Protein surface-assisted enhancement in the binding affinity of an inhibitor for recombinant human carbonic anhydrase - II

We elaborate on a novel strategy for enhancing the binding affinity of an active-site directed inhibitor by attaching a tether group, designed to interact with the surface-exposed histidine residue(s) of enzymes. In this approach, we have utilized the recombinant form of human carbonic anhydrase-II (hCA-II) as the enzyme source and benzenesulfonamide and its derivatives as inhibitors. The steady-state kinetic and the ligand binding data revealed that the attachment of iminodiacetate (IDA)-Cu2+ to benzenesulfonamide (via a triethylene glycol spacer) enhanced its binding affinity for hCA-II by about 40-fold. No energetic contribution of either IDA or triethylene glycol spacer was found (at least in the ground state of the enzyme-inhibitor complex) when Cu2+ was stripped off from the tether group-conjugated sulfonamide derivative. Arguments are presented that the overall strategy of enhancing the binding affinities of known inhibitors by attaching the IDA-Cu2+ groups to interact with the surface-exposed histidine residues will find a general application in designing the isozyme-specific inhibitors as potential drugs.