Motivation: Bivalent ligands are increasingly important such as for targeting G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) dimers or proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs). They contain two pharmacophoric units that simultaneously bind in their corresponding binding sites, connected with a spacer chain. Here, we report a molecular modelling tool that links the pharmacophore units via the shortest pathway along the receptors van der Waals surface and then scores the solutions providing prioritization for the design of new bivalent ligands.
Results: Bivalent ligands of known dimers of GPCRs, PROTACs and a model bivalent antibody/antigen system were analysed. The tool could rapidly assess the preferred linker length for the different systems and recapitulated the best reported results. In the case of GPCR dimers the results suggest that in some cases these ligands might bind to a secondary binding site at the extracellular entrance (vestibule or allosteric site) instead of the orthosteric binding site.
Availability And Implementation: Freely accessible from the Molecular Operating Environment svl exchange server (https://svl.chemcomp.com/).
Supplementary Information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/bty422 | DOI Listing |
Bioorg Med Chem
December 2024
Chemical Biology Laboratory, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 1050 Boyles St., Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) is an important cell cycle regulator that is a recognized target for development of anti-cancer therapeutics. Plk1 is composed of a catalytic kinase domain (KD), a flexible interdomain linker and a polo-box domain (PBD). Intramolecular protein-protein interactions (PPIs) between the PBD and KD result in "auto-inhibition" that is an essential component of proper Plk1 function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Nano
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Institute of Molecular Plus, Department of Chemistry, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, People's Republic of China.
Extracting lithium from salt lakes requires ion-selective membranes with customizable nanochannels. However, it remains a major challenge to separate alkali cations due to their same valences and similar ionic radius. Inspired by the K channel of KcsA K, significant progress has been made in adjusting nanochannel size to control the ion selectivity dominated by alkali cations dehydration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Chem Soc
January 2025
New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, MOE Key Laboratory for Analytical Science of Food Safety and Biology, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Analysis and Detection Technology for Food Safety, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, People's Republic of China.
Proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) are dual-functional molecules composed of a protein of interest (POI) ligand and an E3 ligase ligand connected by a linker, which can recruit POI and E3 ligases simultaneously, thereby inducing the degradation of POI and showing great potential in disease treatment. A challenge in developing PROTACs is the design of linkers and the modification of ligands to establish a multifunctional platform that enhances degradation efficiency and antitumor activity. As a programmable and modifiable nanomaterial, DNA tetrahedron can precisely assemble and selectively recognize molecules and flexibly adjust the distance between molecules, making them ideal linkers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Rev Drug Discov
January 2025
Euler Institute, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland.
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest human membrane protein family that transduce extracellular signals into cellular responses. They are major pharmacological targets, with approximately 26% of marketed drugs targeting GPCRs, primarily at their orthosteric binding site. Despite their prominence, predicting the pharmacological effects of novel GPCR-targeting drugs remains challenging due to the complex functional dynamics of these receptors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Pharm
January 2025
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, United States.
Selective delivery of therapeutic modalities to tumor cells via binding of tumor-selective cell-surface biomarkers has empowered substantial advances in cancer treatment. Yet, tumor cells generally lack a truly specific biomarker that is present in high density on tumor tissue while being completely absent from healthy tissue. Rather, low but nonzero expression in healthy tissues results in on-target, off-tumor activity with detrimental side effects that constrain the therapeutic window or prevent use altogether.
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