Multipolar interactions involving fluorine and the protein backbone have been frequently observed in protein–ligand complexes. Such fluorine–backbone interactions may substantially contribute to the high affinity of small molecule inhibitors. Here we found that introduction of trifluoromethyl groups into two different sites in the thienopyrimidine class of menin–MLL inhibitors considerably improved their inhibitory activity. In both cases, trifluoromethyl groups are engaged in short interactions with the backbone of menin. In order to understand the effect of fluorine, we synthesized a series of analogues by systematically changing the number of fluorine atoms, and we determined high-resolution crystal structures of the complexes with menin. We found that introduction of fluorine at favorable geometry for interactions with backbone carbonyls may improve the activity of menin–MLL inhibitors as much as 5- to 10-fold. In order to facilitate the design of multipolar fluorine–backbone interactions in protein–ligand complexes, we developed a computational algorithm named FMAP, which calculates fluorophilic sites in proximity to the protein backbone. We demonstrated that FMAP could be used to rationalize improvement in the activity of known protein inhibitors upon introduction of fluorine. Furthermore, FMAP may also represent a valuable tool for designing new fluorine substitutions and support ligand optimization in drug discovery projects. Analysis of the menin–MLL inhibitor complexes revealed that the backbone in secondary structures is particularly accessible to the interactions with fluorine. Considering that secondary structure elements are frequently exposed at protein interfaces, we postulate that multipolar fluorine–backbone interactions may represent a particularly attractive approach to improve inhibitors of protein–protein interactions.

Urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) is a trypsin-like serine protease that plays a crucial role in angiogenesis process. In addition to its physiological role in healthy organisms, angiogenesis is extremely important in cancer growth and metastasis, resulting in numerous attempts to understand its control and to develop new approaches to anticancer therapy. The alpha-aminoalkylphosphonate diphenyl esters are well known as highly efficient serine protease inhibitors. However, their mode of binding has not been verified experimentally in details. For a group of average and potent phosphonic inhibitors of urokinase, flexible docking calculations were performed to gain an insight into the active site interactions responsible for observed enzyme inhibition. The docking results are consistent with the previously suggested mode of inhibitors binding. Subsequently, rigorous ab initio study of binding energy was carried out, followed by its decomposition according to the variation-perturbation procedure to reveal stabilization energy constituents with clear physical meaning. Availability of the experimental inhibitory activities and comparison with theoretical binding energy allows for the validation of theoretical models of inhibition, as well as estimation of the possible potential for binding affinity prediction. Since the docking results accompanied by molecular mechanics optimization suggested that several crucial active site contacts were too short, the optimal distances corresponding to the minimum ab initio interaction energy were also evaluated. Despite the deficiencies of force field-optimized enzyme-inhibitor structures, satisfactory agreement with experimental inhibitory activity was obtained for the electrostatic interaction energy, suggesting its possible application in the binding affinity prediction.

The origin of enzyme catalytic activity may be effectively explored within the nonempirical theory of intermolecular interactions. The knowledge of electrostatic, exchange, delocalization, and correlation components of the transition state and substrates stabilization energy arising from each enzyme active site residue allows to examine the most essential physical effects involved in enzymatic catalysis. Consequently, one can build approximate models of the catalytic activity in a systematic and legitimate manner. Whenever the dominant role of electrostatic interactions is recognized or assumed, the properties of an optimal catalytic environment could be simply generalized and visualized by means of catalytic fields that, in turn, aids the design of new catalysts. Differential transition state stabilization (DTSS) methodology has been applied herein to the phosphoryl transfer reaction catalyzed by cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). The MP2 results correlate well with the available experimental data and theoretical findings indicating that Lys72, Asp166, and the two magnesium ions contribute -22.7, -13.3, -32.4, and -15.2 kcal/mol to differential transition state stabilization, respectively. Although all interaction energy components except that of electron correlation contribution are meaningful, the first-order electrostatic term correlates perfectly with MP2 catalytic activity. Catalytic field technique was also employed to visualize crucial electrostatic features of an ideal catalyst and to compare the latter with the environment provided by PKA active site. The map of regional electronic chemical potential was used to analyze the unfavorable catalytic effect of Lys168. It was found that locally induced polarization of TS atoms thermodynamically destabilizes electrons, pulling them to regions displaying higher electronic chemical potential.

A comprehensive ab initio analysis of the gas-phase mechanisms of alkaline hydrolysis for a number of phosphotriesterase substrates--O,O-diisopropyl phosphorofluoridate (DFP), O-isopropyl methyl phosphonofluoridate, O,O-diethyl p-nitrophenyl phosphate (paraoxon), O,O-diethyl p-nitrophenyl thiophosphate (parathion), N-acetyl phosphoramidothioate (acephate), O,O-diethyl S-2-ethylthioethyl phosphorothioate (demeton-S) and O-ethyl N,N-dimethyl phosphoramidocyanidate--has been presented herein. The results indicate that, although an associative mechanism of alkaline hydrolysis is followed by all these compounds, P-F and P-CN bonds are cleaved according to the multistep addition-elimination scheme, whereas the breakage of P-O and P-S bonds appears to be consistent with the one-step direct-displacement mechanism. Of the two alternative reaction pathways present in all those cases (except of acephate), the most probable one involves the proton from a nucleophilic hydroxide experiencing an additional stabilization by the phosphoryl oxygen atom.