Towards investigation of the inhibitor-recognition mechanisms of drug-target proteins by neutron crystallography.
It is generally known that enzymes represent important drug-target proteins. Elucidation of the catalytic function and the molecular-recognition mechanisms of enzymes provides important information for structure-based drug design. Neutron crystallography provides accurate information on the locations of H atoms that are essential in enzymatic function and molecular recognition. Recent examples are described of the structure determination of the drug-target proteins human immunodeficiency virus protease and porcine pancreatic elastase in complex with transition-state analogue inhibitors using the neutron diffractometers for biological crystallography (BIX-3 and BIX-4) installed at the JRR-3 research reactor.