DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Structural basis of subunit selectivity for competitive NMDA receptor antagonists with preference for GluN2A over GluN2B subunits

Abstract

NMDA-type glutamate receptors are ligand-gated ion channels that contribute to excitatory neurotransmission in the central nervous system (CNS). Most NMDA receptors comprise two glycine-binding GluN1 and two glutamate-binding GluN2 subunits (GluN2A–D). We describe highly potent (S)-5-[(R)-2-amino-2-carboxyethyl]-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazole-3-carboxylic acid (ACEPC) competitive GluN2 antagonists, of which ST3 has a binding affinity of 52 nM at GluN1/2A and 782 nM at GluN1/2B receptors. This 15-fold preference of ST3 for GluN1/2A over GluN1/2B is improved compared with NVP-AAM077, a widely used GluN2A-selective antagonist, which we show has 11-fold preference for GluN1/2A over GluN1/2B. Crystal structures of the GluN1/2A agonist binding domain (ABD) heterodimer with bound ACEPC antagonists reveal a binding mode in which the ligands occupy a cavity that extends toward the subunit interface between GluN1 and GluN2A ABDs. Mutational analyses show that the GluN2A preference of ST3 is primarily mediated by four nonconserved residues that are not directly contacting the ligand, but positioned within 12 Å of the glutamate binding site. Two of these residues influence the cavity occupied by ST3 in a manner that results in favorable binding to GluN2A, but occludes binding to GluN2B. Thus, we reveal opportunities for the design of subunit-selective competitive NMDA receptor antagonists by identifying a cavity formore » ligand binding in which variations exist between GluN2A and GluN2B subunits. In conclusion, this structural insight suggests that subunit selectivity of glutamate-site antagonists can be mediated by mechanisms in addition to direct contributions of contact residues to binding affinity.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [2];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Univ. of Montana, Missoula, MT (United States)
  2. Univ. of Milan (Italy)
  3. John Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, MD (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Inst. of Health
OSTI Identifier:
1400292
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-06CH11357; P20 GM103546; R01 NS097536
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 114; Journal Issue: 33; Journal ID: ISSN 0027-8424
Publisher:
National Academy of Sciences
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
ENGLISH
Subject:
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES; 59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; synaptic transmission; Schild analysis; kinetic modeling; X-ray crystallography; PEAQX

Citation Formats

Lind, Genevieve E., Mou, Tung-Chung, Tamborini, Lucia, Pomper, Martin G., De Micheli, Carlo, Conti, Paola, Pinto, Andrea, and Hansen, Kasper B. Structural basis of subunit selectivity for competitive NMDA receptor antagonists with preference for GluN2A over GluN2B subunits. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1073/pnas.1707752114.
Lind, Genevieve E., Mou, Tung-Chung, Tamborini, Lucia, Pomper, Martin G., De Micheli, Carlo, Conti, Paola, Pinto, Andrea, & Hansen, Kasper B. Structural basis of subunit selectivity for competitive NMDA receptor antagonists with preference for GluN2A over GluN2B subunits. United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1707752114
Lind, Genevieve E., Mou, Tung-Chung, Tamborini, Lucia, Pomper, Martin G., De Micheli, Carlo, Conti, Paola, Pinto, Andrea, and Hansen, Kasper B. Mon . "Structural basis of subunit selectivity for competitive NMDA receptor antagonists with preference for GluN2A over GluN2B subunits". United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1707752114. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1400292.
@article{osti_1400292,
title = {Structural basis of subunit selectivity for competitive NMDA receptor antagonists with preference for GluN2A over GluN2B subunits},
author = {Lind, Genevieve E. and Mou, Tung-Chung and Tamborini, Lucia and Pomper, Martin G. and De Micheli, Carlo and Conti, Paola and Pinto, Andrea and Hansen, Kasper B.},
abstractNote = {NMDA-type glutamate receptors are ligand-gated ion channels that contribute to excitatory neurotransmission in the central nervous system (CNS). Most NMDA receptors comprise two glycine-binding GluN1 and two glutamate-binding GluN2 subunits (GluN2A–D). We describe highly potent (S)-5-[(R)-2-amino-2-carboxyethyl]-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazole-3-carboxylic acid (ACEPC) competitive GluN2 antagonists, of which ST3 has a binding affinity of 52 nM at GluN1/2A and 782 nM at GluN1/2B receptors. This 15-fold preference of ST3 for GluN1/2A over GluN1/2B is improved compared with NVP-AAM077, a widely used GluN2A-selective antagonist, which we show has 11-fold preference for GluN1/2A over GluN1/2B. Crystal structures of the GluN1/2A agonist binding domain (ABD) heterodimer with bound ACEPC antagonists reveal a binding mode in which the ligands occupy a cavity that extends toward the subunit interface between GluN1 and GluN2A ABDs. Mutational analyses show that the GluN2A preference of ST3 is primarily mediated by four nonconserved residues that are not directly contacting the ligand, but positioned within 12 Å of the glutamate binding site. Two of these residues influence the cavity occupied by ST3 in a manner that results in favorable binding to GluN2A, but occludes binding to GluN2B. Thus, we reveal opportunities for the design of subunit-selective competitive NMDA receptor antagonists by identifying a cavity for ligand binding in which variations exist between GluN2A and GluN2B subunits. In conclusion, this structural insight suggests that subunit selectivity of glutamate-site antagonists can be mediated by mechanisms in addition to direct contributions of contact residues to binding affinity.},
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1707752114},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
number = 33,
volume = 114,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jul 31 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Mon Jul 31 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 25 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Distinct Functional and Pharmacological Properties of Triheteromeric GluN1/GluN2A/GluN2B NMDA Receptors
journal, March 2014


