Investigating the Contributions of Residues to Dipeptidyl Peptidase-IV Inhibitor Binding by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPP-IV) is well known to be an attractive therapeutic target to treat type II diabetes. The aim of this work is to determine the residues which make great contributions to inhibitor binding by comparing the interactions between different inhibitors and residues in DPP-IV. To achieve this, two DPP-IV/inhibitor complexes were studied by molecular dynamics simulations. Hydrogen bond and interaction energy analysis were then carried out. The results indicate that several residues could make great contributions to inhibitor binding. Medicinal chemists may have priority to choose these residues to form strong non-bonded interactions with designed compounds. It is hoped that this work could help medicinal chemists to design more potent DPP-IV inhibitors.