Role of stacking interactions in the binding sequence preferences of DNA bis-intercalators: insight from thermodynamic integration free energy simulations (original) (raw)
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This paper is a logical continuation of the theoretical survey of the CH⋯O/N specific contacts in the nucleobase pairs using a wide arsenal of the modern methods, which was initiated in our previous study [J. Biomol. Struct. & Dynam., 2014, 32, 993–1022]. It was established that 34 CH⋯O and 7 CH⋯N interactions, that were detected by quantum-chemical calculations in the 39 biologically important pairs involving modified nucleobases, completely satisfy all geometrical, vibrational, electron-topological, in particular Bader’s and “two-molecule” Koch and Popelier’s, Grunenberg’s compliance constants theory and natural bond orbital criteria indicating that they can be identified as true H-bonds. The geometrical criteria of the H-bond formation are fulfilled for all considered CH⋯O/N H-bonds without any exception. It was shown that the classical rule of the stretching vibration shifts does not work in the ~95% cases of the CH⋯O/N H-bonds. Furthermore, significant increase in the frequency of the out-of-plane deformation modes γ(CH) under the formation of CH⋯O/N H-bonds and corresponding changes of their intensities can be also considered as reliable indicators of the H-bonding. We revealed high linear mutual correlations between the electron density, Laplacian of the electron density, H-bond energy at the (3, −1) bond critical points of the CH⋯O/N H-bonds, and different physico-chemical parameters of the CH⋯O/N H-bonds. We suggested that the electron density ρ and the interaction energy E(2) of the lone orbital pairs are the most reliable descriptors of the H-bonding. The linear dependence of the H-bond energy ECH⋯O/N on the electron density ρ was established: ECH⋯O = 250.263∙ρ – .380/258.255∙ρ – .396 and ECH⋯N = 196.800∙ρ – .172/268.559∙ρ – .703 obtained at the density functional theory (DFT)/Møller−Plesset (MP2) levels of theory, respectively. The studies of the interaction energies show that the contribution of the CH⋯O and CH⋯N H-bonds into the base pairs stability varies from 3.0/4.2 to 35.1/31.2% and from 3.0/4.3 to 44.4/46.5% at the DFT/MP2 levels of theory, accordingly. Energy decomposition analysis performed for all base pairs involving canonical and modified nucleobases defines the electrostatic attraction and Pauli repulsion as dominant stabilizing forces in all complexes. This observation was additionally confirmed by the results of the QTAIM delocalization indexes analysis. The studies reported here advance our understanding of the biological role of the weak CH⋯O/N H-bonds, that dictates the requirements for the structural and dynamical similarity of the canonical and mismatched pairs with Watson–Crick (WC) geometry, which facilitates their enzymatic incorporation into the DNA double helix during DNA replication. Thus, these H-bonds in the base pairs with WC geometry may be also considered as “the last drop” at the transmission of the electronic signal that launches the chemical incorporation of the incoming nucleoside triphosphate into DNA.
Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 1996
The X-ray crystal structures of the complexes of ditercalinium and Flexi-Di with d(CGCG) 2 have been studied by computational chemistry methods in an attempt to rationalize their distinct structural features. In addition, the complexes of these two bisintercalating drugs with d(GCGCGC) 2 have been modeled and subjected to 0.5 ns of molecular dynamics simulations in explicit solvent with the aim of evaluating the relative importance of hydrogen bonding and stacking interactions in the sequence binding specificity of these compounds. According to our calculations, the electrostatic term is attractive for the stacking interactions between the pyridocarbazole chromophores of these drugs and the base pairs that make up the sandwiched GpC step. On the contrary, this energy term is repulsive for the base pairs that make up the boundaries of the bisintercalation site. This differential electrostatic binding energy component, which is shown to have a strong orientational dependence, could lie at the origin of the observed binding preferences of these drugs. In addition, both the Lennard-Jones and the electrostatic energy terms contribute to stabilizing the underwound central GpC step. The attractive electrostatic interactions between the linkers and the major groove are in concert with the stacking specificities for the sandwiched GpC step, which is thus very effectively stapled by the drugs. The hydrogen-bonding potential of the linkers, however, appears to be reduced in an aqueous medium due to competing interactions with water. Binding of either ditercalinium or Flexi-Di to d(GCGCGC) 2 appears to favor the A-type conformation that this DNA molecule most likely adopts in the free state. The possible relevance of these findings to the process of bis-intercalation and to the pharmacological action of these compounds is discussed.
