Ligand docking to GluN1 LBD
Docking of both glycine and D-serine in the wild type GluN1 LBD (Fig. 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B) revealed key salt bridge interactions between the carboxylate group of both ligands and the guanidium group of Arg523 of the protein as well as between the ammonium groups and the side chain carboxylate group of Asp732. Further interactions involved π-cation interactions with the phenyl group of Phe484 and D-serine displayed π-cation interactions with Trp731. Hydrogen bonding was also present in the docked conformations with the backbone of residues Pro516, Thr518, Ser688 and side chains of residues Arg523 and Trp732. These interactions are consistent with those observed in the X-ray structures of the NMDAR GluN1 LBD co-crystallised with glycine and D-serine by Furukawa and Gouaux [7]. This demonstrates that our docking protocol is valid and appropriate to study the S688Y mutant. The root mean square deviation (RMSD) of all heavy atoms was <1 Å between the X-ray structure containing the glycine ligand (PDB: 1PB7) [7] and the docked ligand when superimposed on the protein backbone.
In the docked poses, the carboxylate and ammonium groups of glycine and D-serine were present in a polar pocket of the binding site with the hydroxymethyl group of D-serine present in a hydrophobic sub-pocket. However, in the S688Y mutant receptor, the environment is changed with fewer polar residues present in the environment of both glycine and D-serine. Furthermore, the key Arg523 residue is not present in the binding pocket due to steric hindrance from the bulky Tyr688 hydroxyphenyl side chain (Fig. 3C, 3D) which upon docking leads to an associated loss of a salt bridge and hydrogen bond in comparison with the wild-type configuration with serine (Fig 2C, 2D). Other interactions however remained intact. Of interest is the main chain nitrogen atom of Tyr688 which continues to facilitate hydrogen bonding with the carboxylate group of glycine and D-serine (Figure 3C, 3D) with the formation of an additional aromatic hydrogen bond between the side chain of Tyr688 and glycine. Positioning of the carboxylate group of both ligands is similar in the wild-type protein, however due to the absence of the guanidium group of Arg523 inside the binding pocket in the mutant receptor there is a conformational difference between glycine and D-serine whereby the carboxylate group on glycine has a “downward” rotated orientation relative to the carboxylate group in D-serine. Meanwhile the ammonium group is held in place by Asp732 and is consistent between both the wild-type protein and the S688Y mutant (Fig 2, 3).
Analysis demonstrated that there was only one binding pose for glycine with a docking score of -5.28 kcal/mol whereas there were 2 poses present for D-serine with a Glide XP score of -7.37 kcal/mol and -6.53 kcal/mol, respectively. However, for the S688Y GluN1 LBD there were 6 possible docked conformations for glycine with 2 of the poses present with a positive docking score of 2.58 kcal/mol and 2.62 kcal/mol which indicates unfavourable interactions. There was a total of 9 output poses for D-serine with docking scores ranging from -4.67 kcal/mol to -1.79 kcal/mol. In both ligands the S688Y docking score was less negative compared to the wild-type, which can be indicative of ligand affinity in the receptor site.
Microsecond MD analysis
To assess the stability of the system and its behaviours we conducted 1 μs MD simulations on the apo state, top binding poses for each ligand and wild-type, and S688Y mutant. Overall, the 1 μs MD simulations demonstrated that the simulation system consisting of the GluN1 LBD in solvent was stable with ligand RMSD of both glycine and D-serine staying below 1 Å.
Simulations performed with equivalent conditions but without the ligands of interest demonstrated no significant fluctuations with protein RMSD fluctuating and stabilising around 4 Å from the input structure. Furthermore, RMSD of flexible loop regions within the protein are consistent between the simulations (Supp. Fig. 2).
