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Defense Date

2003

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

Dr. Donald D. Shillady

Second Advisor

Dr. Sarah C. Rutan

Abstract

The binding energies and Gibbs free energies ofbinding for melatonin and other indole-,naphthalene-, and benzene-moiety ligands totrans-membrane sections of the seven-helix humanmelatonin receptor MT1 have been calculated atthe ab initio and semi-empirical levels using GAMESS, and with molecular mechanics using Sybyl. A linear relationship was found between the Sybyl-calculated binding energies and theexperimentally-determined pKi values, and alinear fit of calculated HINT scores to theexperimentally-measured ΔG values givesdeltaG = -0.00263Hscore - 9.477, in kcal/mol. In addition, the interactions between individual residues in MT1 and various ligands were examined to determine why some ligands bind more strongly to MT1 than others. The magnetic circular dichroism spectra of melatonin bound tofragments of MT1 were also calculated, in theCNDO/S-D approximation.

Comments

Part of Retrospective ETD Collection, restricted to VCU only.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

June 2008

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