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Celia A. Schiffer

Computer Simulation

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology

The Role Of Protein-Solvent Interactions In Protein Unfolding, Celia Schiffer, Volker Dötsch Nov 2011

The Role Of Protein-Solvent Interactions In Protein Unfolding, Celia Schiffer, Volker Dötsch

Celia A. Schiffer

Protein unfolding occurs when the balance of forces between the protein's interaction with itself and the protein's interaction with its environment is disrupted. The disruption of this balance of forces may be as simple as a perturbance of the normal water structure around the protein. A decrease in the normal water-water interaction will result in an increase in the relative interaction of water with the protein. An increase in the number of interactions between water and the protein may initiate a protein's unfolding. This model for protein unfolding is supported by a range of recent experimental and computational data.


Substrate Specificity In Hiv-1 Protease By A Biased Sequence Search Method, Nevra Ozer, Turkan Haliloglu, Celia Schiffer Nov 2011

Substrate Specificity In Hiv-1 Protease By A Biased Sequence Search Method, Nevra Ozer, Turkan Haliloglu, Celia Schiffer

Celia A. Schiffer

Drug resistance in HIV-1 protease can also occasionally confer a change in the substrate specificity. Through the use of computational techniques, a relationship can be determined between the substrate sequence and three-dimensional structure of HIV-1 protease, and be utilized to predict substrate specificity. In this study, we introduce a biased sequence search threading (BSST) methodology to analyze the preferences of substrate positions and correlations between them that might also identify which positions within known substrates can likely tolerate sequence variability and which cannot. The potential sequence space was efficiently explored using a low-resolution knowledge-based scoring function. The low-energy substrate sequences …


Toward The Design Of Mutation-Resistant Enzyme Inhibitors: Further Evaluation Of The Substrate Envelope Hypothesis, Visvaldas Kairys, Michael Gilson, Viney Lather, Celia Schiffer, Miguel Fernandes Nov 2011

Toward The Design Of Mutation-Resistant Enzyme Inhibitors: Further Evaluation Of The Substrate Envelope Hypothesis, Visvaldas Kairys, Michael Gilson, Viney Lather, Celia Schiffer, Miguel Fernandes

Celia A. Schiffer

Previous studies have shown the usefulness of the substrate envelope concept in the analysis and prediction of drug resistance profiles for human immunodeficiency virus protease mutants. This study tests its applicability to several other therapeutic targets: Abl kinase, chitinase, thymidylate synthase, dihydrofolate reductase, and neuraminidase. For the targets where many (> or =6) mutation data are available to compute the average mutation sensitivity of inhibitors, the total volume of an inhibitor molecule that projects outside the substrate envelope V(out), is found to correlate with average mutation sensitivity. Analysis of a locally computed volume suggests that the same correlation would hold …


Cooperative Fluctuations Of Unliganded And Substrate-Bound Hiv-1 Protease: A Structure-Based Analysis On A Variety Of Conformations From Crystallography And Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Nese Kurt, Walter Scott, Celia Schiffer, Turkan Haliloglu Nov 2011

Cooperative Fluctuations Of Unliganded And Substrate-Bound Hiv-1 Protease: A Structure-Based Analysis On A Variety Of Conformations From Crystallography And Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Nese Kurt, Walter Scott, Celia Schiffer, Turkan Haliloglu

Celia A. Schiffer

The dynamics of HIV-1 protease, both in unliganded and substrate-bound forms have been analyzed by using an analytical method, Gaussian network model (GNM). The method is applied to different conformations accessible to the protein backbone in the native state, observed in crystal structures and snapshots from fully atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulation trajectories. The modes of motion obtained from GNM on different conformations of HIV-1 protease are conserved throughout the MD simulations. The flaps and 40's loop of the unliganded HIV-1 protease structure are identified as the most mobile regions. However, in the liganded structure these flaps lose mobility, and …


Structural Stability Of Disulfide Mutants Of Basic Pancreatic Trypsin Inhibitor: A Molecular Dynamics Study, Celia Schiffer, Wilfred Van Gunsteren Nov 2011

Structural Stability Of Disulfide Mutants Of Basic Pancreatic Trypsin Inhibitor: A Molecular Dynamics Study, Celia Schiffer, Wilfred Van Gunsteren

Celia A. Schiffer

The structure and folding of basic pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) has been studied extensively by experimental means. We report a computer simulation study of the structural stability of various disulfide mutants of BPTI, involving eight 250-psec molecular dynamics simulations of the proteins in water, with and without a phosphate counterion. The presence of the latter alters the relative stability of the single disulfide species [5-55] and [30-51]. This conclusion can explain results of mutational studies and the conservation of residues in homologues of BPTI, and suggests a possible role of ions in stabilizing one intermediate over another in unfolding or …


Structure-Based Prediction Of Potential Binding And Nonbinding Peptides To Hiv-1 Protease, Nese Kurt, Turkan Haliloglu, Celia Schiffer Nov 2011

Structure-Based Prediction Of Potential Binding And Nonbinding Peptides To Hiv-1 Protease, Nese Kurt, Turkan Haliloglu, Celia Schiffer

Celia A. Schiffer

HIV-1 protease is a major drug target against AIDS as it permits viral maturation by processing the gag and pol polyproteins of the virus. The cleavage sites in these polyproteins do not have obvious sequence homology or a binding motif and the specificity of the protease is not easily determined. We used various threading approaches, together with the crystal structures of substrate complexes which served as template structures, to study the substrate specificity of HIV-1 protease with the aim of obtaining a better differentiation between binding and nonbinding sequences. The predictions from threading improved when distance-dependent interaction energy functions were …