D-serine demonstrated a slightly higher RMSD value in the range of 0.6-0.9 Å compared to that of glycine which remained around 0.2 Å for most of the simulation (Supp. Fig. 3). Ligand-receptor interactions during the entire simulation for all 4 simulation systems remained consistent with our observations from the docking experiments. Solvent accessibility of the ligand in the wild-type LBD during the entire course of the simulation was primarily limited to the ammonium group of glycine and D-serine. In the case of D-serine, the side chain hydroxyl group was also solvent accessible for 5% of simulation time. The solvent accessible surface area (SASA) (Fig. 4) for glycine bound to wild-type protein reached a peak of ~12 Å2 and stabilised in the range of 0-4 Å2 for most of the simulation while the SASA for D-serine bound to the wild-type protein fluctuated between ~6 Å2 and a more solvent accessible conformation of ~12 Å2.
Analysis of the trajectories of the S688Y receptor showed that there was extensive water accessibility of the ligand compared to the wild-type protein with solvent contact of the ligand reaching as high as 71% of simulation time. The SASA for glycine bound to the S688Y LBD demonstrated stability around 4 Å2 until ~450 ns where the loss of interactions with Thr518 and Asp732 (Supp. Figure 4) led to a large increase in SASA reaching as high as 45 Å2. For D-serine bound to the S688Y LBD there was an initial period of high solvent accessibility however SASA stabilised around 10-15 Å2. There were no large changes in the SASA due to changes in the Thr518 and Asp732 interactions, as they remained stable for the duration of the simulation.
Ligand contact with the guanidinium side chain of the key residue Arg523 was present in 99% of frames in the wild-type receptor. Ligand contact with Ser688 revealed a preference for the main chain nitrogen but not the side chain as seen in the docking poses with hydrogen bonds with the main chain nitrogen present for 76% of simulation time for glycine and 94% in D-serine while hydrogen bonds for the side chain was at 15% and 27% of simulation time for glycine and D-serine, respectively. Ligand interactions with the guanidium side chain of Arg523 were lost upon mutation for glycine however D-serine was able to maintain hydrogen bonds with the guanidium side chain of Arg523 in the S688Y GluN1 LBD.
Randomly seeded MD simulations
To determine the reproducibility of the simulations and to potentially observe any other plausible protein-ligand interactions we performed five 200 ns simulations that were randomly seeded to have alternative starting velocities, and one that used the identical seed as in the microsecond production runs, for each of the 4 simulation systems. (Supp. Table 1). When using the same seed of the μs simulations, the 200 ns simulation gave results identical to the first 200 ns of the longer production run. As anticipated, there were no variations within the same seed calculations. Compared to the μs simulation the randomly seeded simulations for both glycine and D-serine bound to the wild-type protein were consistent and had similar protein-ligand contacts for all simulations. Solvent contacts were present in 3 out of 6 simulations for glycine and present in all simulations for D-serine. In the wild-type protein all interactions observed were consistent with those observed in the microsecond simulations. SASA for both glycine and D-serine stayed consistent around 1Å2 with a maximum of 10Å2.
In the S688Y mutated protein solvent exposure was observed in all simulations with both glycine and D-serine. Both glycine and D-serine bound to the S688Y mutated protein experienced an average SASA in the range of 15-30Å2 for all seeds, contrasting with observations of the wild-type protein. Interestingly, seed 1293 of glycine with S688Y mutated protein demonstrated a complete dissociation of glycine from the receptor binding site.
Binding Free Energy Calculations
To estimate the binding free energy of glycine and D-serine we performed MM‑GBSA free energy calculations to approximate the ΔGbind to both the wild-type and S688Y mutant receptors for an estimation of the relative overall binding affinity of the ligand to the receptor and the individual components (Table 2).
Table 1 Binding free energy, ΔGbind, results for (A) glycine bound to wild-type receptor (B) glycine bound to S688Y mutant receptor (C) D-serine bound to wild-type receptor and (D) D-serine bound to S688Y mutant receptor.
