Unbinding pathway energy of glyphosate from the EPSPs enzyme binding site characterized by Steered Molecular Dynamics and Potential of Mean Force
Accepted Manuscript Title: Unbinding pathway energy of glyphosate from the EPSPs enzyme binding site characterized by Steered Molecular Dynamics and P...
Accepted Manuscript Title: Unbinding pathway energy of glyphosate from the EPSPs enzyme binding site characterized by Steered Molecular Dynamics and Potential of Mean Force Author: Moacir F. Ferreira J´unior Eduardo F. Franca F´abio L. Leite PII: DOI: Reference:
Please cite this article as: Moacir F.Ferreira, Eduardo F.Franca, F´abio L.Leite, Unbinding pathway energy of glyphosate from the EPSPs enzyme binding site characterized by Steered Molecular Dynamics and Potential of Mean Force, Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmgm.2016.11.010 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Unbinding pathway energy of glyphosate from the EPSPs enzyme binding site characterized by Steered Molecular Dynamics and Potential of Mean Force Moacir F. Ferreira Júniora*, Eduardo F. Francaa, Fábio L. Leiteb aInstituto de Química, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, 38408-100, Uberlândia, MG, Brazil bUniversidade Federal de São Carlos, 18052-780, Sorocaba, SP, Brazil
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Graphical abstract ► Steered Molecular Dynamics simulation (SMD) was used to emulate the detection of the herbicide glyphosate using a specific nanobiosensor through an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) Highlights► - A proposal of a new Atomic Force Microscope Nanobiossensor to detect the herbicide glyphosate using Molecular Dynamics simulation. ► - Nanobiossensor Detection mechanism described by Steered Molecular Dynamics simulations. ► - Interaction free energy between the glyphosate herbicide and the active site in the presence of shikimate-3-phosphate substrate calculated by Potential of Mean Force. Abstract
The quantification of herbicides in the environment, like glyphosate, is extremely important to prevent contamination. Nanobiosensors stands out in the quantization process, because of the high selectivity, sensitivity and short response time of the method. In order to emulate the detection of glyphosate using a specific nanobiossensor through an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), this work carried out Steered Molecular Dynamics simulations (SMD) in which the herbicide was unbinded from the active site of the enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimate 3 phosphate synthase (EPSPS) along three different directions.After the simulations, Potential of Mean Force calculations were carried, from a cumulant expansion of Jarzynski´s equation to obtain the profile of free energy of interaction between the herbicide and the active site of the enzyme in the presence of shikimate-3 substrate phosphate (S3P). The set of values for external work, had a Gaussian distribution. The PMF values ranged according to the directions of the unbindong pahway of each simulation, displaying energy values of 10.7, 14.7 and 19.5 KJ.mol-1. The results provide a theoretical support in order to assist the construction of a specific nanobiossensor to quantify the glyphosate herbicide.
1 IntroductionThe enzime 5-enolpyruvylshikimate 3-phosphate synthase (EPSPs), which are present in algae, higher plants, bacteria, and fungi, catalises the reaction which that involves the transfer of carboxyvinyl group of fosfoenolpiruvate (PEP) to the shikimato-3-fosfato (S3P), forming the 5-enolpiruvil shikimate-3-phosphate (EPSP). The glyphosate herbicide (GPJ) inhibits specific enzymes such as EPSPs, suspending the synthesis of aromatic amino acids. It preferably forms a stable ternary complex with the EPSPs and S3P substrate (Figure 1)1,2. The detection and quantification of the glyphosate herbicide can be carried out by various analitical techniques3–6; however, the nanobiosensors arise as a
quantification tool of with high sensitivity, selectivity and short response time. It is noteworthy that kind of detection cames from the deposition of a receiving layer (protein) in microcantileveres using an atomic force microscope (AFM)7–9. When the microcantilever is used as a force sensor for AFM, the distance curves can be used to find the forces that contribute to the deflection of the cantilever and a variety of biological and chemical noncovalent interactions can be mapped directly on the distance tip-sample, which is based on force measurement capability of the AFM10. In order to prevent time consuming experiments, Molecular Dynamics simulations can be used to emulate atomic force microscopy experiments, as previously mentioned, to provide a quantitative analysis of the effects of specific molecular interactions between the active site of the enzyme EPSPs the shikimate-3-phosphate (S3P) and the herbicide glyphosate (FPG). The probability that a ligand will escape from the active site through an exit channel is dependent on the free energy profile for passage of the ligand along the channel11. The determination of the absolute binding free energy for the protein-ligand systems can be performed by the calculations of the potential of mean force (PMF). This approach is well based in statisticalmechanics of liquids since the beginning of molecular mechanics12,13. In this work we performed Steered Molecular Dynamics (SMD) simulations, and potential of mean force calculations, in order to provide a sufficient theoretical basis, at the atomic level, for possible application in the development of a nanobiossensor for the detection of the herbicide glyphosate, using an atomic force microscope (AFM). Keywords: Steered Molecular Dynamics; glyphosate; EPSP; AFM; Potential mean of force; Jarzynski’s equation.
