Anesthetic Binding Sites on Three-Helix Bundle Proteins

拟议的研究的长期目标是从结构和动力学的角度，在分子水平上了解吸入性全身麻醉剂如何与蛋白质相互作用。 这将通过使用本实验室开发的方法来检测麻醉剂与蛋白质靶点的结合来实现。 主要的实验重点将是合成的三α-螺旋束，可以通过现有技术进行结构修饰。 这些合成蛋白质充当跨膜α-螺旋束的简化模型，所述跨膜α-螺旋束是中枢神经系统中离子通道和神经递质受体的普遍存在的结构组分，并且是目前全身麻醉剂的优选靶点。 目前对膜蛋白结构的理解排除了它们用于精确检测麻醉剂-蛋白复合物的用途。 然而，建议使用简化的，定义明确的，模型的跨膜结构域的天然蛋白质借给自己的麻醉剂结合位点的结构特征，使用各种光谱方法和X-射线晶体学的直接测定。 这将提供一个详细的框架，以评估疏水性，极性和蛋白质腔的麻醉剂结合的贡献，提供洞察麻醉剂络合的特定分子相互作用的相对重要性。 这一信息将提供挥发性全身麻醉药在体内结合位点的结构组成的指导方针。 麻醉剂与蛋白质靶点结合的后果将通过测量蛋白质动力学（如荧光各向异性和蛋白质热力学稳定性）来确定，目的是进一步了解结合的麻醉剂如何改变蛋白质功能。 拟议的研究建立在氟烷与二聚体四-α-螺旋束结合的报告结果的基础上，以（i）定义麻醉剂结合位点的结构，和（ii）获得结合麻醉剂的蛋白质的原子级X射线晶体结构。 最终，使用这样的模型系统将提供关于这些重要的临床化合物如何在分子水平上与中枢神经系统中的潜在靶位点相互作用的基本信息，并将建立用于测试这种关联的框架，与天然膜蛋白。 对该模型系统上麻醉剂结合位点的精确结构描述将允许对蛋白质数据库进行集中搜索，以在现有和未来条目上寻找潜在的结合位点。

The proposed research has the long-range goal of providing an understanding of how the inhaled general anesthetics interact with proteins, from structural and dynamic points of view, at the molecular level. This will be achieved using approaches developed in this laboratory to detect anesthetic binding to protein targets. The primary experimental focus will be synthetic three-alpha-helix bundles that can be structurally modified by established techniques. These synthetic proteins serve as simplified models for the bundles of transmembrane alpha-helices that are ubiquitous structural components of ion channels and neurotransmitter receptors in the central nervous system, and are the favored targets for general anesthetics at present. The current structural understanding of membrane proteins precludes their use to precisely examine anesthetic- protein complexation. However, the proposed use of simplified, well-defined, models of the transmembrane domains of native proteins lend themselves to the direct determination of the structural features of anesthetic binding sites using various spectroscopic approaches and X-ray crystallography. This will provide a detailed frame to evaluate hydrophobic, polar, and protein cavity contributions to anesthetic binding, providing insight into the relative importance of specific molecular interactions for anesthetic complexation. This information will provide guidelines for the structural composition of in vivo binding sites for volatile general anesthetics. The consequences of anesthetic binding to protein targets will be determined using measures of protein dynamics such as fluorescence anisotropy and protein thermodynamic stability, with the goal of furthering our understanding of how a bound anesthetic might alter protein function. The proposed studies build on the reported findings on halothane binding to dimeric four-alpha-helix bundles to (i) define the structure of the anesthetic binding site, and (ii) obtain atomic-level X-ray crystal structures of protein with bound anesthetic. Ultimately, the use of such model systems will provide fundamental information concerning how these important clinical compounds interact with potential target sites in the central nervous system at the molecular level, and will establish a framework for testing such associations, with natural membrane proteins. A precise structural description of the anesthetic binding site on this model system will allow a focused search of the Protein Data Bank for potential binding sites on existing- and future entries.