Energetics of Endotoxin Recognition in the Toll-Like Receptor 4 Innate Immune Response.

Bacterial outer membrane lipopolysaccharide (LPS) potently stimulates the mammalian innate immune system, and can lead to sepsis, the primary cause of death from infections. LPS is sensed by Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in complex with its lipid-binding coreceptor MD-2, but subtle structural variations in LPS can profoundly modulate the response. To better understand the mechanism of LPS-induced stimulation and bacterial evasion, we have calculated the binding affinity to MD-2 of agonistic and antagonistic LPS variants including lipid A, lipid IVa, and synthetic antagonist Eritoran, and provide evidence that the coreceptor is a molecular switch that undergoes ligand-induced conformational changes to appropriately activate or inhibit the receptor complex. The plasticity of the coreceptor binding cavity is shown to be essential for distinguishing between ligands, whilst similar calculations for a model bacterial LPS bilayer reveal the "membrane-like" nature of the protein cavity. The ability to predict the activity of LPS variants should facilitate the rational design of TLR4 therapeutics.

Efficient simulations of the aqueous bio-interface of graphitic nanostructures with a polarisable model.

To fully harness the enormous potential offered by interfaces between graphitic nanostructures and biomolecules, detailed connections between adsorbed conformations and adsorption behaviour are needed. To elucidate these links, a key approach, in partnership with experimental techniques, is molecular simulation. For this, a force-field (FF) that can appropriately capture the relevant physics and chemistry of these complex bio-interfaces, while allowing extensive conformational sampling, and also supporting inter-operability with known biological FFs, is a pivotal requirement. Here, we present and apply such a force-field, GRAPPA, designed to work with the CHARMM FF. GRAPPA is an efficiently implemented polarisable force-field, informed by extensive plane-wave DFT calculations using the revPBE-vdW-DF functional. GRAPPA adequately recovers the spatial and orientational structuring of the aqueous interface of graphene and carbon nanotubes, compared with more sophisticated approaches. We apply GRAPPA to determine the free energy of adsorption for a range of amino acids, identifying Trp, Tyr and Arg to have the strongest binding affinity and Asp to be a weak binder. The GRAPPA FF can be readily incorporated into mainstream simulation packages, and will enable large-scale polarisable biointerfacial simulations at graphitic interfaces, that will aid the development of biomolecule-mediated, solution-based graphene processing and self-assembly strategies.

Selective inhibition of the unfolded protein response: targeting catalytic sites for Schiff base modification.

Constitutive protein misfolding in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) can lead to cellular toxicity and disease. Consequently, the protein folding environment within the ER is highly optimised and tightly regulated by the unfolded protein response (UPR). The apparent convergence of myriad diseases upon proteostasis in the ER has triggered a broad effort to identify selective inhibitors of the UPR. In particular, the most ancient component of this cellular stress pathway, the transmembrane protein IRE1, represents an appealing target for pharmacological intervention. Several inhibitors of IRE1 have recently been reported, each containing an aldehyde moiety that forms an unusual, highly selective Schiff base with a single key lysine (K907) within the RNase domain. Here we review the progress made in chemical genetic manipulation of IRE1 and the unfolded protein response and discuss computational strategies to rationalise the selectivity of covalently active small molecules for their targets. As an exemplar, we provide additional evidence that K907 of IRE1 is buried within a particularly unusual environment that facilitates Schiff base formation. New free-energy calculations within a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation framework show that the pKa of K907 is reduced by ~3.6 pKa units, relative to the model pKa of lysine in water. This significant pKa perturbation provides additional insights into the precise requirements for inhibition and for RNase catalysis by IRE1. Our computational method may represent a general approach for identifying potential covalent inhibitory lysine sites within buried protein cavities.