New Insights into Protein (Un)Folding Dynamics

作者：Cote Yoann; Maisuradze Gia G^*; Delarue Patrice; Scheraga Harold A; Senet Patrick

来源：Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2015, 6(6): 1082-1086.

DOI：10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b00055

A fundamental open problem in biophysics is how the folded structure of the main chain (MC) of a protein is determined by the physics of the interactions between the side chains (SCs). All atom molecular dynamics simulations of a model protein (Trp-cage) revealed that strong correlations between the motions of the SCs and the MC occur transiently at 380 K in unfolded segments of the protein and during the simulations of the whole amino acid sequence at 450 K The high correlation between the SC and MC fluctuations is a fundamental property of the unfolded state and is also relevant to unstructured proteins as intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), for which new reaction coordinates are introduced. The presented findings may open a new door as to how functions of IDPs are related to conformations, which play a crucial role in neurodegenerative diseases.

• 出版日期2015-3-19