Hydration energy landscape of the active site cavity in cytochrome P450cam

Hydration of protein cavities influences protein stability, dynamics, and function. Protein active sites usually contain water molecules that, upon ligand binding, are either displaced into bulk solvent or retained to mediate protein-ligand interactions. The contribution of water molecules to ligand binding must be accounted for to compute accurate values of binding affinities. This requires estimation of the extent of hydration of the binding site. However, it is often difficult to identify the water molecules involved in the binding process when ligands bind on the surface of a protein. Cytochrome P450cam is, therefore, an ideal model system because its substrate binds in a buried active site, displacing partially disordered solvent, and the protein is well characterized experimentally. We calculated the free energy differences for having five to eight water molecules in the active site cavity of the unliganded enzyme from molecular dynamics simulations by thermodynamic integration employing a three-stage perturbation scheme. The computed free energy differences between the hydration states are small (within 12 kJ mol-1) but distinct. Consistent with the crystallographic determination and studies employing hydrostatic pressure, we calculated that, although ten water molecules could in principle occupy the volume of the active site, occupation by five to six water molecules is thermodynamically most favorable.