2 Computational Details
2.1 Steered Molecular Dynamics The computational simulation of the AFM experiments was performed by Steered Molecular Dynamics (SMD), introduced by Izrailev in 199714, which provides models to explain the forces measured in terms of molecular structures, or provides details of the disassociation of process induced by the application of external forces biomolecular systems and their elastic properties on time scales covered by molecular dynamics simulations. The SMD has been widely used in the investigation of protein mechanical functions, such as the interaction process in protein-substract complexes15,16,8and the diseases related to the protein structure stability17. One way of applying external forces in a protein-ligand complex is to restrict the binder at a point in space (contention period) by an external potential, for example, the harmonic. The point of contention is then displaced in a direction chosen forcing the binder to move from its initial position in the protein allowing it to explore new contacts along the unbinding path. Assuming a single reaction coordinate x, and an external potential V=k(x-xo-vt)2/2, where k is the stiffness of the containment point, and xo is the initial position of the restraint point moving with a constant velocity v, the external force on the system can be expressed by the equation 118,
F=k
close=")">x0+vt& minus;x (1) theF, correspond the force wich the molecule is being pulled by a harmonic spring with rigidity k with constant velocity v. Different simulations were performed using the GROMACS 5.0.7 program19 to determine a possible unbinding pathway of the glyphosate from the active site of the enzyme EPSP. Thus, the steered molecular dynamics was carried out so that the glyphosate molecule was removed from the enzyme from its initial position in the active site, along the x, y and -y (Figure 2). These directions were chosen due to less steric repulsion. The Molecular Dynamics protocol was as follow: Initially, the modeled system was solvated by filling the appropriated simulation box with SPC (simple point charges)20 water model molecules. Sodium ions were used to achieve the ionic strength of 100 mM for the system, which was energy minimized using 10000 steps with the steepest descent method. After minimization, the solvent was equilibrated by performing 100ps molecular dynamics simulation at 50, 150 and 298 K, with non-hydrogen atoms positionally restrained (force constant 1.0x103 KJ.mol-1.nm-2). Following the solvent equilibration step, for each temperature a total of 10 ns molecular dynamics simulations were performed in an isothermal–isobaric (NPT) ensemble using the leapfrog algorithm21 with a 2 fs time step. The configurations were recorded every 1 ps for analysis. To minic the AFM experiment, the explit solvent of the minimazed system was withdrawn and the SMD was performed using the constraint pulling method, which the distance between the he mass centers of the two groups was restrained with a force constant, k, of 367 KJ.mol−1.nm−1,where in all dynamics unbinding velicity, v, was 0,001 nm.ps-1. The SMD was done in the NVT ensemble (constant particle number, volume and temperature) using velocity rescaling with a stochastic term for temperature coupling with a heat bath temperature of T = 298 K for 4 ns with time step of 1fs. All bond lengths were constrained using the LINCS algorithm22. A total of 80 SMD simulations were carried out for each of the three axes.
