Study on structure-activity relationship of mutation-dependent herbicide resistance acetohydroxyacid synthase through 3D-QSAR and mutation

Seventy-four sulfonylureas were synthesized and tested for their inhibitory activity against the whole enzyme of E. coli acetohydroxyacid synthase (AHAS, EC 2.2.1.6) isoenzyme II, and 3D-QSAR analyses were performed based on these inhibitory activities. The binding conformation of chlorimuron-ethyl, a commercial herbicide of AHAS, in the crystal structure of AHAS complex was extracted and used as template to build the initial three-dimensional structure of other sulfonylureas, and then all structures were fully geometry optimized. After systematic optimization of the alignment rule, molecular orienta- tion, grid space and attenuation factor, two satisfactory models with excellent performances (CoMFA: q2 = 0.735, r2 = 0.954, n = 7, r 2 pred = 0.832; CoMSIA: q2 = 0.721, r2 = 0.913, n = 8, r 2pred = 0.844) were estab- lished. By mapping the 3D contour maps of CoMFA and CoMSIA models into the possible inhibitory active site in the crystal structure of catalytic subunit of yeast AHAS, a plausible binding model for AHAS, with best fit QSAR in the literature so far, was proposed. Moreover, the results of 3D-QSAR were further utilized to interpret resistance of site-directed mutants. A relative activity index (RAI) for AHAS enzyme mutant was defined for the first time to relate the 3D-QSAR and resistance of mutants. This study, for the first time, demonstrated that combination of 3D-QSAR and enzyme mutation can be used to decipher the molecular basis of ligand-receptor interaction mechanism. This study refined our understanding of the ligand-receptor interaction and resistance mechanism in AHAS-sulfonylurea system, and provided basis for designing new potent herbicides to combat the herbicide resistance.