1. In silico Identification of Thyroid Disrupting Chemicals : among industrial chemicals and household dust contaminants
- Author
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Zhang, Jin and Zhang, Jin
- Abstract
Thyroid disruptions by xenobiotics have been associated with a broad spectrum of severe adverse human health effects, such as impaired brain development and metabolic syndrome. Ingestion of indoor dust and contact with industrial chemicals are two significant human exposure routes of thyroid hormone disrupting chemicals (THDCs), raising serious concerns for human health. However, it is a laborious and costly process to identify THDCs using conventional experimental methods, due to the number of chemicals in commerce and the varieties of potential disruption mechanisms. In this thesis, we are aimed at in silico identification of novel THDCs targeting transthyretin (TTR) and thyroid hormone receptor (THR) among dust contaminants and commonly used industrial chemicals. In vitro assays were used to validate the in silico prediction results. Co-crystallization and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were applied to reveal binding modes of THDCs at the studied biological targets and to explain their intermolecular recognition. The main findings presented in this thesis are: 1. Over 144 environmental pollutants have been confirmed as TTR-binders in vitro and these cover a wide range of environmental pollutants and show distinct chemical profiles including a large group of halogenated aromatic compounds and a second group of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. (Paper I) 2. In total 485 organic contaminants have been reported to be detected in household dust. The developed QSAR classification model predicted 7.6% of these dust contaminants and 53.1% of their metabolites as potential TTR-binders, which emphasizes the importance of metabolic bioactivation. After in vitro validation, four novel TTR binders with IC50 ≤ 10 µM were identified, i.e. perfluoroheptanesulfonic acid, 2,4,2',4'-tetrahydroxybenzophenone (BP2), 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, and 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol. (Paper II) 3. The development of a robust structure-based virtual screening (VS) protocol resu
- Published
- 2016