Journal
JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-AIDED MOLECULAR DESIGN
Volume 25, Issue 6, Pages 555-567Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10822-011-9441-1
Keywords
Cancer; DNMT; Docking; Epigenetics; Homology model; Pharmacophore
Categories
Funding
- Menopause & Women's Health Research Center
- State of Florida, Executive Office of the Governor's Office of Tourism, Trade, and Economic Development
Ask authors/readers for more resources
DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) is an emerging epigenetic target for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. To date, several inhibitors from different structural classes have been published. In this work, we report a comprehensive molecular modeling study of 14 established DNTM1 inhibitors with a herein developed homology model of the catalytic domain of human DNTM1. The geometry of the homology model was in agreement with the proposed mechanism of DNA methylation. Docking results revealed that all inhibitors studied in this work have hydrogen bond interactions with a glutamic acid and arginine residues that play a central role in the mechanism of cytosine DNA methylation. The binding models of compounds such as curcumin and parthenolide suggest that these natural products are covalent blockers of the catalytic site. A pharmacophore model was also developed for all DNMT1 inhibitors considered in this work using the most favorable binding conformations and energetic terms of the docked poses. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first pharmacophore model proposed for compounds with inhibitory activity of DNMT1. The results presented in this work represent a conceptual advance for understanding the protein-ligand interactions and mechanism of action of DNMT1 inhibitors. The insights obtained in this work can be used for the structure-based design and virtual screening for novel inhibitors targeting DNMT1.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available