Jorge A. Vila

Atomically detailed folding simulation of the B domain of staphylococcal protein A from random structures

The conformational space of the 10–55 fragment of the B-domain of staphylococcal protein A has been investigated by using the electrostatically driven Monte Carlo (EDMC) method. The ECEPP/3 (empirical conformational energy program for peptides) force-field plus two different continuum solvation models, namely SRFOPT (Solvent Radii Fixed with atomic solvation parameters OPTimized) and OONS (Ooi, Oobatake, Némethy, and Scheraga solvation model), were used to describe the conformational energy of the chain. After an exhaustive search, starting from two different random conformations, three of four runs led to native-like conformations. Boltzmann-averaged root-mean-square deviations (RMSD) for all of the backbone heavy atoms with respect to the native structure of 3.35 Å and 4.54 Å were obtained with SRFOPT and OONS, respectively. These results show that the protein-folding problem can be solved at the atomic detail level by an ab initio procedure, starting from random conformations, with no knowledge except the amino acid sequence. To our knowledge, the results reported here correspond to the largest protein ever folded from a random conformation by an initial-value formulation with a full atomic potential, without resort to knowledge-based information.

Quantum-mechanics-derived 13Cα chemical shift server (CheShift) for protein structure validation

A server (CheShift) has been developed to predict 13Cα chemical shifts of protein structures. It is based on the generation of 696,916 conformations as a function of the φ, ψ, ω, χ1 and χ2 torsional angles for all 20 naturally occurring amino acids. Their 13Cα chemical shifts were computed at the DFT level of theory with a small basis set and extrapolated, with an empirically-determined linear regression formula, to reproduce the values obtained with a larger basis set. Analysis of the accuracy and sensitivity of the CheShift predictions, in terms of both the correlation coefficient R and the conformational-averaged rmsd between the observed and predicted 13Cα chemical shifts, was carried out for 3 sets of conformations: (i) 36 x-ray-derived protein structures solved at 2.3 Å or better resolution, for which sets of 13Cα chemical shifts were available; (ii) 15 pairs of x-ray and NMR-derived sets of protein conformations; and (iii) a set of decoys for 3 proteins showing an rmsd with respect to the x-ray structure from which they were derived of up to 3 Å. Comparative analysis carried out with 4 popular servers, namely SHIFTS, SHIFTX, SPARTA, and PROSHIFT, for these 3 sets of conformations demonstrated that CheShift is the most sensitive server with which to detect subtle differences between protein models and, hence, to validate protein structures determined by either x-ray or NMR methods, if the observed 13Cα chemical shifts are available. CheShift is available as a web server.

Quantum chemical 13Cα chemical shift calculations for protein NMR structure determination, refinement, and validation

A recently determined set of 20 NMR-derived conformations of a 48-residue all-α-helical protein, (PDB ID code 2JVD), is validated here by comparing the observed 13Cα chemical shifts with those computed at the density functional level of theory. In addition, a recently introduced physics-based method, aimed at determining protein structures by using NOE-derived distance constraints together with observed and computed 13Cα chemical shifts, was applied to determine a new set of 10 conformations, (Set-bt), as a blind test for the same protein. A cross-validation of these two sets of conformations in terms of the agreement between computed and observed 13Cα chemical shifts, several stereochemical quality factors, and some NMR quality assessment scores reveals the good quality of both sets of structures. We also carried out an analysis of the agreement between the observed and computed 13Cα chemical shifts for a slightly longer construct of the protein solved by x-ray crystallography at 2.0-Å resolution (PDB ID code 3BHP) with an identical amino acid residue sequence to the 2JVD structure for the first 46 residues. Our results reveal that both of the NMR-derived sets, namely 2JVD and Set-bt, are somewhat better representations of the observed 13Cα chemical shifts in solution than the 3BHP crystal structure. In addition, the 13Cα-based validation analysis appears to be more sensitive to subtle structural differences across the three sets of structures than any other NMR quality-assessment scores used here, and, although it is computationally intensive, this analysis has potential value as a standard procedure to determine, refine, and validate protein structures.

Polyproline II Helix Conformation in a Proline-Rich Environment: A Theoretical Study

Interest centers here on whether a polyproline II helix can propagate through adjacent non-proline residues, and on shedding light on recent experimental observations suggesting the presence of significant PP(II) structure in a short alanine-based peptide with no proline in the sequence. For this purpose, we explored the formation of polyproline II helices in proline-rich peptides with the sequences Ac-(Pro)(3)-X-(Pro)(3)-Gly-Tyr-NH(2), with X = Pro (PPP), Ala (PAP), Gln (PQP), Gly (PGP), and Val (PVP), and Ac-(Pro)(3)-Ala-Ala-(Pro)(3)-Gly-Tyr-NH(2) (PAAP), by using a theoretical approach that includes a solvent effect as well as cis <--> trans isomerization of the peptide groups and puckering conformations of the pyrrolidine ring of the proline residues. Since (13)C chemical shifts have proven to be useful for identifying secondary-structure preferences in proteins and peptides, and because values of the dihedral angles (phi,psi) are the main determinants of their magnitudes, we have, therefore, computed the Boltzmann-averaged (13)C chemical shifts for the guest residues in the PXP peptide (X = Pro, Ala, Gln, Gly, and Val) with a combination of approaches, involving molecular mechanics, statistical mechanics, and quantum mechanics. In addition, an improved procedure was used to carry out the conformational searches and to compute the solvent polarization effects faster and more accurately than in previous work. The current theoretical work and additional experimental evidence show that, in short proline-rich peptides, alanine decreases the polyproline II helix content. In particular, the theoretical evidence accumulated in this work calls into question the proposal that alanine has a strong preference to adopt conformations in the polyproline II region of the Ramachandran map.

