Mechanistic Basis Of Peptide-Protein Interaction In AtPep1-PEPR1 Complex In <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>

Peptide-mediated immunity against pathogens in plants can provide information on protein-peptide interactions and drug discovery in general. The molecular structure of AtPep1, a 23-amino acid signaling peptide isolated from Arabidopsis thaliana leaves and implicated in innate immunity, has evaded structural determination by biophysical methods. The details of molecular interaction of AtPep1 peptide with its receptor (PEPR1), a 170 kDa leucine-rich repeat (LRR) kinase is also unknown. We report a computational approach to the modeling AtPep1 by conformational sampling and its interaction with the receptor PEPR1. Molecular dynamics simulations were employed to sample and cluster energetically favorable conformations of AtPep1 and modeling of PEPR1 through homology. Docking of AtPep1 to PEPR1 and filtering of the biologically relevant poses were facilitated by the computational Ala-scanning mutations and binding energy analysis of the peptide-protein complex. This study provides the first independent in silico validation of the Structure-Activity- Relationship studies carried out on the AtPep1 and provides a molecular mechanism of the peptide-protein complex system.