G protein coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2) is a kinase that regulates cardiac signaling activity. Inhibiting GRK2 is a promising mechanism for the treatment of heart failure (HF). Further development and optimization ...G protein coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2) is a kinase that regulates cardiac signaling activity. Inhibiting GRK2 is a promising mechanism for the treatment of heart failure (HF). Further development and optimization of inhibitors targeting GRK2 are highly meaningful. Therefore, in order to design GRK2 inhibitors with better performance, the most active molecule was selected as a reference compound from a data set containing 4-pyridylhydrazone derivatives and triazole derivatives, and its scaffold was extracted as the initial scaffold. Then, a powerful optimization-based framework for de novo drug design, guided by binding affinity, was used to generate a virtual molecular library targeting GRK2. The binding affinity of each virtual compound in this dataset was predicted by our developed deep learning model, and the designed potential compound with high binding affinity was selected for molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation. It was found that the designed potential molecule binds to the ATP site of GRK2, which consists of key amino acids including Arg199, Gly200, Phe202, Val205, Lys220, Met274 and Asp335. The scaffold of the molecule is stabilized mainly by H-bonding and hydrophobic contacts. Concurrently, the reference compound in the dataset was also simulated by docking. It was found that this molecule also binds to the ATP site of GRK2. In addition, its scaffold is stabilized mainly by H-bonding and π-cation stacking interactions with Lys220, as well as hydrophobic contacts. The above results show that the designed potential molecule has similar binding modes to the reference compound, supporting the effectiveness of our framework for activity-focused molecular design. Finally, we summarized the interaction characteristics of general GRK2 inhibitors and gained insight into their molecule-target binding mechanisms, thereby facilitating the expansion of lead to hit compound.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Excellent Young Scientist Fund(22422801)the National Natural Science Foundation of China General Project(22278053)+1 种基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China General Project(22078041)Dalian High-level Talents Innovation Support Program(2023RQ059).
文摘G protein coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2) is a kinase that regulates cardiac signaling activity. Inhibiting GRK2 is a promising mechanism for the treatment of heart failure (HF). Further development and optimization of inhibitors targeting GRK2 are highly meaningful. Therefore, in order to design GRK2 inhibitors with better performance, the most active molecule was selected as a reference compound from a data set containing 4-pyridylhydrazone derivatives and triazole derivatives, and its scaffold was extracted as the initial scaffold. Then, a powerful optimization-based framework for de novo drug design, guided by binding affinity, was used to generate a virtual molecular library targeting GRK2. The binding affinity of each virtual compound in this dataset was predicted by our developed deep learning model, and the designed potential compound with high binding affinity was selected for molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation. It was found that the designed potential molecule binds to the ATP site of GRK2, which consists of key amino acids including Arg199, Gly200, Phe202, Val205, Lys220, Met274 and Asp335. The scaffold of the molecule is stabilized mainly by H-bonding and hydrophobic contacts. Concurrently, the reference compound in the dataset was also simulated by docking. It was found that this molecule also binds to the ATP site of GRK2. In addition, its scaffold is stabilized mainly by H-bonding and π-cation stacking interactions with Lys220, as well as hydrophobic contacts. The above results show that the designed potential molecule has similar binding modes to the reference compound, supporting the effectiveness of our framework for activity-focused molecular design. Finally, we summarized the interaction characteristics of general GRK2 inhibitors and gained insight into their molecule-target binding mechanisms, thereby facilitating the expansion of lead to hit compound.
