Predicted structures of agonist and antagonist bound complexes of adenosine A ₃ receptor

We used the GEnSeMBLE Monte Carlo method to predict ensemble of the 20 best packings (helix rotations and tilts) based on the neutral total energy (E) from a vast number (10 trillion) of potential packings for each of the four subtypes of the adenosine G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are involved in many cytoprotective functions. We then used the DarwinDock Monte Carlo methods to predict the binding pose for the human A ₃ adenosine receptor (hAA ₃R) for subtype selective agonists and antagonists. We found that all four A ₃ agonists stabilize the 15th lowest conformation of apo-hAA ₃R while also binding strongly to the 1st and 3rd. In contrast the four A ₃ antagonists stabilize the 2nd or 3rd lowest conformation. These results show that different ligands can stabilize different GPCR conformations, which will likely affect function, complicating the design of functionally unique ligands. Interestingly all agonists lead to a trans χ1 angle for W6.48 that experiments on other GPCRs associate with G-protein activation while all 20 apo-AA ₃R conformations have a W6.48 gauche+ χ1 angle associated experimentally with inactive GPCRs for other systems. Thus docking calculations have identified critical ligand-GPCR structures involved with activation. We found that the predicted binding site for selective agonist Cl-IB-MECA to the predicted structure of hAA ₃R shows favorable interactions to three subtype variable residues, I253 ^6.58, V169 ^EL2, and Q167 ^EL2, while the predicted structure for hAA _2AR shows weakened to the corresponding amino acids: T256 ^6.58, E169 ^EL2, and L167 ^EL2, explaining the observed subtype selectivity.