from the apo-protein structure is challenging because drug binding often induces significant protein conformational changes. Here, the authors report a computational workflow that incorporates a novel pocket generation method. First, the closed protein pocket is expanded by repeatedly filling virtual atoms during molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Second, after ligand docking toward the prepared pocket structures, binding mode candidates are ranked by MD/Molecular Mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area. The authors validated our workflow using CDK2 kinase, which has an especially-closed ATP-binding pocket in the apo-form, and several inhibitors. The crystallographic pose coincided with the top-ranked docking pose for 59% (34/58) of the compounds and was within the top five-ranked ones for 88% (51/58), while those estimated by a conventional prediction protocol were 9% (5/58) and 50% (29/58), respectively. Our study demonstrates that the prediction accuracy is significantly improved by preceding pocket expansion, leading to generation of conformationally-diverse binding mode candidates. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Quantitative assessment of harmonic power doppler myocardial perfusion imaging with intravenous Levovist in patients with myocardial infarction: comparison with myocardial viability evaluated by coronary flow reserve and coronary flow pattern of infarct-related artery.

BACKGROUND: Myocardial contrast echocardiography and coronary flow velocity pattern with a rapid diastolic deceleration time after percutaneous coronary intervention has been reported to be useful in assessing microvascular damage in patients with acute myocardial infarction. AIM: To evaluate myocardial contrast echocardiography with harmonic power Doppler imaging, coronary flow velocity reserve and coronary artery flow pattern in predicting functional recovery by using transthoracic echocardiography. METHODS: Thirty patients with anterior acute myocardial infarction underwent myocardial contrast echocardiography at rest and during hyperemia and were quantitatively analyzed by the peak color pixel intensity ratio of the risk area to the control area (PIR). Coronary flow pattern was measured using transthoracic echocardiography in the distal portion of left anterior descending artery within 24 hours after recanalization and we assessed deceleration time of diastolic flow velocity. Coronary flow velocity reserve was calculated two weeks after acute myocardial infarction. Left ventricular end-diastolic volumes and ejection fraction by angiography were computed. RESULTS: Pts were divided into 2 groups according to the deceleration time of coronary artery flow pattern (Group A; 20 pts with deceleration time > or = 600 msec, Group B; 10 pts with deceleration time < 600 msec). In acute phase, there were no significant differences in left ventricular end-diastolic volume and ejection fraction (Left ventricular end-diastolic volume 112 +/- 33 vs. 146 +/- 38 ml, ejection fraction 50 +/- 7 vs. 45 +/- 9 %; group A vs. B). However, left ventricular end-diastolic volume in Group B was significantly larger than that in Group A (192 +/- 39 vs. 114 +/- 30 ml, p < 0.01), and ejection fraction in Group B was significantly lower than that in Group A (39 +/- 9 vs. 52 +/- 7%, p < 0.01) at 6 months. PIR and coronary flow velocity reserve of Group A were higher than Group B (PIR, at rest: 0.668 +/- 0.178 vs. 0.248 +/- 0.015, p < 0.0001: during hyperemia 0.725 +/- 0.194 vs. 0.295 +/- 0.107, p < 0.0001; coronary flow velocity reserve, 2.60 +/- 0.80 vs. 1.31 +/- 0.29, p = 0.0002, respectively). CONCLUSION: The preserved microvasculature detecting by myocardial contrast echocardiography and coronary flow velocity reserve is related to functional recovery after acute myocardial infarction.