Assessing the fractions of tautomeric forms of the imidazole ring of histidine in proteins as a function of pH

A method is proposed to determine the fraction of the tautomeric forms of the imidazole ring of histidine in proteins as a function of pH, provided that the observed and chemical shifts and the protein structure, or the fraction of H+ form, are known. This method is based on the use of quantum chemical methods to compute the 13C NMR shieldings of all the imidazole ring carbons (13Cγ, , and ) for each of the two tautomers, Nδ1-H and Nϵ2-H, and the protonated form, H+, of histidine. This methodology enabled us (i) to determine the fraction of all the tautomeric forms of histidine for eight proteins for which the and chemical shifts had been determined in solution in the pH range of 3.2 to 7.5 and (ii) to estimate the fraction of tautomeric forms of eight histidine-containing dipeptide crystals for which the chemical shifts had been determined by solid-state 13C NMR. Our results for proteins indicate that the protonated form is the most populated one, whereas the distribution of the tautomeric forms for the imidazole ring varies significantly among different histidines in the same protein, reflecting the importance of the environment of the histidines in determining the tautomeric forms. In addition, for ∼70% of the neutral histidine-containing dipeptides, the method leads to fairly good agreement between the calculated and the experimental tautomeric form. Coexistence of different tautomeric forms in the same crystal structure may explain the remaining 30% of disagreement.

Topology of Type II REases revisited; structural classes and the common conserved core

Type II restriction endonucleases (REases) are deoxyribonucleases that cleave DNA sequences with remarkable specificity. Type II REases are highly divergent in sequence as well as in topology, i.e. the connectivity of secondary structure elements. A widely held assumption is that a structural core of five β-strands flanked by two α-helices is common to these enzymes. We introduce a systematic procedure to enumerate secondary structure elements in an unambiguous and reproducible way, and use it to analyze the currently available X-ray structures of Type II REases. Based on this analysis, we propose an alternative definition of the core, which we term the αβα-core. The αβα-core includes the most frequently observed secondary structure elements and is not a sandwich, as it consists of a five-strand β-sheet and two α-helices on the same face of the β-sheet. We use the αβα-core connectivity as a basis for grouping the Type II REases into distinct structural classes. In these new structural classes, the connectivity correlates with the angles between the secondary structure elements and with the cleavage patterns of the REases. We show that there exists a substructure of the αβα-core, namely a common conserved core, ccc, defined here as one α-helix and four β-strands common to all Type II REase of known structure.

Helix–coil transitions re-visited

The thermally-induced helix-coil transition in polyamino acids is a good model for determining the helix-forming propensities of amino acids but not for the two-state folding/unfolding transition in globular proteins. The equilibrium and kinetic treatments of the helix-coil transition are summarized here together with a description of applications to various types of homopolymers and copolymers. Attention is then focused on the helix-coil transition in poly-L-alanine as an example of a non-polar polyamino acid. To render such a non-polar polymer water soluble, it is necessary to introduce polar amino acids such as lysines, but care must be taken as to the location of such polar residues. If they are attached as end groups, as in a triblock copolymer, they do not perturb the helix-forming tendency of the central poly-L-alanine block significantly, but if they are introduced within the sequence of alanine residues, then the hydration properties of the lysines dominate the behavior of the resulting copolymer, thereby leading to erroneous values of the parameters characterizing the helix-forming tendency of the alanines. Neutral but polar residues, such as glutamines, also exhibit hydration-dominating properties but less so than charged lysines. Some details of the calculations for an alanine/glutamine copolymer are presented here. It is concluded that random copolymers based on a neutral water-soluble host provide reliable information about the helix-forming tendencies of amino acid residues that are introduced as guests among such neutral host residues.

