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Role of D278N mutation for stability of prion dimer and tetramer structure

Jurkowski W.

Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems

2015

Vol. 11, no. 1

19--24

Toxicity of the prion molecule is a result of transmission of conformational change by direct contact with malignant misfolded molecule. The aim of this study is analyze the role of D278N mutation in promoting preferential oligomerization modes. Proteins exist as ensembles in equilibrium between different structural and dynamic states, including functionally relevant conformers as the most populated states as well as malfunctioning conformers as less populated states. Furthermore, the existence of different conformations allows protein oligomerization with condition-specific affinities. The maintenance of a particular role requires specific conversion between multiple stable states. Proteinprotein binding may facilitate or may be a necessary condition of structural adaptation. In the case of prion disease, protein-protein interactions, resulting in prion agglomeration, have toxic effect. How exactly increased concentrations of prion oligomers trigger mechanisms leading to neuronal death is not known. Nevertheless, first oligomerization and second aggregate recognition are likely sequence of events that have to happen before any pathological condition may arise. Here, we carry out structural and dynamic analyses of the effect of diseasecausing mutations on the dimerization and tetramerization of prion molecule as the first step in aggregate formation. D178N mutation has almost no effect on the monomeric structure but helps to stabilize the dimer, which consequently facilitates tetramer formation and stability.

O kilku osobliwościach w oddziaływaniach molekuł

Piela L.

Wiadomości Chemiczne

2011

[Z] 65, 11-12

935-952

The ground state electronic energy represents a complicated function of the nuclear coordinates. Even for relatively small molecules this function may have many minima in the corresponding "energy landscape", very often myriads of minima, each of them corresponding to a stable configuration of the nuclei. This is why predicting the lowest-energy conformation or configuration represents a formidable task. There were many attempts to solve this problem for protein molecules, for which it is believed their native conformation corresponds to the lowest free energy. The challenge to find this conformation from a given sequence of amino acids is known as a "second genetic code". In fact all of these attempts based on some smoothing of the energy landscape. In the article some of these smoothing techniques are described, from a generic one to those, which finally turned out to be highly successful in finding native structures of globular proteins. When discussing the contributions to the conformational energy the importance of the hydrophobic effect as well as of the electrostatic interactions has been stressed. In particular it turned out that the dipole moments of the NH and of the CO bonds in proteins functioning in nature are oriented to good accuracy along the local intramolecular electric field. Thanks to enormous effort of the protein folding community it is possible to design such amino acid sequences, which fold to the desired protein 3D structure. A certain reliable theoretical technique of protein folding has been used to study a possibility of conformational autocatalysis. It turned out that a small protein of 32 amino acids, with carefully predesigned amino acid sequence, exhibits indeed such an effect, which may be seen as a model of the prion disease propagation.