Ab initio MO studies of interaction mechanisms of Protein Kinase C with cell membranes Original Research Article

Protein Kinase C (PKC) is a family of regulatory enzymes. It is considered that binding with phorbol ester which are PKC activators, increases affinity of PKC for the membranes and consequently induces its conformation change. Electrostatic interactions between PKC and the membrane is assumed to be important, and performed ab initio MO calculations of one domain of PKC consisting of 50 amino acids and its complex with the ester is performed to investigate how the electrostatic potential of PKC changes through docking with the substrate. From the calculation, it is shown that the electrostatic potential of PKC near the binding site is dramatically affected through the binding, suggesting attractive interactions with the cell membrane.