2.2 Potential of Mean Force calculation The Potential of Mean Force (PMF) was performed to determine the absolute free energy of interaction between EPSPs-shikimate-3-phosphate and GPJ in order to simulate the interaction between the AFM tip functionalized with EPSPs and glyphosate. The PMF is a potential which is obtained by integrating the average strength of an ensemble of configurations, which displays an important role in the investigation of molecular processes in which the configurational space is described by a reaction coordinate. The SMD is an effective method to explore mechanical and molecular processes accessible via AFM experiments. However, a directional dynamic simulation is a process of non-equilibrium, while the potential of mean force is an equilibrium property. Therefore, it becomes necessary a theory that connects the processes in equilibrium and non-equilibrium, which is through statistical mechanics of nonequilibrium, especially through the Jarzynski equality23. Thus, it is possible to extract
equilibrium properties from non-equilibrium systems. The Jarzynski equality establishes a connection between the equilibrium free energy calculation and the work in nonequilibrium process, and therefore allows to calculate the PMF on non-equilibrium processes such as SMD simulations16. The Jarzynski equality (equation 2) is: exp−β< /mml:mi>ΔF=exp− βW (2) whereΔF represents the variation of the free energy between the initial and final states, W is the external work and β=(KBT)-1 on what KB and T are the Boltzmann constant and the temperature, respectively. The most important property of this relationship is that it is not restricted only to equilibrium systems. The Equality is satisfied for any disturbance, since sufficient samples are performed24. A cumulant expansion of the Jarzynski equation can be used to circumvent the difficulty of estimating the exponential average of the right side of equation 2. The average logarithm of an exponential can be expanded in terms of cumulants. The equation 3shown the first and second cumulant. log mml:mi>ex=x+12x2 mml:msup>−x2+… (3) In this case, when all other cumulants terms are neglected, the variable x must be, imperatively, sampled by a Gaussian distribution. Using this expansion, the free energy can be obtained from equation 4,
Fλτ−Fλ0=Wτ+β2
close=")">Wτ2−Wτ2+… (4) where, Fλ(τ) -Fλ(0) is the free energy variation, β=1/kBT e W(τ) is the work. When the work follows the gaussian distribution, the formula until second order can be used without the disadvantage of truncation error15. From the 80 SMD simulations, the work and the potential of mean force were obtained for each chosen axis, using the Octave 3.8.125 software. The Shapiro-Wilk test (RStatistics 3.0.226 software) was performed to evaluate if the data set distribution, related to the work values obtained in each simulation, follows a normal distribution.
3 Results and discussion The analysis of the graphic of strength versus time (Figure 3), it is possible to observe that the paths along axes x, y and -y showed maximum forces around 2150, 2350 and 1530 KJ.mol-1.nm-1 (3570, 3900 and 2540 pN), respectively. The herbicidal unbinding pathway requires a smaller force along the y axis, but showed the same two moments of maximum strength, 200 and 600 ps, which are related to the coordinates where the hydrogen interactions of glyphosate and some residues of EPSPs-S3P active site are more intense. The unbinding along the axis x showed only one significant maximum strength peak at 430 ps, which can be attributed to the rupture point of the main herbicide interactions with the active site. On the other hand, the path along the y axis had the highest interaction strength (850 ps) among the three paths, and also displayed two more significant peaks with 2250 and 1730 KJ.mol-1.nm-1 (3740 and 2870 pN), at 575 and 1300 ps. All these force peaks mentioned previously are related to glyphosate interactions with the residues of the active site. The lower force peaks are related to herbicide interactions with other regions of the enzyme outside of the active site. In order to evaluate the normality of a variable quantitatively, the Quantile-Quantile Plot was used (Figure 4). The results of the nonparametric Shapiro-Wilk gave more objective results of adherence to normal distribution, as shown in Table 1. In this test, four points along the reaction coordinate (simulation time) were selected, for each axis, to verify if the data distribution obtained for the accomplished work, in each trajectory, follows a Gaussian distribution. A significance level of 10% was chosen, which was considered the hypothesis test as: H0: The distribution of the data set follows a normal distribution and H1: The data set distribution does not follow a normal distribution. The Q-Q plots for the three axes (Figure 4) shows a distribution of points near the reference line, indicating a variable with normal distribution. According to the Table 1, it is observed that all the values obtained for the p-value is greater than 10%; thus, the null hypothesis is not rejects, and therefore the distribution of the work values obtained on three axes, in these four points chosen along the reaction coordinate, follow a Gaussian distribution. Thus, the number of SMD simulations is sufficient to calculate the potential of mean force calculation according to the methodology of the cumulant expansion of Jarzynski equation.
The Figure 5 shows the PMF calculated for the three axes along the simulation time. The lowest free energy barrier occurs along the -y axis, approximately 10.7 KJ.mol-1, followed by the x axis and y axis with energy barriers around 14.7 and 19.5 KJ.mol-1, respectively. This confirms the previous data force profile (Figure 3), wherein the unbinding process of glyphosate from the active site of EPSPs is favorably along the -y axis. However, the functionalization of enzymes on the tip of the cantilever of AFM can occur randomly, which may results different orientations between the enzyme active site and the glyphosate herbicide. Thus, the specific interaction energy between the glyphosate and EPSPS should vary between energy obtained by the potential of mean force in three axes presented in this study.
