2010 DOCK tutorial with Streptavidin
Contents
About DOCK
DOCK was developed by Irwin D. "Tack" Kuntz, Jr., PhD and colleagues at UCSF. Please see the webpage at UCSF DOCK.
DOCK is a molecular docking program used in drug discovery. This program, given a protein active site and a small molecule, tries to predict the correct binding mode of the small molecule in the active site, and the associated binding energy. Small molecules with highly favorable binding energies could be new drug leads. This makes DOCK a valuable drug discovery tool. DOCK is typically used to screen massive libraries of millions of compounds against a protein to isolate potential drug leads. These leads are then further studied, and could eventually result in a new, marketable drug.
About Streptavidin & Biotin
Streptavidin Streptavidin is a tetrameric prokaryoke protein that binds the co-enzyme biotin with an extremely high affinity. The streptavidin monomer is composed of eight antiparallel beta-strands which folds to give a beta barrel tertiary structure. A biotin binding-site is located at one end of each β-barrel, which has a high affinity as well as a high avidity for biotin. Four identical streptavidin monomers associate to give streptavidin’s tetrameric quaternary structure. The biotin binding-site in each barrel consists of residues from the interior of the barrel, together with a conserved Trp120 from neighbouring subunit. In this way, each subunit contributes to the binding site on the neighboring subunit, and so the tetramer can also be considered a dimer of functional dimers.
Biotin Biotin is a water soluble B-vitamin complex. It is a co-enzyme that is required in the metabolism of fatty acids and leucine. It is also involved in gluconeogenisis.
Downloading the PDB complex (1DF8)
Download the neuraminidase file from here into your working directory. To get the monomer, download using the blue file arrow icon. Choose biological unit gz under download files folder at the left side. In that way you can downlad a biological gz file. If you download it by using "fetch by ID" in Chimera, you can only download a pdb gz file.
If the pdb gz file is downloaded the monomeric structure of neuraminidase with the bound ligand is seen.
However if the biological gz file is downloaded a tetramer complex of neuraminidase is seen.
When docking, we will only choose a monomer of the whole protein and its ligands instead of the whole tetramer. And it will be painful if you follow the procedure below, use vi to prepare the enzyme and ligand. Because you need to make sure the ligand you extract from the whole pdb files is right the one that match the monomer you've chosen.
Preparing the Enzyme and Ligand in Chimera
To delete the water molecules, etc. go to tools->struc. edit--> dock prep. Check all boxes and click ok. Save as 1DF8.dockprep.mol2 To separate the ligand: select--->residue-->BTN. Then go to actions-->atoms--->delete Save file: 1DF8.receptor.mol2 Select--->chemistry-->element-->H and delete. Save as PDB file 1DF8.receptor.noH.pdb close and open dockprep file again. select protein and delete. Now have ligand only. Save as 1DF8.lig.mol2
Generation of Enzyme Surface, Spheres, and Grid for DOCK
Enzyme Surface
To generate an enzyme surface, first open the receptor pdb file where hydrogens are removed (1DF8.rec.noH.pdb). Chimera recently developed a new "Write DMS" tool that facilitates calculation of a molecular surface. DMS (dot molecular surface) files can be used as an input for sphgen.