Changing subunit composition of heteromeric NMDA receptors during development of rat cortex
journal, March 1994

  • Sheng, Morgan; Cummings, Jennifer; Roldan, Leslie Ann
  • Nature, Vol. 368, Issue 6467
  • DOI: 10.1038/368144a0

Developmental and regional expression in the rat brain and functional properties of four NMDA receptors
journal, March 1994


N -Methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) Receptor NR2 Subunit Selectivity of a Series of Novel Piperazine-2,3-dicarboxylate Derivatives: Preferential Blockade of Extrasynaptic NMDA Receptors in the Rat Hippocampal CA3-CA1 Synapse
journal, August 2009

  • Costa, Blaise Mathias; Feng, Bihua; Tsintsadze, Timur S.
  • Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Vol. 331, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1124/jpet.109.156752

NMDA receptor modulators: an updated patent review (2013 – 2014)
journal, October 2014

  • Strong, Katie L.; Jing, Yao; Prosser, Anthony R.
  • Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, Vol. 24, Issue 12
  • DOI: 10.1517/13543776.2014.972938

A nonequilibrium binary elements-based kinetic model for benzodiazepine regulation of GABA A receptors
journal, June 2014

  • Goldschen-Ohm, Marcel P.; Haroldson, Alexander; Jones, Mathew V.
  • The Journal of General Physiology, Vol. 144, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1085/jgp.201411183

Some Quantitative uses of drug Antagonists
journal, March 1959


Spatial Localization of the K+ Channel Selectivity Filter by Mutant Cycle–Based Structure Analysis
journal, January 1996


Structural and Mechanistic Determinants of a Novel Site for Noncompetitive Inhibition of GluN2D-Containing NMDA Receptors
journal, March 2011


Allosteric Interactions between NMDA Receptor Subunits Shape the Developmental Shift in Channel Properties
journal, April 2017


Glutamate Receptor Ion Channels: Structure, Regulation, and Function
journal, August 2010

  • Traynelis, Stephen F.; Wollmuth, Lonnie P.; McBain, Chris J.
  • Pharmacological Reviews, Vol. 62, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1124/pr.109.002451

Improved Fourier coefficients for maps using phases from partial structures with errors
journal, May 1986

  • Read, R. J.
  • Acta Crystallographica Section A Foundations of Crystallography, Vol. 42, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1107/S0108767386099622

Structural Determinants and Mechanism of Action of a GluN2C-selective NMDA Receptor Positive Allosteric Modulator
journal, September 2014

  • Khatri, Alpa; Burger, Pieter B.; Swanger, Sharon A.
  • Molecular Pharmacology, Vol. 86, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1124/mol.114.094516

Optimized N-phenyl-N′-(2-chloroethyl)ureas as potential antineoplastic agents: Synthesis and growth inhibition activity
journal, December 2005

  • Moreau, Emmanuel; Fortin, Sébastien; Desjardins, Michel
  • Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, Vol. 13, Issue 24
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.bmc.2005.07.048

Structural Insights into Competitive Antagonism in NMDA Receptors
journal, January 2014


