Electrostatic interaction-mediated conformational changes of adipocyte fatty acid binding protein probed by molecular dynamics simulation

Adipocyte fatty acid binding protein (A-FABP) is a potential drug target for treatment of diabetes, obesity and atherosclerosis. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, principal component (PC) analysis and binding free energy calculations were combined to probe effect of electrostatic interactions of residues R78, R106 and R126 with inhibitors ZGB, ZGC and IBP on structural stability of three inhibitor/A-FABP complexes. The results indicate that mutation R126A produces significant influence on polar interactions of three inhibitors with A-FABP and these interactions are main force for driving the conformational change of A-FABP. Analyses on hydrogen bond interactions show that the decrease in hydrogen bonding interactions of residues R126 and Y128 with three inhibitors and the increase in that of K58 with inhibitors ZGC and IBP in the R126A mutated systems mostly regulate the conformational changes of A-FABP. This work shows that R126A can generate a significant perturbation on structural stability of A-FABP, which implies that R126 is of significance in inhibitor bindings. We expect that this study can provide a theoretical guidance for design of potent inhibitors targeting A-FABP. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma