title: Functioning of drug-metabolizing microsomal cytochrome P450s: In silico probing of proteins suggests that the distal heme 'active site' pocket plays a relatively 'passive role' in some enzyme-substrate interactions.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The currently held mechanistic understanding of microsomal cytochrome P450s (CYPs) seeks that diverse drug molecules bind within the deep-seated distal heme pocket and subsequently react at the heme centre. To explain a bevy of experimental observations and meta-analyses, we indulge a hypothesis that involves a "diffusible radical mediated" mechanism. This new hypothesis posits that many substrates could also bind at alternate loci on/within the enzyme and be reacted without the pertinent moiety accessing a bonding proximity to the purported catalytic Fe-O enzyme intermediate.
  
  
  METHODS
  Through blind and heme-distal pocket centered dockings of various substrates and non-substrates (drug molecules of diverse sizes, classes, topographies etc.) of microsomal CYPs, we explored the possibility of access of substrates via the distal channels, its binding energies, docking orientations, distance of reactive moieties (or molecule per se) to/from the heme centre, etc. We investigated specific cases like- (a) large drug molecules as substrates, (b) classical marker drug substrates, (c) class of drugs as substrates (Sartans, Statins etc.), (d) substrate preferences between related and unrelated CYPs, (e) man-made site-directed mutants' and naturally occurring mutants' reactivity and metabolic disposition, (f) drug-drug interactions, (g) overall affinities of drug substrate versus oxidized product, (h) meta-analysis of in silico versus experimental binding constants and reaction/residence times etc.
  
  
  RESULTS
  It was found that heme-centered dockings of the substrate/modulator drug molecules with the available CYP crystal structures gave poor docking geometries and distances from Fe-heme centre. In conjunction with several other arguments, the findings discount the relevance of erstwhile hypothesis in many CYP systems. Consequently, the newly proposed hypothesis is deemed a viable alternate, as it satisfies Occam's razor.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The new proposal affords expanded scope for explaining the mechanism, kinetics and overall phenomenology of CYP mediated drug metabolism. It is now understood that the heme-iron and the hydrophobic distal pocket of CYPs serve primarily to stabilize the reactive intermediate (diffusible radical) and the surface or crypts of the apoprotein bind to the xenobiotic substrate (and in some cases, the heme distal pocket could also serve the latter function). Thus, CYPs enhance reaction rates and selectivity/specificity via a hitherto unrecognized modality.
authors.affiliation: Formerly at PSG Institute of Advanced Studies, Avinashi Road, Peelamedu, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, 641004, India. avanthikav@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Avanthika
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Venkatachalam
authors.affiliation: Formerly at Hemoproteins Lab, School of Bio Sciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India, 632014. desertdown@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Abhinav
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Parashar
authors.affiliation: Formerly at PSG Institute of Advanced Studies, Avinashi Road, Peelamedu, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, 641004, India. satyamjayatu@yahoo.com.|Formerly at Hemoproteins Lab, School of Bio Sciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India, 632014. satyamjayatu@yahoo.com.|Satyamjayatu: The Science & Ethics Foundation, Kulappully, Shoranur-2 (PO), Kerala, 679122, India. satyamjayatu@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Kelath Murali
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4515-994X
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Manoj
keywords: Cytochrome P450; Heme-enzymes; Mechanism; Substrate binding