Development of Radiolabeled Ligands Targeting the Glutamate Binding Site of the N -Methyl- d -aspartate Receptor as Potential Imaging Agents for Brain
journal, December 2016


A Medicinal Chemist’s Guide to Molecular Interactions
journal, July 2010

  • Bissantz, Caterina; Kuhn, Bernd; Stahl, Martin
  • Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Vol. 53, Issue 14
  • DOI: 10.1021/jm100112j

Mechanism of Partial Agonist Action at the NR1 Subunit of NMDA Receptors
journal, July 2005


Crystal structure of a heterotetrameric NMDA receptor ion channel
journal, May 2014


A Novel Family of Negative and Positive Allosteric Modulators of NMDA Receptors
journal, September 2010

  • Costa, Blaise Mathias; Irvine, Mark W.; Fang, Guangyu
  • Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Vol. 335, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1124/jpet.110.174144

Molecular pharmacology of human NMDA receptors
journal, September 2012


Structural Determinants of Agonist Efficacy at the Glutamate Binding Site of N -Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptors
journal, April 2013

  • Hansen, Kasper B.; Tajima, Nami; Risgaard, Rune
  • Molecular Pharmacology, Vol. 84, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1124/mol.113.085803

5-Phosphonomethylquinoxalinediones as competitive NMDA receptor antagonists with a preference for the human 1A/2A, rather than 1A/2B receptor composition
journal, April 2002

  • Auberson, Yves P.; Allgeier, Hans; Bischoff, Serge
  • Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1016/S0960-894X(02)00074-4

The time course of glutamate in the synaptic cleft
journal, November 1992


The Majority of N -Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptor Complexes in Adult Rat Cerebral Cortex Contain at Least Three Different Subunits (NR1/NR2A/NR2B)
journal, January 1997

  • Luo, Jianhong; Wang, Yuehua; Yasuda, Robert P.
  • Molecular Pharmacology, Vol. 51, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1124/mol.51.1.79

NMDA receptor structures reveal subunit arrangement and pore architecture
journal, June 2014

  • Lee, Chia-Hsueh; Lü, Wei; Michel, Jennifer Carlisle
  • Nature, Vol. 511, Issue 7508
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature13548

Concentration-jump experiments with NMDA antagonists in mouse cultured hippocampal neurons
journal, June 1990


MolProbity : all-atom structure validation for macromolecular crystallography
journal, December 2009

  • Chen, Vincent B.; Arendall, W. Bryan; Headd, Jeffrey J.
  • Acta Crystallographica Section D Biological Crystallography, Vol. 66, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1107/S0907444909042073

Subunit-specific gating controls rat NR1/NR2A and NR1/NR2B NMDA channel kinetics and synaptic signalling profiles: NMDA receptor gating
journal, February 2005


Strategy for analysing the co-operativity of intramolecular interactions in peptides and proteins
journal, August 1990


Structural Basis for Negative Allosteric Modulation of GluN2A-Containing NMDA Receptors
journal, September 2016


Features and development of Coot
journal, March 2010

  • Emsley, P.; Lohkamp, B.; Scott, W. G.
  • Acta Crystallographica Section D Biological Crystallography, Vol. 66, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1107/S0907444910007493

Pharmacological modulation of NMDA receptor activity and the advent of negative and positive allosteric modulators
journal, September 2012

  • Monaghan, Daniel T.; Irvine, Mark W.; Costa, Blaise Mathias
  • Neurochemistry International, Vol. 61, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.neuint.2012.01.004

Taking The Time To Study Competitive Antagonism: KB versus IC50 measurements
journal, March 2007

  • Wyllie, D. J. A.; Chen, P. E.
  • British Journal of Pharmacology, Vol. 150, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1038/sj.bjp.0706997

Analysis of competitive agonist-antagonist interactions by nonlinear regression
journal, October 1995


Control of NMDA Receptor Function by the NR2 Subunit Amino-Terminal Domain
journal, September 2009


PHENIX: a comprehensive Python-based system for macromolecular structure solution
journal, January 2010

  • Adams, Paul D.; Afonine, Pavel V.; Bunkóczi, Gábor
  • Acta Crystallographica Section D Biological Crystallography, Vol. 66, Issue 2, p. 213-221
  • DOI: 10.1107/S0907444909052925

Triheteromeric NR1/NR2A/NR2B Receptors Constitute the Major N -Methyl-d-aspartate Receptor Population in Adult Hippocampal Synapses
journal, December 2010


