Molecular dynamics simulations for the determination of the characteristic structural differences between inactive and active states of wild type and mutants of the orexin2 receptor

The orexin2 receptor (OX2R), which is classified as a class A G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), is the target of our study. We performed over 20 several-microsecond-scale molecular dynamics simulations of the wild type and mutants of OX2R to extract the characteristics of the structural changes taking place in the active state. We introduced mutations that exhibited the stable inactive state and the constitutively active state in class A GPCRs. In these simulations, significant characteristic structural changes were observed in the V3096.40Y mutant, which corresponded to a constitutively active mutant. These conformational changes include the outward movement of the transmembrane helix 6 (TM6) and the inward movement of TM7, which are common structural changes in the activation of GPCRs. In addition, we extracted a suitable index for the quantitative evaluation of the active and inactive states of GPCRs, namely, the inter-atomic distance of Cα atoms between x(3.46) and Y(7.53). The structures of the inactive and active states solved by X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy can be classified using the inter-atomic distance. Furthermore, we clarified that the inward movement of TM7 requires the swapping of M3056.36 on TM6 and L3677.56 on TM7. Finally, we discussed the structural advantages of TM7 inward movement for GPCR activation.