Molecules 2015, 20, 7558-7573; doi:10.3390/molecules20057558 OPEN ACCESS molecules ISSN 1420-3049 www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules Article Pi-pi Stacking Mediated Cooperative Mechanism for Human Cytochrome P450 3A4 Botao Fa 1, Shan Cong 2 and Jingfang Wang 1,* 1 Key Laboratory of Systems Biomedicine (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Center for Systems Biomedicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; E-Mail:
[email protected] 2 Department of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, College of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; E-Mail:
[email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.: +86-21-3420-7344 (ext. 123); Fax: +86-21-3420-4348. Academic Editor: Antonio Frontera Received: 13 January 2015 / Accepted: 19 March 2015 / Published: 24 April 2015 Abstract: Human Cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4) is an important member of the cytochrome P450 superfamily with responsibility for metabolizing ~50% of clinical drugs. Experimental evidence showed that CYP3A4 can adopt multiple substrates in its active site to form a cooperative binding model, accelerating substrate metabolism efficiency. In the current study, we constructed both normal and cooperative binding models of human CYP3A4 with antifungal drug ketoconazoles (KLN). Molecular dynamics simulation and free energy calculation were then carried out to study the cooperative binding mechanism. Our simulation showed that the second KLN in the cooperative binding model had a positive impact on the first one binding in the active site by two significant pi-pi stacking interactions. The first one was formed by Phe215, functioning to position the first KLN in a favorable orientation in the active site for further metabolism reactions.