• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.55-59
• /
• 2003

This work is focused on analyzing ion-pair interactions and showing the effect of solvent induced inter-atomic attractions in various dielectric environments. To estimate the stability of ion-pairs, SCI-PCM ab initio MO calculations were carried out. We show that the solvent-induced attraction or ‘cavitation' energy of the ion-pair interactions in solution that arises mainly from the stabilization of the water molecules by the generation of an electrostatic field. In fact, even the strong electrostatic interaction characteristic of ion-pair interactions in the gas phase cannot overcome the destabilization or reorganization of the water molecules around solute cavities that arise from cancellation of the electrostatic field. The solvent environment, possibly supplemented by some specific solvent molecules, may help place the solute molecule in a cavity whose surroundings are characterized by an infinite polarizable dielectric medium. This behavior suggests that hydrophobic residues at a protein surface could easily contact the side chains of other nearby residues through the solvent environment, instead of by direct intra-molecular interactions.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.817-823
• /
• 2003

We have performed ab initio calculation on the active site of HIV-1 protease. The FEP method was used to determine the binding free energy of four different of protonated states of HIV-1 protease with inhibitor. The structure of the active site and hole structure was taken from the X-ray crystallographic coordinates of the C₂ symmetric inhibitor A74704 protease bound. The active site was modeled with the fragment molecules of binding pocket, acetic acid/ acetate anion (Asp25, Asp125), formamide (amide bond of Thr26/Gly27, Thr126/ Gly127), and methanol as inhibitor fragment. All possibly protonated states of the active site were considered, which were diprotonated state (0, 0), monoprotonated (-1, 0),(0, -1) and diunprotonated state (-1, -1). Once the binding energy Debind, of each model was calculated, more probabilistic protonated states can be proposed from binding energy. From ab-initio results, the FEP simulations were performed for the three following mutations: Ⅰ) Asp25 … Asp125 → AspH25 … Asp125, ⅱ) Asp25 … Asp125 → Asp25 … AspH125, ⅲ) AspH25 … Asp125 → AspH25 … AspH125. The free energy difference between the four states gives the information of the more realistic protonated state of active site aspartic acid. These results provide a theoretical prediction of the protonation state of the catalytic aspartic residues for A74707 complex, and may be useful for the evaluation of potential therapeutic targets.