PDZ domains are small protein-binding domains that interact with short, mostly C-terminal peptides and play important roles in cellular signaling and the trafficking and localization of ion channels. The CFTR-associated ligand PDZ domain (CALP) binds to the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and mediates degradation of mature CFTR through lysosomal pathways. Inhibition of the CALP:CFTR interaction has been explored as a potential therapeutic avenue for cystic fibrosis (CF). Previously, we reported the ensemble-based computational design of a novel 6-residue peptide inhibitor of CALP, which resulted in the most binding-efficient inhibitor of CALP to date. This inhibitor, kCAL01, was designed using OSPREY and displayed significant biological activity in in vitro cell-based assays. Here, we report a crystal structure of kCAL01 bound to CALP (PDB ID: 6OV7). To elucidate the structural basis for the enhanced binding efficiency of kCAL01, we compare this structure to that of a previously developed inhibitor of CALP, iCAL36 (PDB ID: 4E34). In addition to performing traditional structural analysis, we compute the side-chain energy landscapes for each structure using the recently developed MARK* partition function approximation algorithm. Analysis of these energy landscapes not only enables approximation of binding thermodynamics for these structural models of CALP:inhibitor binding, but also foregrounds important structural features and reveals dynamic features, both of which contribute to the comparatively efficient binding of kCAL01. The investigation of energy landscapes complements traditional analysis of the few low-energy conformations found in crystal structures, and provides information about the entire conformational ensemble that is accessible to a protein structure model. Finally, we compare the previously reported NMR-based design model ensemble for kCAL01 vs. the new crystal structure and show that, despite the notable differences between the CALP NMR model and crystal structure, many significant features are successfully captured in the design ensemble. This suggests not only that ensemble-based design captured thermodynamically significant features observed in vitro, but also that a design algorithm eschewing ensembles would likely miss the kCAL01 sequence entirely.

Computational Analysis of Energy Landscapes Reveals Dynamic Features that Contribute to Binding of Inhibitors to CFTR-Associated Ligand