No Cover Image

Journal article 587 views 165 downloads

In silico drug repurposing at the cytoplasmic surface of human aquaporin 1

ALED LLOYD, Karl Austin-Muttitt, Jonathan Mullins Orcid Logo

PLOS ONE, Volume: 20, Issue: 1, Start page: e0314151

Swansea University Authors: ALED LLOYD, Karl Austin-Muttitt, Jonathan Mullins Orcid Logo

  • 68767.VOR.pdf

    PDF | Version of Record

    © 2025 Lloyd et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0).

    Download (1.95MB)

Abstract

Aquaporin 1 (AQP1) is a key channel for water transport in peritoneal dialysis. Inhibition of AQP1 could therefore impair water transport during peritoneal dialysis. It is not known whether inhibition of AQP1 occurs unintentionally due to off-target interactions of administered medications. A high-t...

Full description

Published in: PLOS ONE
ISSN: 1932-6203
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2025
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa68767
Abstract: Aquaporin 1 (AQP1) is a key channel for water transport in peritoneal dialysis. Inhibition of AQP1 could therefore impair water transport during peritoneal dialysis. It is not known whether inhibition of AQP1 occurs unintentionally due to off-target interactions of administered medications. A high-throughput virtual screening study has been performed to investigate the possible binding of licensed medications to the water pore of human AQP1. A complete model of human AQP1 based on its canonical sequence was assembled using I-TASSER and MODELLER. The model was refined via the incorporation of pore water molecules from a high-resolution yeast aquaporin structure. Docking studies were conducted for the cytoplasmic domain of the AQP1 monomer against a library of all compounds listed in the British National Formulary (BNF), using the PLANTS software with the ChemPLP scoring function. The stability of the best docked conformations within the intrinsic water pore was assessed via short 15 nanosecond molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using the GROMACS-on-Colab utility. Of the 1512 compounds tested, 1002 docking results were obtained, and 198 of these conformations occupied a position within the intrinsic water pore. 30 compounds with promising docking scores were assessed by MD. The docked conformations for dopamine, gabapentin, pregabalin, and methyldopa were stable in these short MD studies. For furosemide and pravastatin, the MD trajectory suggested a binding mode different to the docking result. A small set of compounds which could impede water transport through human AQP1 have been identified in this computational screening study.
Keywords: Hydrogen bonding , Drug interactions , Molecular dynamics , Dopamine , Molecular structure, Monomers , Protein structure, Transport inhibition assay
College: Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Funders: Swansea University
Issue: 1
Start Page: e0314151