A proposal of potent inhibitor for cancer metastasis blocking the pocket of urokinase receptor: ab initio molecular simulations

Recent biochemical experiments have elucidated that a variety of proteases play important roles in cancer invasion and metastasis. In particular, binding of urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) to uPA receptor (uPAR) existing on the surface of a cancer cell is considered to be a trigger for cancer invasions. Therefore, the blocking of the binding is expected to inhibit cancer invasion. In previous experiments, several peptides of amino acids were proposed as a potent inhibitor for blocking the binding. In the present study, we obtained stable structures of the solvated complexes with uPAR and the peptides and investigated the specific interactions between uPAR and the peptides by ab initio molecular simulations. Base on these results, we clarified which peptide can bind more strongly to uPAR and proposed a novel potent peptide which can inhibit the uPAR-uPA binding efficiently.