Susanne Liese

On the Relationship between Peptide Adsorption Resistance and Surface Contact Angle: A Combined Experimental and Simulation Single-Molecule Study

The force-induced desorption of single peptide chains from mixed OH/CH(3)-terminated self-assembled monolayers is studied in closely matched molecular dynamics simulations and atomic force microscopy experiments with the goal to gain microscopic understanding of the transition between peptide adsorption and adsorption resistance as the surface contact angle is varied. In both simulations and experiments, the surfaces become adsorption resistant against hydrophilic as well as hydrophobic peptides when their contact angle decreases below θ ≈ 50°-60°, thus confirming the so-called Berg limit established in the context of protein and cell adsorption. Entropy/enthalpy decomposition of the simulation results reveals that the key discriminator between the adsorption of different residues on a hydrophobic monolayer is of entropic nature and thus is suggested to be linked to the hydrophobic effect. By pushing a polyalanine peptide onto a polar surface, simulations reveal that the peptide adsorption resistance is caused by the strongly bound water hydration layer and characterized by the simultaneous gain of both total entropy in the system and total number of hydrogen bonds between water, peptide, and surface. This mechanistic insight into peptide adsorption resistance might help to refine design principles for anti-fouling surfaces.

Size Dependence of Steric Shielding and Multivalency Effects for Globular Binding Inhibitors

Competitive binding inhibitors based on multivalent nanoparticles have shown great potential for preventing virus infections. However, general design principles of highly efficient inhibitors are lacking as the quantitative impact of factors such as virus concentration, inhibitor size, steric shielding, or multivalency effects in the inhibition process is not known. Based on two complementary experimental inhibition assays we determined size-dependent steric shielding and multivalency effects. This allowed us to adapt the Cheng-Prusoff equation for its application to multivalent systems. Our results show that the particle and volume normalized IC50 value of an inhibitor at very low virus concentration predominantly depends on its multivalent association constant, which itself exponentially increases with the inhibitor/virus contact area and ligand density. Compared to multivalency effects, the contribution of steric shielding to the IC50 values is only minor, and its impact is only noticeable if the multivalent dissociation constant is far below the virus concentration, which means if all inhibitors are bound to the virus. The dependence of the predominant effect, either steric shielding or multivalency, on the virus concentration has significant implications on the in vitro testing of competitive binding inhibitors and determines optimal inhibitor diameters for the efficient inhibition of viruses.

Peptide Desorption Kinetics from Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy Studies

We use a combined experimental/theoretical approach to determine the intrinsic monomeric desorption rate k0 of polytyrosine and polylysine homopeptides from flat surfaces. To this end, single polypeptide molecules are covalently attached to an AFM cantilever tip and desorbed from hydrophobic self-assembled monolayers in two complementary experimental protocols. In the constant-pulling-velocity protocol, the cantilever is moved at finite velocity away from the surface and the distance at which the constant plateau force regime ends and the polymer detaches is recorded. In the waiting-time protocol, the cantilever is held at a fixed distance above the surface and the time until the polymer detaches is recorded. The desorption plateau force is varied between 10 and 90 pN, by systematically changing the aqueous solvent quality via the addition of ethanol or salt. A simultaneous fit of the experimental data from both protocols with simple two-state kinetic polymer theory allows to unambiguously disentangle and determine the model parameters corresponding to polymer contour length L, Kuhn length a, adsorption free energy λ, and intrinsic monomeric desorption rate k0. Crucial to our analysis is that a statistically significant number of single-polymer desorption experiments are done with one and the same single polymer molecule for different solvent qualities. The surprisingly low value of about k0 ≈ 10(5) Hz points to significant cooperativity in the desorption process of single polymers.

Hydration Effects Turn a Highly Stretched Polymer from an Entropic into an Energetic Spring

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a structurally simple and nontoxic water-soluble polymer that is widely used in medical and pharmaceutical applications as molecular linker and spacer. In such applications, PEGs elastic response against conformational deformations is key to its function. According to text-book knowledge, a polymer reacts to the stretching of its end-to-end separation by a decrease in entropy that is due to the reduction of available conformations, which is why polymers are commonly called entropic springs. By a combination of single-molecule force spectroscopy experiments with molecular dynamics simulations in explicit water, we show that entropic hydration effects almost exactly compensate the chain conformational entropy loss at high stretching. Our simulations reveal that this entropic compensation is due to the stretching-induced release of water molecules that in the relaxed state form double hydrogen bonds with PEG. As a consequence, the stretching response of PEG is predominantly of energetic, not of entropic, origin at high forces and caused by hydration effects, while PEG backbone deformations only play a minor role. These findings demonstrate the importance of hydration for the mechanics of macromolecules and constitute a case example that sheds light on the antagonistic interplay of conformational and hydration degrees of freedom.

