Pharmacophore-directed Homology Modeling and Molecular Dynamics Simulation of G Protein-coupled Receptor: Study of Possible Binding Modes of 5-HT2C Receptor Agonists

Abstract A new pharmacophore-based modeling procedure, including homology modeling, pharmacophore study, flexible molecular docking, and long-time molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, was employed to construct the structure of the human 5-HT2C receptor and determine the characteristics of binding modes of 5-HT2C receptor agonists. An agonist-receptor complex has been constructed based on homology modeling and a pharmacophore hypothesis model based on some high active compounds. Then MD simulations of the ligand-receptor complex in an explicit membrane environment were carried out. The conformation of the 5-HT2C receptor during MD simulation was explored, and the stable binding modes of the studied agonist were determined. Flexible molecular docking of several structurally diverse agonists of the human 5-HT2C receptor was carried out, and the general binding modes of these agonists were investigated. According to the models presented in this work and the results of Flexi-Dock, the involvement of the amino acid residues Asp134