Probing ligand-binding modes and binding mechanisms of benzoxazole-based amide inhibitors with soluble epoxide hydrolase by molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation.

Soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) has become a new therapeutic target for treating a variety of human diseases. The inhibition of human sEH hydrolase activity was studied by molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation techniques. A set of six benzoxazole-based amide inhibitors binding to sEH has been studied through molecular docking, MD simulation, free energy calculations, and energy decomposition analysis. On the basis of molecular mechanics-generalized Born/surface area (MM-GB/SA) computation and normal-mode analysis (NMA), the obtained results indicate that the rank of calculated binding free energies (ΔΔGTOT) of these inhibitors is in excellent agreement with that of experimental bioactivity data (IC50). The correlation coefficient (r(2)) between the predicted ΔΔGTOT and IC50 is 0.88. van der Waals energies are the largest component of the total energies, and the entropy changes play an indispensable role in determining the ΔΔGTOT. Rational binding modes were discussed and determined by the docking results and binding free energies. The free energy decomposition of each residue reveals that the residue Trp334 dominates the most binding free energies among all residues and that the activities for these molecules to the sEH are not decided by hydrogen bonds or a certain residue but by the common effect of multiple side chains in the active site.