Exploring the different environments effect of piperine via combined crystallographic, QM/MM and molecular dynamics simulation study

Abstract

Piperine is a pungent alkaloid, largely present in the skin of pepper. It is the most active component of pepper and being used as a medicine in many Asian countries. The effect of piperine on memory impairment and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease model has been investigated. In the present study, we aim to investigate the effect of piperine molecule in different environments (crystal and active site of proteins) from crystallography, molecular docking, QM/MM based charge density analysis and molecular dynamic simulation. The crystal structure of piperine has been used to determine the topological electron density of intermolecular interactions. The O-atoms of piperine is forming C–H⋅⋅⋅O interactions with the neighboring molecules in the crystal, these interactions also confirmed from the Hirshfeld surface. Further, to understand the nature of interactions and the conformational flexibility of piperine in the active site of recombinant human acetylcholinesterase (rhAChE), molecular docking analysis has been performed. The selected docked complex suggests favorable hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions with rhAChE enzyme; notably, the O3 atom of piperine molecule forms strong hydrogen bonding interaction with Glu202 at 1.8 Å. To determine the charge density distribution and the electrostatic properties of piperine molecule in the active site of rhAChE, the piperine-rhAChE complex was minimized at QM/MM energy level; in which, the binding pocket with piperine was considered as QM region. The charge density analysis of piperine and the interacting amino acid groups have been carried out. The topological analysis of O3⋯H–O/Glu202 hydrogen bonding interaction exhibits strong interactions and the electron density ρcp(r): 0.242 eÅ−3 and the Laplacian ∇2ρcp(r): 3.176 eÅ−5 respectively. These results were compared with the corresponding molecule present in the crystal and gas phase environments of piperine. The comparison of active site structure with the corresponding crystal phase and gas phase structures reveal that piperine exhibits large conformational modification in the active site. The molecular dynamics simulation and binding free energy calculations were performed, this gives the stability, binding affinity of the molecule in the active site of rhAChE. The O3⋯H–O/Glu202 interaction shows the high stability (89.2%), this was confirmed from the stability of hydrogen bond analysis. The binding free energy was used to measure the rate of inhibition of enzyme in the presence of ligand molecule. The comparative study allows to understand the nature of piperine molecule in the gas and crystal phases, and amino acids environment.