HIV-1 gp41 facilitates the
viral fusion through a conformational switch involving the association of three
C-terminal helices along the conserved hydrophobic grooves of three N-terminal
helices coiled-coil. The control of these structural rearrangements is thought
to be central to HIV-1 entry and, therefore, different strategies of
intervention are being developed. Herewith, we describe a procedure to simulate
the folding of an HIV-1 gp41 simplified model. This procedure is based on the
construction of plausible conformational pathways, which describe protein
transition between non-fusogenic and fusogenic conformations. The calculation
of the paths started with 100 molecular dynamics simulations of the
non-fusogenic conformation, which were found to converge to different
intermediate states. Those presenting defined criteria were selected for
separate targeted molecular dynamics simulations, subjected to a force constant
imposing a movement towards the gp41 fusogenic conformation. Despite
significant diversity, a preferred sequence of events emerged when the
simulations were analyzed in terms of the formation, breakage and evolution of
the contacts. We pointed out 29 residues as the most relevant for the movement
of gp41; also, 2696 possible interactions were reduced to only 48 major
interactions, which reveals the efficiency of the method. The analysis of the
evolution of the main interactions lead to the detection of four main behaviors
for those contacts: stable, increasing, decreasing and repulsive interactions.
Altogether, these results suggest a specific small cavity of the HIV-1 gp41
hydrophobic groove as the preferred target to small molecules.
Below: Three-dimensional fusogenic structure of HIV-1 gp41.
The C-helices, represented in licorice, are shown against a
surface representation of the hydrophobic grooves formed by the N-helices.
Full article at: http://goo.gl/KVbkC9
By:
Cátia Teixeira, Florent Barbault, Thierry Couesnon, François
Maurel
Laboratoire Interfaces, Traitements, Organisation et
Dynamique des Systèmes–ITODYS–Université Paris Diderot, Paris 7 –CNRS UMR 7086;
15 rue Jean Antoine de Baïf, 75205 Paris Cedex13, France
Cátia Teixeira, José R. B. Gomes
CICECO–Instituto de Materiais de Aveiro, Departamento de
Química, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810–193
Aveiro, Portugal
Cátia Teixeira, Paula Gomes
UCIBIO-REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química e Bioquímica,
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre 687,
4169–007 Porto, Portugal
More at: https://twitter.com/hiv insight
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