Prediction of protein allosteric signalling pathways and functional residues through paths of optimised propensity
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Published version
Author(s)
Wu, Nan
Yaliraki, Sophia
Barahona, Mauricio
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Allostery commonly refers to the mechanism that regulates protein activity through the binding of a molecule at a different, usually distal, site from the orthosteric site. The omnipresence of allosteric regulation in nature and its potential for drug design and screening render the study of allostery invaluable. Nevertheless, challenges remain as few computational methods are available to effectively predict allosteric sites, identify signalling pathways involved in allostery, or to aid with the design of suitable molecules targeting such sites. Recently, bond-to-bond propensity analysis has been shown successful at identifying allosteric sites for a large and diverse group of proteins from knowledge of the orthosteric sites and its ligands alone by using network analysis applied to energy-weighted atomistic protein graphs. To address the identification of signalling pathways, we propose here a method to compute and score paths of optimised propensity that link the orthosteric site with the identified allosteric sites, and identifies crucial residues that contribute to those paths. We showcase the approach with three well-studied allosteric proteins: h-Ras, caspase-1, and 3-phosphoinositide-dependent kinase-1 (PDK1). Key residues in both orthosteric and allosteric sites were identified and showed agreement with experimental results, and pivotal signalling residues along the pathway were also revealed, thus providing alternative targets for drug design. By using the computed path scores, we were also able to differentiate the activity of different allosteric modulators.
Date Issued
2022-09-15
Date Acceptance
2022-07-11
Citation
Journal of Molecular Biology, 2022, 434 (17), pp.1-16
ISSN
0022-2836
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1
End Page
16
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Molecular Biology
Volume
434
Issue
17
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Under a Creative Commons license.
License URL
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022283622003515
Grant Number
EP/N014529/1
Subjects
allosteric signalling pathway
atomistic graph representation
graph theory
Allosteric Regulation
Allosteric Site
Ligands
Proteins
Signal Transduction
Proteins
Ligands
Signal Transduction
Allosteric Regulation
Allosteric Site
q-bio.BM
q-bio.BM
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
0304 Medicinal and Biomolecular Chemistry
0601 Biochemistry and Cell Biology
0605 Microbiology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-07-14