MPX-004 and MPX-007: New Pharmacological Tools to Study the Physiology of NMDA Receptors Containing the GluN2A Subunit
journal, February 2016


New advances in NMDA receptor pharmacology
journal, December 2011


Identification of Subunit- and Antagonist-Specific Amino Acid Residues in the N -Methyl-d-aspartate Receptor Glutamate-Binding Pocket
journal, March 2005

  • Kinarsky, Leo; Feng, Bihua; Skifter, Donald A.
  • Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Vol. 313, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1124/jpet.104.082990

The effect of competitive antagonist chain length on NMDA receptor subunit selectivity
journal, March 2005


NMDA receptor subunit diversity: impact on receptor properties, synaptic plasticity and disease
journal, May 2013

  • Paoletti, Pierre; Bellone, Camilla; Zhou, Qiang
  • Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. 14, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1038/nrn3504

Positive Allosteric Modulators of GluN2A-Containing NMDARs with Distinct Modes of Action and Impacts on Circuit Function
journal, March 2016


Structure-activity analysis of binding kinetics for NMDA receptor competitive antagonists: the influence of conformational restriction
journal, September 1991


CAVER 3.0: A Tool for the Analysis of Transport Pathways in Dynamic Protein Structures
journal, October 2012


Phaser crystallographic software
journal, July 2007

  • McCoy, Airlie J.; Grosse-Kunstleve, Ralf W.; Adams, Paul D.
  • Journal of Applied Crystallography, Vol. 40, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1107/S0021889807021206

Crystal Structure and Pharmacological Characterization of a Novel N -Methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) Receptor Antagonist at the GluN1 Glycine Binding Site
journal, September 2013

  • Kvist, Trine; Steffensen, Thomas Bielefeldt; Greenwood, Jeremy R.
  • Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 288, Issue 46
  • DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M113.480210

Synthesis of a protected enantiomerically pure 2-deoxystreptamine derivative from d-allylglycine
journal, April 2004

  • Busscher, Guuske F.; Rutjes, Floris P. J. T.; van Delft, Floris L.
  • Tetrahedron Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 18
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.tetlet.2004.03.051

[20] Processing of X-ray diffraction data collected in oscillation mode
book, January 1997


Works referencing / citing this record:

Recent progress in allosteric modulators for GluN2A subunit and development of GluN2A-selective nuclear imaging probes
journal, June 2019

  • He, Yingfang; Mu, Linjing; Ametamey, Simon M.
  • Journal of Labelled Compounds and Radiopharmaceuticals, Vol. 62, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1002/jlcr.3744

Structural basis of subtype-selective competitive antagonism for GluN2C/2D-containing NMDA receptors
journal, January 2020


Physiological activation of mGlu5 receptors supports the ion channel function of NMDA receptors in hippocampal LTD induction in vivo
journal, March 2018


Structure, function, and allosteric modulation of NMDA receptors
journal, July 2018

  • Hansen, Kasper B.; Yi, Feng; Perszyk, Riley E.
  • Journal of General Physiology, Vol. 150, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1085/jgp.201812032

The Route to ‘Chemobrain’ - Computational probing of neuronal LTP pathway
journal, July 2019


Coot model-building tools for molecular graphics
journal, November 2004

  • Emsley, Paul; Cowtan, Kevin
  • Acta Crystallographica Section D Biological Crystallography, Vol. 60, Issue 12, p. 2126-2132
  • DOI: 10.1107/S0907444904019158

Subunit contribution to NMDA receptor hypofunction and redox sensitivity of hippocampal synaptic transmission during aging
journal, July 2019

  • Kumar, Ashok; Thinschmidt, Jeffrey S.; Foster, Thomas C.
  • Aging, Vol. 11, Issue 14
  • DOI: 10.18632/aging.102108

Structural basis of subtype-selective competitive antagonism for GluN2C/2D-containing NMDA receptors
journal, January 2020


The Route to ‘Chemobrain’ - Computational probing of neuronal LTP pathway
journal, July 2019


Cellular and Molecular Changes in Hippocampal Glutamate Signaling and Alterations in Learning, Attention, and Impulsivity Following Prenatal Nicotine Exposure
journal, January 2020

  • Polli, Filip S.; Ipsen, Theis H.; Caballero-Puntiverio, Maitane
  • Molecular Neurobiology, Vol. 57, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1007/s12035-019-01854-9