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Title

 

 

 

 

 

Docking study of triphenylphosphonium cations as estrogen receptor alpha modulators

 

Authors

 

 Joseph P. Salisbury and John C. Williams, Jr*

 

Affiliation

Physical Sciences Department, Rhode Island College, 600 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Providence, RI 02908

 

Email

 

jcwilliams@ric.edu ; * Corresponding authors

Article Type

 

Hypothesis

 

Date

 

received December 17, 2008; accepted January 07, 2009; published February 28, 2009

 

Abstract

Virtual high throughput screening (VHTS) was performed to assess possible interactions which might occur between commercially available triphenylphosphonium (TPP) cations and estrogen receptor α (ERα) that could be exploited to design novel ERα modulators. One application of TPP cations is for delivering bioactive molecules to targets in mitochondria as the large membrane potential of mitochondria leads cations to accumulate inside them. The estrogen receptors (ERs) α and β, normally activated by the endogenous hormone 17β-estradiol, are responsible for controlling transcription of nuclear DNA necessary for human development and reproduction. ERs are also associated with the plasma membrane and have been found in the mitochondria of a variety of cell types. Selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) are synthetic compounds which are used to modulate ER activity. Different SERMs display varying combinations of agonistic, antagonistic and neutral effects upon estrogen receptors depending upon the tissue type and cellular location of the receptor. Thus, they are being employed to treat a range of ER-related disorders. A common feature shared by many SERMs is the close arrangement of three aromatic rings similar to TPP cations. Given this structural similarity, the estrogenic activity of triphenyl phosphonium salts was investigated using the automated docking program eHiTS.  Compounds were docked into ten different crystal structures of ERα. Structures were chosen based upon eHiTS ability to accurately identify the majority of estrogenically active compounds given a set of active and decoy molecules. The results of the VHTS suggest hybrids of TPP cations and known SERMs could serve as potent mitochondrial SERMs.

 

Keywords

Estrogen receptor, SERMs, molecular docking, eHiTS, triphenylphosphonium salts, mitochondria

 

Citation

 

Salisbury & Williams, Bioinformation 3(7): 303-307 (2009)

 

Edited by

P. Kangueane

 

ISSN

0973-2063

 

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

 

 

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.