Fly-Casting with Ligand–Sliding and Orientational Selection to Support the Complex Formation of a GPCR and a Middle-Sized Flexible Molecule

Abstract A GA-guided multidimensional virtual-system coupled molecular dynamics (GA-mD-VcMD) simulation was performed to elucidate a binding mechanism of a middle-sized flexible molecule, bosentan, to a GPCR protein, human endothelin receptor type B (hETB). GA-mD-VcMD is one of generalized ensemble methods and produces a free-energy landscape of the ligand-receptor binding by searching large-scale motions accompanied with stably keeping the fragile cell-membrane structure. All molecular components (bosentan, hETB, membrane, and solvent) were represented with an all-atom model, and sampling was carried out from conformations where bosentan was distant from the binding site in the hETB’s binding pocket. The deepest basin in the resultant free-energy landscape was assigned to the native-like complex conformation. The obtained binding mechanism is as follows. First, bosentan fluctuating randomly in solution is captured by a tip region of the flexible N-terminal tail of hETB via nonspecific attractive interactions (fly-casting). Bosentan then occasionally slides from the tip to root of the N-terminal tail (ligand–sliding). In this sliding, bosentan passes the gate of the binding pocket from outside to inside of the pocket with accompanying a quick reduction of the molecular orientational variety of bosentan (orientational selection). Last, in the pocket, ligand–receptor attractive native contacts are formed, and eventually the native-like complex is completed. The bosentan-captured conformations by the tip- and root-regions of the N-terminal tail correspond to two basins in the free-energy landscape, and the ligand–sliding corresponds to overcoming a free-energy barrier between the basins.