Molecular Simulation of αvβ6 Integrin Inhibitors

The urgent need for new treatments for the chronic lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) motivates research into antagonists of the RGD binding integrin αvβ6, a protein linked to the initiation and progression of the disease. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of αvβ6 in complex with its natural ligand, pro-TGF-β1, show the persistence over time of a bidentate Arg-Asp ligand-receptor interaction and a metal chelate interaction between an aspartate on the ligand and an Mg²⁺ ion in the active site. This is typical of RGD binding ligands. Additional binding site interactions, which are not observed in the static crystal structure, are also identified. We investigate an RGD mimetic, which serves as a framework for a series of potential αvβ6 antagonists. The scaffold includes a derivative of the widely utilized 1,8-naphthyridine moiety, for which we present force field parameters, to enable MD and relative free energy perturbation (FEP) simulations. The MD simulations highlight the importance of hydrogen bonding and cation-π interactions. The FEP calculations predict relative binding affinities, within 1.5 kcal mol^-1, on average, of experiments.