Modeling the inhibition of quadruple mutant
Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase by pyrimethamine derivatives
Gary B. Fogel1, Mars Cheung1, Eric Pittman2 and David Hecht2 
| (1) |
Natural Selection, Inc., 9330 Scranton Road, Suite 150, San Diego, CA 92121, USA |
| (2) |
Southwestern College, 900 Otay Lakes Road, Chula Vista, CA 91910, USA |
Received: 5 July 2007 Accepted: 15 November 2007 Published online: 11 December 2007
Abstract Modeling studies were performed on known inhibitors of the quadruple mutant
Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR). GOLD was used to dock 32 pyrimethamine derivatives into the active site of DHFR obtained
from the x-ray crystal structure 1J3K.pdb. Several scoring functions were evaluated and the Molegro Protein-Ligand Interaction
Score was determined to have one of the best correlation to experimental p
K
i
. In conjunction with Protein-Ligand Interaction scores, predicted binding modes and key protein-ligand interactions were
evaluated and analyzed in order to develop criteria for selecting compounds having a greater chance of activity versus resistant
strains of
Plasmodium falciparum. This methodology will be used in future studies for selection of compounds for focused screening libraries.
Keywords Dihydrofolate reductase - Malaria - Molecular docking - Evolutionary computation
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