4 Conclusion This work permitted obtain the force and the energy of interaction between the herbicide glyphosate and the region of the active site of 5-enolpyruvylshikimate enzyme 3-phosphate synthase (EPSPs), in the presence of shikimate-3-Phosphate substrate (S3P), using Directional Molecular Dynamics simulations and Potential of Mean Force through Jarzynski´s equation. Three directions of unbinding pathways were chosen due to steric repulsion, and the force profile, for the unbinded herbicide from the active site of the enzyme, showed that less force is required for removing the herbicide along the y axis compared to the x and y axes. The energetic values of the potential of mean force, corroborate with the previous data, since the PMF obtained was 10.7,14.7 and 19.5 KJ.mol-1, for the -y, x and y axes, respectively. The number of SMD simulations was satisfactory because the set of values obtained for the external work, for the simulation along the three axis, presented a Gaussian distribution. The emulation of the AFM experiments through directional molecular dynamics simulations promoted a quantitative view of the free energy profile involved in the interaction between the herbicide glyphosate and the active site of the enzyme EPSPs in the presence of S3P substrate. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge FAPEMIG (FAPEMIG – CEX APQ01287/14) and RedeMineira de Química (RQ-MG) supported byFAPEMIG (Project: CEX – RED00010-14) for the financial support. References [1] E. Schönbrunn, S. Eschenburg, W. a Shuttleworth, J. V Schloss, N. Amrhein, J. N. Evans and W. Kabsch,;1; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 2001, 98, 1376–1380. [2] L. M. McDowell, B. Poliks, D. R. Studelska, R. D. O’Connor, D. D. Beusen and J. Schaefer,;1; J. Biomol. NMR, 2004, 28, 11–29. [3] A. M. Botero-Coy, M. Ibáñez, J. V. Sancho and F. Hernández,;1; J. Chromatogr. A, 2013, 1292, 132–141. [4] S.-P.Chu, W.-C.Tseng, P.-H.Kong, C.-K.Huang, J.-H.Chen, P.-S.Chen and S.-D. Huang,;1; Food Chem., 2015, 185, 377–382. [5] R. Ben-Zur, H. Hake, S. Hassoon, V. Bulatov and I. Schechter,;1; Rev. Anal.Chem., 2011, 30, 123–139. [6] P. Martínez Gil, N. Laguarda-Miro, J. S. Caminoand R. M. Peris,;1; Talanta, 2013, 115, 702–705. [7] E. F. Franca, F. L. Leite, R.;1; a Cunha, O. N. Oliveira and L. C. G. Freitas, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011, 13, 8894–8899.
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Fig. 1 Closed structure (new cartoon representation) of the enzyme EPSPs, the herbicide GPJ, the substrate S3P (van der Waals representation) and the active site residues (shown in ball and stick).
Fig. 2 Sterred Molecular Dynamcis in tree possible unbinding pathways of the glyphosate herbicide. (A) along x axis; (B) along y axis e (C) along -y axis.
Fig. 3 Force profile vs time, applied along the x axis (black), y (brue) and -y (red).
Fig. 4 Quantile-Quantile Plot. (I) – x axis, (a) work at 300ps, (b) work at 500ps, (c) work at 1000ps, (d) work at 1500ps; (II) – y axis, (a) work at 500ps, (b) work at 1000ps, (c) work at 1500ps, (d) work at 2000ps; (III) – -y axis, (a) work at 300ps, (b) work at 1000ps, (c) work at 1500ps, (d) work at 1750ps;
Fig. 5 Potential of Mean Force of the SMD simulations along three axes: x (black); y(brue) and –y (red).
Table 1 Shapiro-Wilk test
Axes Axis x Axis y Axis -y
TDENDOFDOCTD
P-Value W in 300ps W in 500ps W in 1000ps W in 1500ps 0.02167 0.0863 0.02589 0.01948 W in 500ps W in 1000ps W in 1500ps W in 2000ps 0.09391 0.2919 0.0393 0.03267 W in 300ps W in 1000ps W in 1500ps W in 1750ps 0.9526