Role of Hydrophobicity and Solvent-Mediated Charge-Charge Interactions in Stabilizing α-Helices

A theoretical study to identify the conformational preferences of lysine-based oligopeptides has been carried out. The solvation free energy and free energy of ionization of the oligopeptides have been calculated by using a fast multigrid boundary element method that considers the coupling between the conformation of the molecule and the ionization equilibria explicitly, at a given pH value. It has been found experimentally that isolated alanine and lysine residues have somewhat small intrinsic helix-forming tendencies; however, results from these simulations indicate that conformations containing right-handed alpha-helical turns are energetically favorable at low values of pH for lysine-based oligopeptides. Also, unusual patterns of interactions among lysine side chains with large hydrophobic contacts and close proximity (5-6 A) between charged NH3+ groups are observed. Similar arrangements of charged groups have been seen for lysine and arginine residues in experimentally determined structures of proteins available from the Protein Data Bank. The lowest-free-energy conformation of the sequence Ac-(LYS)6-NMe from these simulations showed large pKalpha shifts for some of the NH3+ groups of the lysine residues. Such large effects are not observed in the lowest-energy conformations of oligopeptide sequences with two, three, or four lysine residues. Calculations on the sequence Ac-LYS-(ALA)4-LYS-NMe also reveal low-energy alpha-helical conformations with interactions of one of the LYS side chains with the helix backbone in an arrangement quite similar to the one described recently by (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 93:4025-4029). The results of this study provide a sound basis with which to discuss the nature of the interactions, such as hydrophobicity, charge-charge interaction, and solvent polarization effects, that stabilize right-handed alpha-helical conformations.

Factors affecting the use of 13Cα chemical shifts to determine, refine, and validate protein structures

Interest centers here on the analysis of two different, but related, phenomena that affect side‐chain conformations and consequently 13Cα chemical shifts and their applications to determine, refine, and validate protein structures. The first is whether 13Cα chemical shifts, computed at the DFT level of approximation with charged residues is a better approximation of observed 13Cα chemical shifts than those computed with neutral residues for proteins in solution. Accurate computation of 13Cα chemical shifts requires a proper representation of the charges, which might not take on integral values. For this analysis, the charges for 139 conformations of the protein ubiquitin were determined by explicit consideration of protein binding equilibria, at a given pH, that is, by exploring the 2ξ possible ionization states of the whole molecule, with ξ being the number of ionizable groups. The results of this analysis, as revealed by the shielding/deshielding of the 13Cα nucleus, indicated that: (i) there is a significant difference in the computed 13Cα chemical shifts, between basic and acidic groups, as a function of the degree of charge of the side chain; (ii) this difference is attributed to the distance between the ionizable groups and the 13Cα nucleus, which is shorter for the acidic Asp and Glu groups as compared with that for the basic Lys and Arg groups; and (iii) the use of neutral, rather than charged, basic and acidic groups is a better approximation of the observed 13Cα chemical shifts of a protein in solution. The second is how side‐chain flexibility influences computed 13Cα chemical shifts in an additional set of ubiquitin conformations, in which the side chains are generated from an NMR‐derived structure with the backbone conformation assumed to be fixed. The 13Cα chemical shift of a given amino acid residue in a protein is determined, mainly, by its own backbone and side‐chain torsional angles, independent of the neighboring residues; the conformation of a given residue itself, however, depends on the environment of this residue and, hence, on the whole protein structure. As a consequence, this analysis reveals the role and impact of an accurate side‐chain computation in the determination and refinement of protein conformation. The results of this analysis are: (i) a lower error between computed and observed 13Cα chemical shifts (by up to 3.7 ppm), was found for ∼68% and ∼63% of all ionizable residues and all non‐Ala/Pro/Gly residues, respectively, in the additional set of conformations, compared with results for the model from which the set was derived; and (ii) all the additional conformations exhibit a lower root‐mean‐square‐deviation (1.97 ppm ≤ rmsd ≤ 2.13 ppm), between computed and observed 13Cα chemical shifts, than the rmsd (2.32 ppm) computed for the starting conformation from which this additional set was derived. As a validation test, an analysis of the additional set of ubiquitin conformations, comparing computed and observed values of both 13Cα chemical shifts and χ1 torsional angles (given by the vicinal coupling constants, 3JN−Cγ and 3JC′−Cγ, is discussed. Proteins 2008.

Electrostatic Unfolding and Interactions of Albumin Driven by pH Changes: A Molecular Dynamics Study

A better understanding of protein aggregation is bound to translate into critical advances in several areas, including the treatment of misfolded protein disorders and the development of self-assembling biomaterials for novel commercial applications. Because of its ubiquity and clinical potential, albumin is one of the best-characterized models in protein aggregation research; but its properties in different conditions are not completely understood. Here, we carried out all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of albumin to understand how electrostatics can affect the conformation of a single albumin molecule just prior to self-assembly. We then analyzed the tertiary structure and solvent accessible surface area of albumin after electrostatically triggered partial denaturation. The data obtained from these single protein simulations allowed us to investigate the effect of electrostatic interactions between two proteins. The results of these simulations suggested that hydrophobic attractions and counterion binding may be strong enough to effectively overcome the electrostatic repulsions between the highly charged monomers. This work contributes to our general understanding of protein aggregation mechanisms, the importance of explicit consideration of free ions in protein solutions, provides critical new insights about the equilibrium conformation of albumin in its partially denatured state at low pH, and may spur significant progress in our efforts to develop biocompatible protein hydrogels driven by electrostatic partial denaturation.