Reconstruction of the Fas-Based Death-Inducing Signaling Complex (DISC) Using a Protein-Protein Docking Meta-Approach

J Chem Inf Model. 2021 Jul 26;61(7):3543-3558. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c00301. Epub 2021 Jul 1.

Abstract

The death-inducing signaling complex (DISC) is a fundamental multiprotein complex, which triggers the extrinsic apoptosis pathway through stimulation by death ligands. DISC consists of different death domain (DD) and death effector domain (DED) containing proteins such as the death receptor Fas (CD95) in complex with FADD, procaspase-8, and cFLIP. Despite many experimental and theoretical studies in this area, there is no global agreement neither on the DISC architecture nor on the mechanism of action of the involved species. In the current work, we have tried to reconstruct the DISC structure by identifying key protein interactions using a new protein-protein docking meta-approach. We combined the benefits of five of the most employed protein-protein docking engines, HADDOCK, ClusPro, HDOCK, GRAMM-X, and ZDOCK, in order to improve the accuracy of the predicted docking complexes. Free energy of binding and hot spot interacting residues were calculated and determined for each protein-protein interaction using molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area and alanine scanning techniques, respectively. In addition, a series of in-cellulo protein-fragment complementation assays were conducted to validate the protein-protein docking procedure. The results show that the DISC formation initiates by dimerization of adjacent FasDD trimers followed by recruitment of FADD through homotypic DD interactions with the oligomerized death receptor. Furthermore, the in-silico outcomes indicate that cFLIP cannot bind directly to FADD; instead, cFLIP recruitment to the DISC is a hierarchical and cooperative process where FADD initially recruits procaspase-8, which in turn recruits and heterodimerizes with cFLIP. Finally, a possible structure of the entire DISC is proposed based on the docking results.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Apoptosis*
  • CASP8 and FADD-Like Apoptosis Regulating Protein / chemistry
  • Caspase 8
  • Cell Membrane / chemistry
  • Death Domain Receptor Signaling Adaptor Proteins / chemistry*
  • Fas-Associated Death Domain Protein / chemistry
  • Protein Interaction Mapping
  • Signal Transduction*

Substances

  • CASP8 and FADD-Like Apoptosis Regulating Protein
  • Death Domain Receptor Signaling Adaptor Proteins
  • Fas-Associated Death Domain Protein
  • Caspase 8