Díaz-Fernández Ana, Ciudad Carmen S, Díaz Natalia, Suárez Dimas, de-Los-Santos-Álvarez Noemí, Lobo-Castañón M Jesús
Departamento de Química Física y Analítica, Universidad de Oviedo, C/Julián Clavería, 8, 33006 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain.
Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias, Av. de Roma, 33011 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain.
J Chem Inf Model. 2025 Apr 28;65(8):4128-4136. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.5c00243. Epub 2025 Apr 14.
Aptamers have proven useful for a wide variety of applications, such as drug delivery systems and analytical reagents for diagnosis or food safety control. Conventional aptamer selection methods typically produce sequences longer than necessary, which are optimized through a postselection trial and error process to obtain the shortest-length sequence that preserves binding affinity. Herein, we describe a general strategy to obtain the tridimensional structure of DNA aptamers using a semiautomated molecular dynamics protocol, which serves as a guide to rationally improve experimentally selected candidates. Based on this approach, we designed truncated aptamers from previously described ligands recognizing different peptides and proteins, which are 20-35% shorter than the original candidates and present similar or even improved binding affinities. Moreover, we also discriminate between energetically similar secondary structures in terms of the energetic scoring of the molecular dynamics trajectories and rationally explain the role of poly thymine spacers in the (de)stabilization of the structure. This work demonstrates how a protocol for generating the aptamers tridimensional structure can accelerate their optimization for obtaining better analytical reagents and therapeutic agents.
适配体已被证明可用于多种应用,如药物递送系统以及用于诊断或食品安全控制的分析试剂。传统的适配体筛选方法通常产生比所需长度更长的序列,这些序列通过筛选后的反复试验过程进行优化,以获得保留结合亲和力的最短长度序列。在此,我们描述了一种使用半自动分子动力学方案来获得DNA适配体三维结构的通用策略,该策略可作为合理改进实验筛选候选物的指导。基于此方法,我们从先前描述的识别不同肽和蛋白质的配体设计了截短的适配体,其比原始候选物短20 - 35%,并且具有相似甚至更高的结合亲和力。此外,我们还根据分子动力学轨迹的能量评分区分能量相似的二级结构,并合理解释聚胸腺嘧啶间隔区在结构(去)稳定中的作用。这项工作展示了一种生成适配体三维结构的方案如何加速其优化,以获得更好的分析试剂和治疗剂。