TY - JOUR A1 - Koch, Oliver A1 - Cappel, Daniel A1 - Nocker, Monika A1 - Jäger, Timo A1 - Flohé, Leopold A1 - Sotriffer, Christoph A. A1 - Selzer, Paul M. T1 - Molecular Dynamics Reveal Binding Mode of Glutathionylspermidine by Trypanothione Synthetase JF - PLoS ONE N2 - The trypanothione synthetase (TryS) catalyses the two-step biosynthesis of trypanothione from spermidine and glutathione and is an attractive new drug target for the development of trypanocidal and antileishmanial drugs, especially since the structural information of TryS from Leishmania major has become available. Unfortunately, the TryS structure was solved without any of the substrates and lacks loop regions that are mechanistically important. This contribution describes docking and molecular dynamics simulations that led to further insights into trypanothione biosynthesis and, in particular, explains the binding modes of substrates for the second catalytic step. The structural model essentially confirm previously proposed binding sites for glutathione, ATP and two \(Mg^{2+}\) ions, which appear identical for both catalytic steps. The analysis of an unsolved loop region near the proposed spermidine binding site revealed a new pocket that was demonstrated to bind glutathionylspermidine in an inverted orientation. For the second step of trypanothione synthesis glutathionylspermidine is bound in a way that preferentially allows \(N^1\)-glutathionylation of \(N^8\)-glutathionylspermidine, classifying \(N^8\)-glutathionylspermidine as the favoured substrate. By inhibitor docking, the binding site for \(N^8\)-glutathionylspermidine was characterised as druggable. KW - purification KW - crithidia fasciulata KW - trypanosoma cruzi KW - RESP model KW - biosynthesis KW - chemotherapy KW - metabolism KW - brucei KW - system KW - leishmaniasis Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-131070 VL - 8 IS - 2 ER -