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Cryo-EM ligand building using AlphaFold3-like model and molecular dynamics
KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biophysics. KTH, Centres, Science for Life Laboratory, SciLifeLab.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3542-333X
KTH, Centres, Science for Life Laboratory, SciLifeLab. KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biophysics. Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Science for Life Laboratory, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2049-3378
KTH, Centres, Science for Life Laboratory, SciLifeLab. KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biophysics. Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Science for Life Laboratory, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2734-2794
2025 (English)In: PloS Computational Biology, ISSN 1553-734X, E-ISSN 1553-7358, Vol. 21, no 8 August, article id e1013367Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Resolving protein-ligand interactions in atomic detail is key to understanding how small molecules regulate macromolecular function. Although recent breakthroughs in cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have enabled high-quality reconstruction of numerous complex biomolecules, the resolution of bound ligands is often relatively poor. Furthermore, methods for building and refining molecular models into cryo-EM maps have largely focused on proteins and may not be optimized for the diverse properties of small-molecule ligands. Here, we present an approach that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) with cryo-EM density-guided simulations to fit ligands into experimental maps. Using three inputs: 1) a protein amino acid sequence, 2) a ligand specification, and 3) an experimental cryo-EM map, we validated our approach on a set of biomedically relevant protein-ligand complexes including kinases, GPCRs, and solute transporters, none of which were present in the AI training data. In cases for which AI was not sufficient to predict experimental poses outright, integration of flexible fitting into molecular dynamics simulations improved ligand model-to-map cross-correlation relative to the deposited structure from 40-71% to 82-95%. This work offers a straightforward pipeline for integrating AI and density-guided simulations to model building in cryo-EM maps of ligand-protein complexes.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Public Library of Science (PLoS) , 2025. Vol. 21, no 8 August, article id e1013367
National Category
Molecular Biology Biophysics Theoretical Chemistry
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URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-370046DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013367ISI: 001548318000005PubMedID: 40788932Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105012926154OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-370046DiVA, id: diva2:2000897
Note

QC 20250925

Available from: 2025-09-25 Created: 2025-09-25 Last updated: 2025-09-25Bibliographically approved

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Haloi, NandanHoward, Rebecca J.Lindahl, Erik

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