Affiliations 

  • 1 Pharmaceutical Design and Simulation (PhDS) Laboratory, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia , 11800 Minden, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
J Chem Inf Model, 2013 Sep 23;53(9):2423-36.
PMID: 23980878 DOI: 10.1021/ci400421e

Abstract

ProBiS is a new method to identify the binding site of protein through local structural alignment against the nonredundant Protein Data Bank (PDB), which may result in unique findings compared to the energy-based, geometry-based, and sequence-based predictors. In this work, binding sites of Hemagglutinin (HA), which is an important target for drugs and vaccines in influenza treatment, have been revisited by ProBiS. For the first time, the identification of conserved binding sites by local structural alignment across all subtypes and strains of HA available in PDB is presented. ProBiS finds three distinctive conserved sites on HA's structure (named Site 1, Site 2, and Site 3). Compared to other predictors, ProBiS is the only one that accurately defines the receptor binding site (Site 1). Apart from that, Site 2, which is located slightly above the TBHQ binding site, is proposed as a potential novel conserved target for membrane fusion inhibitor. Lastly, Site 3, located around Helix A at the stem domain and recently targeted by cross-reactive antibodies, is predicted to be conserved in the latest H7N9 China 2013 strain as well. The further exploration of these three sites provides valuable insight in optimizing the influenza drug and vaccine development.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.