Publications with Fulltext
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/6
Browse
10 results
Search Results
Publication Open Access The structural basis of Akt PH domain interaction with calmodulin(Elsevier, 2021) Jang, Hyunbum; Nussinov, Ruth; N/A; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Computer Engineering; Weako, Jackson; Keskin, Özlem; Gürsoy, Attila; Faculty Member; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Computer Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 26605; 8745Akt plays a key role in the Ras/PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. In breast cancer, Akt translocation to the plasma membrane is enabled by the interaction of its pleckstrin homology domain (PHD) with calmodulin (CaM). At the membrane, the conformational change promoted by PIP3 releases CaM and facilitates Thr308 and Ser473 phosphorylation and activation. Here, using modeling and molecular dynamics simulations, we aim to figure out how CaM interacts with Akt's PHD at the atomic level. Our simulations show that CaM-PHD interaction is thermodynamically stable and involves a beta-strand rather than an alpha-helix, in agreement with NMR data, and that electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions are critical. The PHD interacts with CaM lobes; however, multiple modes are possible. IP4, the polar head of PIP3, weakens the CaM-PHD interaction, implicating the release mechanism at the plasma membrane. Recently, we unraveled the mechanism of PI3K alpha activation at the atomistic level and the structural basis for Ras role in the activation. Here, our atomistic structural data clarify the mechanism of how CaM interacts, delivers, and releases Akt-the next node in the Ras/PI3K pathway-at the plasma membrane.Publication Open Access In silico identification of widely used and well-tolerated drugs as potential SARS-CoV-2 3C-like protease and viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitors for direct use in clinical trials(Taylor _ Francis, 2020) Asar, Sinan; Okyar, Alper; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics; Gül, Şeref; Özcan, Onur; Barış, İbrahim; Kavaklı, İbrahim Halil; Researcher; Teaching Faculty; Faculty Member; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; N/A; N/A; 111629; 40319Despite strict measures taken by many countries, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to be an issue of global concern. Currently, there are no clinically proven pharmacotherapies for coronavirus disease 2019, despite promising initial results obtained from drugs such as azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine. Therefore, the repurposing of clinically approved drugs for use against SARS-CoV-2 has become a viable strategy. Here, we searched for drugs that target SARS-CoV-2 3C-like protease (3CL(pro)) and viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) by in silico screening of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved drug library. Well-tolerated and widely used drugs were selected for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to evaluate drug-protein interactions and their persistence under physiological conditions. Tetracycline, dihydroergotamine, ergotamine, dutasteride, nelfinavir, and paliperidone formed stable interactions with 3CL(pro)based on MD simulation results. Similar analysis with RdRp showed that eltrombopag, tipranavir, ergotamine, and conivaptan bound to the enzyme with high binding free energies. Docking results suggest that ergotamine, dihydroergotamine, bromocriptine, dutasteride, conivaptan, paliperidone, and tipranavir can bind to both enzymes with high affinity. As these drugs are well tolerated, cost-effective, and widely used, our study suggests that they could potentially to be used in clinical trials for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2-infected patients.Publication Open Access PRISM-EM: template interface-based modelling of multi-protein complexes guided by cryo-electron microscopy density maps (corrigendum)(International Union of Crystallography, 2018) Nussinov, Ruth; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Kuzu, Güray; Keskin, Özlem; Gürsoy, Attila; Faculty Member; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; College of Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; N/A; 26605; 8745A revised Table 6 and Supporting Information are provided for the article by Kuzu et al. [(2016 ), Acta Cryst. D72, 1137-1148].Publication Open Access The photolyase/cryptochrome family of proteins as DNA repair enzymes and transcriptional repressors(Wiley, 2017) Aydın, Cihan; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics; Kavaklı, İbrahim Halil; Barış, İbrahim; Tardu, Mehmet; Gül, Şeref; Öner, Haşimcan; Bulut, Selma; Yarparvar, Darya; Ustaoğlu, Pınar; Teaching Faculty; PhD Student; Researcher; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics; College of Engineering; College of Sciences; 40319; 111629; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/ALight is a very important environmental factor that governs many cellular responses in organisms. As a consequence, organisms possess different kinds of light-sensing photoreceptors to regulate their physiological variables and adapt to a given habitat. The cryptochrome/photolyase family (CPF) includes