Molecular docking and 3D-QSAR studies on gag peptide analogue inhibitors interacting with human cyclophilin A

The interaction of a series gag peptide analogues with human cyclophilin A (hCypA) have been studied employing molecular docking and 3D-QSAR approaches. The Lamarckian Genetic Algorithm (LGA) and divide-and-conquer methods were applied to locate the binding orientations and conformations of the inhibitors interacting with hCypA. Good correlations between the calculated interaction free energies and experimental inhibitory activities suggest that the binding conformations of these inhibitors are reasonable. A novel interaction model was identified for inhibitors 11, 15, and 17 whose N-termini were modified by addition of the deaminovaline (Dav) group and the C-termini of 15 and 17 were modified by addition of a benzyl group. Accordingly, two new binding sites (sites A and D in Figure 1) were revealed, which show a strong correlation with inhibitor potency and thus can be used as a starting point for new inhibitor design. In addition, two predictive 3D-QSAR models were obtained by CoMFA and CoMSIA analyses based on the binding conformations derived from the molecular docking calculations. The reasonable r(cross)(2) (cross-validated) values 0.738 and 0.762 were obtained for CoMFA and CoMSIA models, respectively. The predictive ability of these models was validated by four peptide analogues test set. The CoMFA and CoMSIA field distributions are in general agreement with the structural characteristics of the binding groove of hCypA. This indicates the reasonableness of the binding model of the inhibitors with hCypA. Considering all these results together with the valuable clues of binding from references published recently, reasonable pharmacophore elements have been suggested, demonstrating that the 3D-QSAR models about peptide analogue inhibitors are expected to be further employed in predicting activities of the novel compounds for inhibiting hCypA.