Publications by authors named "Alejandro Varela-Rial"

Mutations in the human gene cause the neurodevelopmental PURA syndrome. In contrast to several other monogenetic disorders, almost all reported mutations in this nucleic acid-binding protein result in the full disease penetrance. In this study, we observed that patient mutations across PURA impair its previously reported co-localization with processing bodies.

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Machine learning potentials have emerged as a means to enhance the accuracy of biomolecular simulations. However, their application is constrained by the significant computational cost arising from the vast number of parameters compared with traditional molecular mechanics. To tackle this issue, we introduce an optimized implementation of the hybrid method (NNP/MM), which combines a neural network potential (NNP) and molecular mechanics (MM).

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Deep learning has been successfully applied to structure-based protein-ligand affinity prediction, yet the black box nature of these models raises some questions. In a previous study, we presented K, a convolutional neural network that predicted the binding affinity of a given protein-ligand complex while reaching state-of-the-art performance. However, it was unclear what this model was learning.

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G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are involved in numerous physiological processes and are the most frequent targets of approved drugs. The explosion in the number of new three-dimensional (3D) molecular structures of GPCRs (3D-GPCRome) over the last decade has greatly advanced the mechanistic understanding and drug design opportunities for this protein family. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have become a widely established technique for exploring the conformational landscape of proteins at an atomic level.

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SkeleDock is a scaffold docking algorithm which uses the structure of a protein-ligand complex as a template to model the binding mode of a chemically similar system. This algorithm was evaluated in the D3R Grand Challenge 4 pose prediction challenge, where it achieved competitive performance. Furthermore, we show that if crystallized fragments of the target ligand are available then SkeleDock can outperform rDock docking software at predicting the binding mode.

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Motivation: Structure-based drug discovery methods exploit protein structural information to design small molecules binding to given protein pockets. This work proposes a purely data driven, structure-based approach for imaging ligands as spatial fields in target protein pockets. We use an end-to-end deep learning framework trained on experimental protein-ligand complexes with the intention of mimicking a chemist's intuition at manually placing atoms when designing a new compound.

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The serotonin 5-hydroxytryptamine 2A (5-HT ) receptor is a G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) relevant for the treatment of CNS disorders. In this regard, neuronal membrane composition in the brain plays a crucial role in the modulation of the receptor functioning. Since cholesterol is an essential component of neuronal membranes, we have studied its effect on the 5-HT receptor dynamics through all-atom MD simulations.

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Synopsis of recent research by authors named "Alejandro Varela-Rial"

  • - Alejandro Varela-Rial's research primarily focuses on the intersections of molecular dynamics simulations, protein-ligand interactions, and the impacts of genetic mutations on protein functions, particularly related to G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and neurodevelopmental disorders like PURA syndrome.
  • - Recent findings indicate that mutations in the PURA gene disrupt its association with processing bodies, highlighting the significant biological implications of these mutations in the context of PURA syndrome.
  • - Varela-Rial's work also emphasizes the advancement of computational techniques, using machine learning to optimize molecular dynamics simulations and improve predictions of protein-ligand affinities, contributing to a better understanding of molecular interactions critical for drug design.