Current Medicinal Chemistry, 2000
We characterize intercalative complexes as either "high charge" and "low charge". In low charge complexes, stacking interactions appear to dominate stability and structure. The dominance of stacking is evident in structures of daunomycin, nogalamycin, ethidium, and triostin A/echinomycin. By contrast in a DNA complex with the tetracationic metalloporphyrin CuTMPyP4 [copper (II) meso-tetra(N-methyl-4-pyridyl)porphyrin], electrostatic interactions appear to draw the porphyrin into the duplex interior, extending the DNA along its axis, and unstacking the DNA. Similarly, DNA complexes of tetracationic ditercalinium and tetracationic flexi-di show significant unstacking. Here we report x-ray structures of complexes of the tetracationic bis-intercalator D232 bound to DNA fragments d(CGTACG) and d(Br CGTA Br CG). D232 is analogous to ditercalinium but with three methylene groups inserted between the piperidinium groups. The extension of the D232 linker allows it to sandwich four base pairs rather than two. In comparison to CuTMPyP4, flexi-di and ditercalinium, stacking interactions of D232 are significantly improved. We conclude that it is not sufficient to characterize intercalators simply by net charge. One anticipates strong electrostatic forces when cationic charge is focused to a small volume or region near DNA and so must consider the extent to which cationic charge is focused or distributed. In sum, ditercalinium, with a relatively short linker, focuses cationic charge more narrowly than does D232. So even though the net charges are equivalent, electrostatic charges are expected to be of greater structural significance in the ditercalinium complex than in the D232 complex. † The atomic coordinates have been deposited in the Nucleic Acid Databank (IC9Z). || This research was funded by the American Cancer Society (RPG-95-116-03-GMC) and National Science Foundation, Molecular Biophysics Program (MCB-9056300). Nucleic acid conformational classes are distinguished by spatial relationships among bases. Useful parameters for describing inter-base rotations and translations include helical twist, base pair roll, slide, rise, buckle, and propeller twist [1]. Relatively low roll and slide characterize the B-conformation. Relatively high roll and slide characterize the Aconformation. Sequence-specific variations in short-range stacking interactions between bases are thought by some to be causative of global phenomena such as DNA bending and groove width variation [2-5]. These "heterocycle-centric models" are of the following general form. (i) Inter-base spatial relationships are dominated by short-range stacking interactions. (ii) Propeller twist increases stacking between adjacent base pairs. (iii) Slide increases cross-stand purine stacking and induces coplanarity of the stacked purines. (iv) Coplanarity of cross-strand stacked purines is equivalent to base pair roll, if propeller twist is
Journal of Molecular Recognition, 1994
The effects of ligand structure and properties, DNA backbone modifications and DNA sequence on the interaction of a variety of well-known groove-binding agents and intercalators with DNA duplexes and triplexes have been evaluated by thermal melting experiments and molecular modeling. Both methylphosphonate and phosphorothioate substitutions generally destabilize DNA duplexes and triplexes. Modified duplexes can be strongly stabilized by both groove-binding agents and intercalators whereas triplexes are primarily stabilized by intercalators. Of the compounds tested, the intercalators coralyne and quinacrine provide the largest stabilization of the triplex dT,, . dA,, . dT,,. Molecular modeling studies suggest that the large intercalating ring system of coralyne stacks well with the triplex bases whereas the alkylamino side chain of quinacrine fits snugly into the remaining space of the major groove of dT,,.dA,,. dT,, triplex and forms extensive van der Waals contacts with the thymine methyl groups that line the groove. Converting some of the T . A . T base triples to C + . G . C (e.g. dT,,. dA,,. dTI9 to d(T4C+ )3T4. d(A4G)A4. (T4C),T4) causes very significant decreases in observed T,,, increases for compounds such as quinacrine and coralyne. Although removal of thymine methyl groups and addition of positive charge on substitution of C + . G . C for T . A. T should reduce binding of cationic intercalators, the large difference observed between the pure AT and the mixed sequence triplexes suggest that they may also have differences in structure and properties.
A DNA Intercalation Methodology for an Efficient Prediction of Ligand Binding Pose and Energetics
Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 2017
Drug intercalation is an important strategy for DNA inhibition which is often employed in cancer chemotherapy. Despite its high significance, the field is characterized by limited success in identification of novel intercalator molecules and lack of automated and dedicated drug-DNA intercalation methodology. We report here a novel intercalation methodology (christened 'Intercalate') for predicting both the structures and energetics of DNA-intercalator complexes, covering the processes of DNA unwinding and (non-covalent) binding. Given a DNA sequence and intercalation site information, Intercalate generates the 3D structure of DNA, creates the intercalation site, performs docking at the intercalation site and evaluates DNA-intercalator binding energy in an automated way. The structures and energetics of the DNA-intercalator complexes produced by Intercalate methodology are seen to be in good agreement with experiment. The dedicated attempt made in developing a drug-DNA interc...
Water Ring Structure at DNA Interfaces: Hydration and Dynamics of DNA-Anthracycline Complexes
Biochemistry, 1994
In crystallographic structures of biological macromolecules, one can observe many hydration rings that originate at one water molecule, pass via hydrogen bonds through several others, and return to the original water molecule. Five-membered water rings have been thought to occur with greater frequency than other ring sizes. We describe a quantitative assessment of relationships between water ring size and frequency of occurrence in the vicinity of nucleic acid interfaces. This report focuses on low-temperature X-ray crystallographic structures of two anthracyclines, adriamycin (ADRI) and daunomycin (DAUN), bound to d(CGATCG) and on several DNA structures published previously by others. We have obtained excellent low-temperature (-1 60 OC, LT) X-ray intensity data for d(CGATCG)-adriamycin and d(CGATCG)+launomycin with a multiwire area detector. The LT X-ray data sets contain 20% (daunomycin, LT-DAUN) and 35% (adriamycin, LT-ADRI) more reflections than were used to derive the original room-temperature (15 "C) structures [results show that five-membered water rings are not preferred over other ring sizes. This assessment is consistent with our observation of broad dispersion W-W-W angles (a = 20O). In addition, we report that the thermal mobility, distinct from the static disorder, of the amino sugar of daunomycin and adriamycin is significantly greater than that of the rest of the complex. This mobility implies that if the central AT base pair is switched to a CG base pair, there should be a low energy cost in avoiding the guanine amino group. The energy difference (for the sugar-binding preference) between d(CGTACG) and d(CGCGCG) could be considerably less than 20 kcal/mol, a value proposed previously from computation.