photoreceptors that perform different functions in different organisms. Photolyases repair ultraviolet-induced DNA damage by a process known as photoreactivation using photons absorbed from the blue end of the light spectrum. On the other hand, cryptochromes act as blue light circadian photoreceptors in plants and Drosophila to regulate growth and development. In mammals, cryptochromes have light-independent functions and are very important transcriptional regulators that act at the molecular level as negative transcriptional regulators of the circadian clock. In this review, we highlight current knowledge concerning the structural and functional relationships of CPF members.Publication Open Access Causality, transfer entropy, and allosteric communication landscapes in proteins with harmonic interactions(Wiley, 2017) Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Hacısüleyman, Aysima; Erman, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 179997A fast and approximate method of generating allosteric communication landscapes in proteins is presented by using Schreiber's entropy transfer concept in combination with the Gaussian Network Model of proteins. Predictions of the model and the allosteric communication landscapes generated show that information transfer in proteins does not necessarily take place along a single path, but an ensemble of pathways is possible. The model emphasizes that knowledge of entropy only is not sufficient for determining allosteric communication and additional information based on time delayed correlations should be introduced, which leads to the presence of causality in proteins. The model provides a simple tool for mapping entropy sink-source relations into pairs of residues. By this approach, residues that should be manipulated to control protein activity may be determined. This should be of great importance for allosteric drug design and for understanding the effects of mutations on function. The model is applied to determine allosteric communication in three proteins, Ubiquitin, Pyruvate Kinase, and the PDZ domain. Predictions are in agreement with molecular dynamics simulations and experimental evidence.Publication Open Access ModiBodies: a computational method for modifying nanobodies in nanobody-antigen complexes to improve binding affinity and specificity(Springer, 2020) Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Hacısüleyman, Aysima; Erman, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; N/A; 179997Nanobodies are special derivatives of antibodies, which consist of single domain fragments. They have become of considerable interest as next-generation biotechnological tools for antigen recognition. They can be easily engineered due to their high stability and compact size. Nanobodies have three complementarity-determining regions, CDRs, which are enlarged to provide a similar binding surface to that of human immunoglobulins. Here, we propose a benchmark testing algorithm that uses 3D structures of already existing protein-nanobody complexes as initial structures followed by successive mutations on the CDR domains. The aim is to find optimum binding amino acids for hypervariable residues of CDRs. We use molecular dynamics simulations to compare the binding energies of the resulting complexes with that of the known complex and accept those that are improved by mutations. We use the MDM4-VH9 complex, (PDB id 2VYR), fructose-bisphosphate aldolase from Trypanosoma congolense (PDB id 5O0W) and human lysozyme (PDB id 4I0C) as benchmark complexes. By using this algorithm, better binding nanobodies can be generated in a short amount of time. We suggest that this method can complement existing immune and synthetic library-based methods, without a need for extensive experimentation or large libraries.Publication Open Access Gaussian network model revisited: effects of mutation and ligand binding on protein behavior(Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing, 2022) Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Erman, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; College of Engineering; 179997The coarse-grained Gaussian network model (GNM), considers only the alpha carbons of the folded protein. Therefore it is not directly applicable to the study of mutation or ligand binding problems where atomic detail is required. This shortcoming is improved by including all atom pairs within the coordination shell of each other into the Kirchoff adjacency matrix. Counting all contacts rather than only alpha carbon contacts diminishes the magnitude of fluctuations in the system. But more importantly, it changes the graph-like connectivity structure, i.e., the Kirchoff adjacency matrix of the protein. This change depends on amino acid type which introduces amino acid specific and position specific information into the classical coarse-grained GNM which was originally modeled in analogy with the phantom network model of rubber elasticity. With this modification, it is now possible to explain the consequences of mutation and ligand binding on residue fluctuations, their pair-correlations and mutual information shared by each pair. We refer to the new model as 'all-atom GNM'. Using examples from published data we show that the all-atom GNM gives B-factors that are in better agreement with experiment, can