Structure determination of a flexible cyclic peptide based on NMR and MD simulation 3J-coupling

NMR Spectroscopy in the Conformational Analysis of Peptides: An Overview

BACKGROUND

NMR spectroscopy is one of the most powerful tools to study the structure and interaction properties of peptides and proteins from a dynamic perspective. Knowing the bioactive conformations of peptides is crucial in the drug discovery field to design more efficient analogue ligands and inhibitors of protein-protein interactions targeting therapeutically relevant systems.

OBJECTIVE

This review provides a toolkit to investigate peptide conformational properties by NMR.

METHODS

Articles cited herein, related to NMR studies of peptides and proteins were mainly searched through PubMed and the web. More recent and old books on NMR spectroscopy written by eminent scientists in the field were consulted as well.

RESULTS

The review is mainly focused on NMR tools to gain the 3D structure of small unlabeled peptides. It is more application-oriented as it is beyond its goal to deliver a profound theoretical background. However, the basic principles of 2D homonuclear and heteronuclear experiments are briefly described. Protocols to obtain isotopically labeled peptides and principal triple resonance experiments needed to study them, are discussed as well.

CONCLUSION

NMR is a leading technique in the study of conformational preferences of small flexible peptides whose structure can be often only described by an ensemble of conformations. Although NMR studies of peptides can be easily and fast performed by canonical protocols established a few decades ago, more recently we have assisted to tremendous improvements of NMR spectroscopy to investigate instead large systems and overcome its molecular weight limit.

A critical assessment of force field accuracy against NMR data for cyclic peptides containing β-amino acids

Hybrid cyclic α/β-peptides, in which one or more β-amino acids are incorporated into the backbone, are gaining increasing interest as potential therapeutics, thanks to their ability to achieve enhanced binding affinities for a biological target through pre-organization in solution. The in silico prediction of their three dimensional structure through strategies such as MD simulations would substantially advance the rational design process. However, whether the molecular mechanics force fields are accurate in sampling highly constrained cyclopeptides containing β-amino acids remains to be verified. Here, we present a systematic assessment of the ability of 8 widely used force fields to reproduce 79 NMR observables (including chemical shifts and 3J scalar couplings) on five cyclic α/β-peptides that contain the integrin recognition motif isoDGR. Most of the investigated force fields, which include force fields from AMBER, OPLS, CHARMM and GROMOS families, display very good agreement with experimental 3J(HN,Hα), suggesting that MD simulations could be an appropriate tool in the rational design of therapeutic cyclic α-peptides. However, for NMR observables directly related to β-amino acids, we observed a poor agreement with experiments and a remarkable dependence of our evaluation on the choice of Karplus parameters. The force field weaknesses herein unveiled might constitute a source of inspiration for further force field optimization.

Deriving Structural Information from Experimentally Measured Data on Biomolecules

During the past half century, the number and accuracy of experimental techniques that can deliver values of observables for biomolecular systems have been steadily increasing. The conversion of a measured value Q^exp of an observable quantity Q into structural information is, however, a task beset with theoretical and practical problems: 1) insufficient or inaccurate values of Q^exp , 2) inaccuracies in the function Q(r→) used to relate the quantity Q to structure r→ , 3) how to account for the averaging inherent in the measurement of Q^exp , 4) how to handle the possible multiple-valuedness of the inverse r→(Q) of the function Q(r→) , to mention a few. These apply to a variety of observable quantities Q and measurement techniques such as X-ray and neutron diffraction, small-angle and wide-angle X-ray scattering, free-electron laser imaging, cryo-electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, electron paramagnetic resonance, infrared and Raman spectroscopy, circular dichroism, Förster resonance energy transfer, atomic force microscopy and ion-mobility mass spectrometry. The process of deriving structural information from measured data is reviewed with an eye to non-experts and newcomers in the field using examples from the literature of the effect of the various choices and approximations involved in the process. A list of choices to be avoided is provided.

Molecular modeling of peptides

This article presents a review of the field of molecular modeling of peptides. The main focus is on atomistic modeling with molecular mechanics potentials. The description of peptide conformations and solvation through potentials is discussed. Several important computer simulation methods are briefly introduced, including molecular dynamics, accelerated sampling approaches such as replica-exchange and metadynamics, free energy simulations and kinetic network models like Milestoning. Examples of recent applications for predictions of structure, kinetics, and interactions of peptides with complex environments are described. The reliability of current simulation methods is analyzed by comparison of computational predictions obtained using different models with each other and with experimental data. A brief discussion of coarse-grained modeling and future directions is also presented.

Molecular dynamics simulations of a new branched antimicrobial peptide: a comparison of force fields

Branched antimicrobial peptides are promising as a new class of antibiotics displaying high activity and low toxicity and appear to work through a unique mechanism of action. We explore the structural dynamics of a covalently branched 18 amino acid peptide (referred to as B2088) in aqueous and membrane mimicking environments through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Towards this, we carry out conventional MD simulations and supplement these with replica exchange simulations. The simulations are carried out using four different force fields that are commonly employed for simulating biomolecular systems. These force fields are GROMOS53a6, CHARMM27 with cMAP, CHARMM27 without cMAP and AMBER99sb. The force fields are benchmarked against experimental data available from circular dichroism and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopies, and show that CHARMM27 without cMAP correction is the most successful in reproducing the structural dynamics of B2088 both in water and in the presence of micelles. Although the four force fields predict different structures of B2088, they all show that B2088 stabilizes against the head group of the lipid through hydrogen bonding of its Lys and Arg side chains. This leads us to hypothesize that B2088 is unlikely to penetrate into the hydrophobic region of the membrane owing to the high free energy costs of transfer from water, and possibly acts by carpeting and thus disrupting the membrane.

J-coupling constants for a trialanine peptide as a function of dihedral angles calculated by density functional theory over the full Ramachandran space

We present 13 (3)J, seven (2)J and four (1)J coupling constants (24 in all) calculated using B3LYP/D95** as a function of the φ and ψ Ramachandran dihedral angles of the acetyl(Ala)(3)NH(2) capped trialanine peptide over the entire Ramachandran space. With the exception of three of these J couplings, all show significant dependence upon both dihedral angles. For each J coupling considered, a two dimensional grid with respect to φ and ψ angles can be used to interpolate the values for any pair of φ and ψ values. Such simple interpolation is shown to be very accurate. Most of these calculated J couplings should prove useful for improving the accuracy of the determination of peptide and protein structures from NMR measurements in solution over that provided by the common procedure of treating the J couplings as functions of a single dihedral angle by means of Karplus-type fittings.