A simple, yet highly accurate, QSAR model captures the complement inhibitory activity of compstatin.
Compstatin is a 13-residue cyclic peptide inhibitor of complement activation that was originally identified through phage-mediated presentation of a peptide library to C3b. Recent efforts to improve its activity have led to a rich dataset of complement analogs, with the most active analog being approximately 260 times more active than the parent compstatin. In the present work, a highly transparent quantitative structure-activity relationship model (Radj2=0.89) with four parameters is presented that captures important physico-chemical and geometrical properties of the analog molecules with regard to activity. The number of aromatic bonds and hydrophobicity of the fourth residue of compstatin correlated strongly with activity. Also important were the hydrophobic patch size near the disulfide bond and the solvent-accessible surface area occupied by nitrogen atoms of basic amino acid residues.
Mulakala
Chandrika
C
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and the Digital Technology Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
Lambris
John D
JD
Kaznessis
Yiannis
Y
D003167:Complement Activation / Q000187:drug effects*; D003179:Complement C3b / Q000378:metabolism; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D010456:Peptides, Cyclic / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D021281:Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship; D012997:Solvents
D010456:Peptides, Cyclic; D012997:Solvents; C111828:compstatin; D003179:Complement C3b