explain effects of mutation on long range communication in PDZ domains and can predict effects of GDP and GTP binding on the dimerization of KRAS.Publication Open Access PRISM-EM: template interface-based modelling of multi-protein complexes guided by cryo-electron microscopy density maps(International Union of Crystallography, 2016) Nussinov, Ruth; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Kuzu, Güray; Keskin, Özlem; Gürsoy, Attila; Faculty Member; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; College of Engineering; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; N/A; 26605; 8745The structures of protein assemblies are important for elucidating cellular processes at the molecular level. Three-dimensional electron microscopy (3DEM) is a powerful method to identify the structures of assemblies, especially those that are challenging to study by crystallography. Here, a new approach, PRISM-EM, is reported to computationally generate plausible structural models using a procedure that combines crystallographic structures and density maps obtained from 3DEM. The predictions are validated against seven available structurally different crystallographic complexes. The models display mean deviations in the backbone of <5 angstrom. PRISM-EM was further tested on different benchmark sets; the accuracy was evaluated with respect to the structure of the complex, and the correlation with EM density maps and interface predictions were evaluated and compared with those obtained using other methods. PRISM-EM was then used to predict the structure of the ternary complex of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein trimer, the ligand CD4 and the neutralizing protein m36.Publication Open Access Near-physiological-temperature serial crystallography reveals conformations of SARS-CoV-2 main protease active site for improved drug repurposing(Elsevier, 2021) Durdağı, Serdar; Doğan, Berna; Avşar, Timuçin; Erol, İsmail; Çalış, Şeyma; Orhan, Müge D.; Aksoydan, Busecan; Şahin, Kader; Oktay, Lalehan; Tolu, İlayda; Olkan, Alpsu; Erdemoğlu, Ece; Yefanov, Oleksandr M.; Dao, E. Han; Hayes, Brandon; Liang, Mengning; Seaberg, Matthew H.; Hunter, Mark S.; Batyuk, Alex; Mariani, Valerio; Su, Zhen; Poitevin, Frederic; Yoon, Chun Hong; Kupitz, Christopher; Sierra, Raymond G.; Snell, Edward H.; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; N/A; Demirci, Hasan; Dağ, Çağdaş; Büyükdağ, Cengizhan; Ertem, Fatma Betül; Yıldırım, Günseli; Destan, Ebru; Güven, Ömür; Ayan, Esra; Yüksel, Büşra; Göcenler, Oktay; Can, Özgür; Özabrahamyan, Serena; Tanısalı, Gökhan; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Undergraduate Student; PhD Student; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Koç Üniversitesi İş Bankası Enfeksiyon Hastalıkları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi (EHAM) / Koç University İşbank Center for Infectious Diseases (KU-IS CID); College of Sciences; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; School of Nursing; 307350; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/A; N/AThe COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in 198 million reported infections and more than 4 million deaths as of July 2021 (covid19.who.int). Research to identify effective therapies for COVID-19 includes: (1) designing a vaccine as future protection; (2) de novo drug discovery; and (3) identifying existing drugs to repurpose them as effective and immediate treatments. To assist in drug repurposing and design, we determine two apo structures of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) main protease at ambient temperature by serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography. We employ detailed molecular simulations of selected known main protease inhibitors with the structures and compare binding modes and energies. The combined structural and molecular modeling studies not only reveal the dynamics of small molecules targeting the main protease but also provide invaluable opportunities for drug repurposing and structure-based drug design strategies against SARS-CoV-2.Publication Open Access Mode coupling points to functionally important residues in myosin II(Wiley, 2014) Department of Computer Engineering; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Physics; Varol, Onur; Yüret, Deniz; Erman, Burak; Kabakçıoğlu, Alkan; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Computer Engineering; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Department of Physics; Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering; College of Engineering; College of Sciences; N/A; 179996; 179997; 49854Relevance of mode coupling to energy/information transfer during protein function, particularly in the context of allosteric interactions is widely accepted. However, existing evidence in favor of this hypothesis comes essentially from model systems. We here report a novel formal analysis of the near-native dynamics of myosin II, which allows us to explore the impact of the interaction between possibly non-Gaussian vibrational modes on fluctutational dynamics. We show that an information-theoretic measure based on mode coupling alone yields a ranking of residues with a statistically significant bias favoring the functionally critical locations identified by experiments on myosin II.