Title: Calmodulin in Complex with Proteins and Small Molecule Ligands: Operating with the Element of Surprise; Implications for Structure-Based Drug Design
VOLUME: 5 ISSUE: 4
Author(s):Dora K. Menyhard, Gyorgy M. Keseru and Gabor Naray-Szabo
Affiliation:Laboratory of Structural Chemistry and Biology, Institute of Chemistry, Eotvos Lorand University, Pazmany Peter setany 1/A, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Keywords:Calmodulin, protein interactions, small molecule binding, hydrophobicity, amphiphilicity, drug design
Abstract: Calmodulin plays a role in several life processes, its flexibility allows binding of a number of different ligands from small molecules to amphiphilic peptide helices and proteins. Through the diversity of its functions, it is quite difficult to find new drugs, which bind to calmodulin as a target. We present available structural information on the protein, obtained by X-ray diffraction, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and molecular modeling and try to derive some conclusions on structure-activity relationships.