The Effect of Temperature on Single-Polypeptide Adsorption

The hydrophobic attraction (HA) is believed to be one of the main driving forces for protein folding. Understanding its temperature dependence promises a deeper understanding of protein folding. Herein, we present an approach to investigate the HA with a combined experimental and simulation approach, which is complementary to previous studies on the temperature dependence of the solvation of small hydrophobic spherical particles. We determine the temperature dependence of the free-energy change and detachment length upon desorption of single polypeptides from hydrophobic substrates in aqueous environment. Both the atomic force microscopy (AFM) based experiments and the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations show only a weak dependence of the free energy change on temperature. In fact, depending on the substrate, we find a maximum or a minimum in the temperature-dependent free energy change, meaning that the entropy increases or decreases with temperature for different substrates. These observations are in contrast to the solvation of small hydrophobic particles and can be rationalized by a compensation mechanism between the various contributions to the desorption force. On the one hand this is reminiscent of the protein folding process, where large entropic and enthalpic contributions compensate each other to result in a small free energy difference between the folded and unfolded state. On the other hand, the protein folding process shows much stronger temperature dependence, pointing to a fundamental difference between protein folding and adsorption. Nevertheless such temperature dependent single molecule desorption studies open large possibilities to study equilibrium and non-equilibrium processes dominated by the hydrophobic attraction.

Influence of length and flexibility of spacers on the binding affinity of divalent ligands.

Summary We present a quantitative model for the binding of divalent ligand–receptor systems. We study the influence of length and flexibility of the spacers on the overall binding affinity and derive general rules for the optimal ligand design. To this end, we first compare different polymeric models and determine the probability to simultaneously bind to two neighboring receptor binding pockets. In a second step the binding affinity of divalent ligands in terms of the IC50 value is derived. We find that a divalent ligand has the potential to bind more efficiently than its monovalent counterpart only, if the monovalent dissociation constant is lower than a critical value. This critical monovalent dissociation constant depends on the ligand-spacer length and flexibility as well as on the size of the receptor. Regarding the optimal ligand-spacer length and flexibility, we find that the average spacer length should be equal or slightly smaller than the distance between the receptor binding pockets and that the end-to-end spacer length fluctuations should be in the same range as the size of a receptor binding pocket.

Quantitative Prediction of Multivalent Ligand–Receptor Binding Affinities for Influenza, Cholera, and Anthrax Inhibition

Multivalency achieves strong, yet reversible binding by the simultaneous formation of multiple weak bonds. It is a key interaction principle in biology and promising for the synthesis of high-affinity inhibitors of pathogens. We present a molecular model for the binding affinity of synthetic multivalent ligands onto multivalent receptors consisting of n receptor units arranged on a regular polygon. Ligands consist of a geometrically matching rigid polygonal core to which monovalent ligand units are attached via flexible linker polymers, closely mimicking existing experimental designs. The calculated binding affinities quantitatively agree with experimental studies for cholera toxin ( n = 5) and anthrax receptor ( n = 7) and allow to predict optimal core size and optimal linker length. Maximal binding affinity is achieved for a core that matches the receptor size and for linkers that have an equilibrium end-to-end distance that is slightly longer than the geometric separation between ligand core and receptor sites. Linkers that are longer than optimal are greatly preferable compared to shorter linkers. The angular steric restriction between ligand unit and linker polymer is shown to be a key parameter. We construct an enhancement diagram that quantifies the multivalent binding affinity compared to monovalent ligands. We conclude that multivalent ligands against influenza viral hemagglutinin ( n = 3), cholera toxin ( n = 5), and anthrax receptor ( n = 7) can outperform monovalent ligands only for a monovalent ligand affinity that exceeds a core-size dependent threshold value. Thus, multivalent drug design needs to balance core size, linker length, as well as monovalent ligand unit affinity.

Spatial Screening of Hemagglutinin on Influenza A Virus Particles: Sialyl-LacNAc Displays on DNA and PEG Scaffolds Reveal the Requirements for Bivalency Enhanced Interactions with Weak Monovalent Binders

Attachment of the Influenza A virus onto host cells involves multivalent interactions between virus surface hemagglutinin (HA) and sialoside-containing glyco ligands. Despite the development of extremely powerful multivalent binders of the Influenza virus and other viruses, comparably little is known about the optimal spacing of HA ligands, which ought to bridge binding sites within or across the trimeric HA molecules. To explore the criteria for ligand economical high affinity binding, we systematically probed distance-affinity relationships by means of two differently behaving scaffold types based on (i) flexible polyethylene glycol (PEG) conjugates and (ii) rigid self-assembled DNA·PNA complexes. The bivalent scaffolds presented two sialyl-LacNAc ligands in 23-101 Å distance. A combined analysis of binding by means of microscale thermophoresis measurements and statistical mechanics models exposed the inherent limitations of PEG-based spacers. Given the distance requirements of HA, the flexibility of PEG scaffolds is too high to raise the effective concentration of glyco ligands above a value that allows interactions with the low affinity binding site. By contrast, spatial screening with less flexible, self-assembled peptide nucleic acid (PNA)·DNA complexes uncovered a well-defined and, surprisingly, bimodal distance-affinity relationship for interactions of the Influenza A virus HA with bivalent displays of the natural sialyl-LacNAc ligand. Optimal constructs conferred 103-fold binding enhancements with only two ligands. We discuss the existence of secondary binding sites and shine light on the preference for intramolecular rather than intermolecular recognition of HA trimers on the virus surface.