A 3D model for the human hepatic asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGP-R)

The human hepatic Asialoglycoprotein Receptor (ASGP-R) consists of two different types of liver specific membrane glycoproteins that bind to terminal galactose and N-acetylgalactosamine residues of serum glycoproteins. The two different polypeptide chains are referred to as two receptor subunits, HH1 and HH2, which are both involved in the activity of the functional receptor. This receptor has served as a model for understanding receptor-mediated endocytosis and carbohydrate mediated recognition phenomena. Here models for the C-terminal extracellular region of both HH1 and HH2 subunit are presented. The standard homology building procedure was modified in order to make it suitable for the modeling problem at hand. The models for the extracellular regions of HH1 and HH2 were initially constructed by exploiting several fragments, belonging to proteins of known 3D structure, and showing high local sequence similarity with respect to the glycoproteins of interest. Putative binding sites were first hypothesized on the basis of the comparison with other complexes of lectins, the crystal structure of which was available in the Protein Data Bank. A model for the complex involving the HH2 subunit and the typical high affinity ligand N-acetylgalactosamine (NacGal) was refined as the first by a suitable combination of MD simulations and Energy Minimization calculations, since it seemed to quickly converge to a plausible structure. An intermediate model for HH1 was then rebuilt on the basis of the refined model for HH2. It was then submitted to a sequence of molecular dynamics simulations with templates which took into account the secondary structure prediction for a final refinement. The structures of small regions of the models, located around the binding sites, were compared with more recent crystallographic data regarding a complex involving the mutant of Mannose Binding Protein QPDWGH (1BCH entry in the Protein Data Bank) and NacGal. This mutant shows high local sequence similarity with HH1 and HH2 at the binding sites. On the basis of the above comparison, different locations of the binding sites were also considered. In addition to other expected interactions, two hydrophobic interactions were observed in the models with Trp residues (positions 243 in HH1 and 181 or 267 in HH2 respectively) and His residues (positions 256 in HHI and 184 in HH2.respectively). The quality of the models was evaluated by the Procheck program and they seemed plausible. This observation together with analogies found between binding sites of the models and IBCH supported the validity of the models. A further validation element arose by comparison between experimental binding data available in the literature about the homologous rat receptor subunits and theoretical interaction energies evaluated, by means of the DOCK 3.5 program, in models for the rat subunits obtained from the corresponding human ones. The new modeling procedure used here appears to be a well-suited method for structural analysis of small regions, located around the ligands, in proteins of unknown 3D structure.