The Comparison Between the Mutated HuIFN-β 27-101 and the WildType Interferon β: the Comprehensive In Silico Study to Evaluate theEffect of Mutations on IFN-β

Interferon beta (IFN-β) is used to combat multiple sclerosis (MS) disease. CreatingR27T and V101F mutations (mHuIFN-β-27 and mHuIFN-β-101) is one of the tasks performedto improve human interferon beta (HuIFN-β) half-life, function and expression. In this work,the impact of R27T and V101F mutations in recombinant IFN-β on its binding to interferonreceptors were studied by molecular docking.

This work was performed through in silico study. The simulation of mutation wasperformed using the online Rosetta Backrub software and checked using server verify3D.Comparison of access to the solvent of the amino acids in the structures created was performedusing the asaview online server. Also, the effect of mutations on the fold of the protein wasreviewed by the online HOPE server. The molecular docking was performed between HuIFN-βand the external region of IFNAR receptor using the online ClusPro2 protein-protein dockingserver.

The comparison of the values of the negative binding energy (ΔGbind) obtained fromprotein-protein molecular docking between IFNAR receptor and HuIFN-β, mHuIFN-β-27,mHuIFN-β-101 and mHuIFN-β-27-101 ligands did not show a significant difference, and thesedifferences do not see any meaningful relationship between them (P > 0.9999).

Regarding these results, it can be concluded that these mutations do not have anegative effect on the composition of the complex rHuIFN-β/IFNAR. So, they do not interferewith the binding of the IFN-β to the receptor. It is concluded that the quality of the rHuIFN-β isimproved by introducing these two mutations.