Relative contribution of polar interactions and conformational compatibility to the binding of neurokinin-1 receptor antagonists

Based on single residue substitutions, previous studies suggested that Gln165, His197, and His265 of the neurokinin-l receptor interact directly with many nonpeptide antagonists, including CP-96,345. To further test this model, all three residues have been substituted simultaneously with alanine. The Q165A-H197A-H265A triple mutant bound CP-96,345 and eight analogs with similar affinity (2-20 mu M), even though the same series of compounds bound to the wild-type receptor with affinities over a range of 1000-fold. These observations correspond exactly to the prediction of the binding site model. The micromolar binding affinity of all tested CP-96,345 analogs for the triple mutant seems to reflect solely van der Waals interactions, which suggests a significant contribution of conformational compatibility (or shape complementarity) to binding affinity. The primary role of conformational compatibility in ligand binding was consistent with the observation that simply transferring the residues involved in polar interactions with beta(2)-agonists into the neurokinin-l receptor did not lead to increased binding affinity for the beta(2)-agonists. Taken together, these results support a general principle of ligand-receptor binding in which specific polar interactions can take place only if the overall ligand conformation is compatible with the stereochemistry of the binding pocket. In addition, double-residue and triple-residue substitutions, in combination with single-residue substitutions, can provide an alternative route to reveal multiple interactions that may not be detectable by single-residue substitutions and represent a novel approach to examine ligand-receptor interactions in the absence of high-resolution structural data.