Improving the interaction of Myc-interfering peptides with Myc using molecular dynamics simulations.

Previously, a Myc-interfering peptide (Mip) was identified for the targeted inactivation of the Myc:Max complex by the combination of rational design and an in vivo protein-fragment complementation assay. In the subsequent work presented here, molecular dynamics simulations and free energy calculations based on the molecular mechanics GBSA method were performed to define the contribution of the different amino acids in the Myc:Mip coiled coil domain, and compared to wild-type Myc:Max. For further optimization of the Myc interference, point mutations were introduced into Mip and analyzed, from which two showed much higher binding affinities in the computational studies in good agreement with the experiment. These mutants with very high potential for inactivation of Myc can now be used as starting point for further optimizations based on the computational as well as experimental protocols presented here.