The flexibility of P-glycoprotein for its poly-specific drug binding from molecular dynamics simulations

J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2013;31(6):612-29. doi: 10.1080/07391102.2012.706079. Epub 2012 Aug 13.

Abstract

The multidrug efflux pump P-glycoprotein (P-gp) contributes to multidrug resistance in about half of human cancers. Recently, high resolution X-ray crystal structures of mouse P-gp (inward-facing) were reported, which significantly facilitates the understanding of the function of P-gp and the structure-based design of inhibitors for P-gp. Here we perform 20 ns molecular dynamics simulations of inward-facing P-gp with/without ligand in explicit lipid and water to investigate the flexibility of P-gp for its poly-specific drug binding. By analyzing the interactions between P-gp and QZ59-RRR or QZ59-SSS, we summarize the important residues and the flexibility of different parts of P-gp. Particularly, the flexibility of the side chains of aromatic residues (Phe and Tyr) allows them to form rotamers with different orientations in the binding pocket, which plays a critical role for the poly-specificity of the drug-binding cavity of P-gp. MD simulations reveal that trans-membrane (TM) TM12 and TM6 are flexible and contribute to the poly-specific drug binding, while TM4 and TM5 are rigid and stabilize the whole structure. We also construct outward-facing P-gp based on the MsbA structure and perform 20 ns MD simulations. The comparison between the MD results for outward-facing P-gp and those for inward-facing P-gp shows that the TM parts in outward-facing P-gp undergo significant conformational change to facilitate the export of small molecules.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B, Member 1 / antagonists & inhibitors
  • ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B, Member 1 / chemistry*
  • ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B, Member 1 / metabolism
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Binding Sites
  • Crystallography, X-Ray
  • Drug Resistance, Multiple
  • Humans
  • Ligands
  • Mice
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Dynamics Simulation*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Peptides, Cyclic / chemistry
  • Peptides, Cyclic / metabolism
  • Protein Conformation
  • Sequence Alignment

Substances

  • ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B, Member 1
  • Ligands
  • Peptides, Cyclic
  • cyclic-tris-(R)-valineselenazole