In silico investigations of anti-androgen activity of polychlorinated biphenyls

• The AR-antagonistic activity of PCBs was studied by 3D-QSAR.
• The binding mode between PCBs and AR were investigated.
• The combination of 3D-QSAR, molecular docking, and MD simulations was performed.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have attracted great concern as global environmental pollutants and representative endocrine disruptors. In this work, a molecular model study combining three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR), molecular docking, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations was performed to explore the structural requirement for the anti-androgen activities of PCBs and to reveal the binding mode between the PCBs and androgen receptor (AR). The best comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA) model, obtained from receptor-based alignment, shows leave-one-out cross-validated correlation coefficient (q2) of 0.665 and conventional correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.945. The developed model has a highly predictive ability in both internal and external validation. Furthermore, the interaction mechanisms of PCBs to AR were analyzed by molecular docking and MD simulation. Molecular docking indicated that all the PCBs in the data set docked in a hydrophobic pocket. The Binding free energies calculated by Molecular mechanics–Poisson Boltzmann surface area (MM–PBSA) not only exhibited a good correlation with the experimental activity, but also could explain the activity difference of the studied compounds. The binding free energy decomposition analysis indicates that the van der Waals interaction is the major driving force for the binding process.