(A)
|
ΔGbind
|
ΔGbind coulomb
|
ΔGbind covalent
|
ΔGbind H‑bond
|
ΔGbind Lipophilicity
|
ΔGbind Solvent
|
ΔGbind van der Waals
|
Mean (kcal/mol)
|
-30.0
|
-5.62
|
0.09
|
-5.05
|
-2.43
|
-7.04
|
-9.97
|
Standard Deviation
|
3.08
|
4.27
|
0.42
|
0.54
|
0.15
|
3.56
|
2.64
|
(B)
|
ΔGbind
|
ΔGbind coulomb
|
ΔGbind covalent
|
ΔGbind H‑bond
|
ΔGbind Lipophilicity
|
ΔGbind Solvent
|
ΔGbind van der Waals
|
Mean (kcal/mol)
|
-26.3
|
11.8
|
-0.109
|
-3.08
|
-2.80
|
-18.9
|
-13.2
|
Standard Deviation
|
1.94
|
3.44
|
0.59
|
0.26
|
0.10
|
3.33
|
1.78
|
(C)
|
ΔGbind
|
ΔGbind coulomb
|
ΔGbind covalent
|
ΔGbind
H-bond
|
ΔGbind
lipophilicity
|
ΔGbind Solvent
|
ΔGbind van der Waals
|
Mean (kcal/mol)
|
-34.6
|
-6.62
|
1.09
|
-5.00
|
-4.03
|
-6.18
|
-13.8
|
Standard Deviation
|
3.21
|
4.90
|
0.54
|
0.36
|
0.18
|
3.47
|
2.45
|
(D)
|
ΔGbind
|
ΔGbind coulomb
|
ΔGbind covalent
|
ΔGbind H‑bond
|
ΔGbind Lipophilicity
|
ΔGbind Solvent
|
ΔGbind van der Waals
|
Mean
(kcal/mol)
|
-22.7
|
7.58
|
0.84
|
-3.32
|
-3.18
|
-9.65
|
-14.9
|
Standard Deviation
|
2.03
|
3.42
|
0.63
|
0.29
|
0.31
|
2.92
|
1.32
|
Compared to in the wild-type receptor, the calculated binding free energy in the S688Y mutant receptor was increased from -30.0 kcal/mol to -26.3 kcal/mol for glycine and -34.6 kcal/mol to -22.7 kcal/mol for D-serine. This result is consistent with previous electrophysiology studies on the S688Y mutant where the EC50 of the ligands were increased significantly compared to the native receptor [56]. The contribution from electrostatic interactions (ΔGbind coulomb) increased from -5.62 kcal/mol to 11.8 kcal/mol for glycine and -6.62 kcal/mol to 7.58 kcal/mol for D-serine. This strongly supports that it is no longer energetically favourable for the system to form salt bridges which is consistent with results from the MD trajectories where electrostatic interactions between the ligand and Arg523 were present in far fewer frames in the S688Y protein compared to the wild-type, especially for the glycine ligand where Arg523 interactions were almost completely absent. There were minor changes to other binding affinities which includes an increased contribution from hydrogen bonding (ΔGbind hydrogen bonding) in both glycine and D-serine post-mutation which is consistent with our docking results. Lipophilic interactions (ΔGbind lipophilicity) decreased slightly for glycine which reflects our previous observations where the ligand environment is slightly more hydrophobic (Fig 2A, 2C), however this did not change significantly for D-serine.
Solvent interactions (ΔGbind solvent) became more favourable, changing from -7.04 kcal/mol to -18.9 kcal/mol for glycine and similarly a drop from -6.18 kcal/mol to -9.65 kcal/mol for D-serine which reflects our observations from the simulations where there was a significant increase in solvent exposure in the mutated protein. This greater extent of ΔGbind solvent decrease for glycine is also consistent with our observations where complexes containing glycine had a higher number of water bridges in the S688Y receptor compared to D-serine which had a modest increase. Van der Waals interactions (ΔGbind van der Waals) also decreased for glycine from -9.97 kcal/mol to -13.2 kcal/mol and -13.8 kcal/mol to -14.9 kcal/mol for D-serine. Which may be due to the change in environment around the glycine to one which is more hydrophobic.