Issue February 2010

category image Volume 27
No. 4 (p 399-572)
February 2010
ISSN 0739-110

Predicting Atomic Details of the Unfolding Pathway for YibK, a Knotted Protein from the SPOUT Superfamily (511-520)

Several protein structures have been reported to contain intricate knots of the polypeptide backbone but the mechanism of the (un)folding process of knotted proteins remains unknown. The members of the SPOUT superfamily of RNA methyltransferases are some of the most intensely studied systems for investigation of the knot formation and function. YibK (whose biochemical function remains unknown) is the representative protein of the SPOUT superfamily. This protein exhibits a deep trefoil knot at the C-terminus. We conducted an extensive computational analysis of the unfolding process for the monomeric form of YibK. In order to predict the (un)folding pathway of YibK, we have calculated the order of secondary structure disassembly using UNFOLD, and performed thermal unfolding simulations using classical Molecular Dynamics (MD), as well as simulations employing reduced representation of the peptide chain using either MD with the UNRES method or the Monte Carlo (MC) unfolding with the REFINER method. Results obtained from all methods used in this work are in qualitative agreement. We found that YibK unfolds through four intermediate states. The trefoil knot in YibK disappears at the end of the unfolding process, long after the protein loses its native topology. We observed that the C-terminus leaves the knotting loop folded into a hairpin-like structure, in agreement with the results of coarse-grained simulation reported earlier. We propose that the folding pathway of YibK corresponds to the reversed sequence of events observed in the unfolding pathway elucidated in this study. Thus, we predict that the knot formation is the slowest part of the YibK folding process.

Irina Tuszynska1,2,*
Janusz M. Bujnicki1,3

1Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland
2PhD school, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS, Pawinskiego 5A 02-106 Warsaw
3Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 89, PL-61-614 Poznan, Poland

irena@genesilico.pl

Purchase Downloadable PDF of Article

Corporate User

$100.00

University/Academic User

$50.00

Subscription is more cost effective than purchasing PDFs on-the-fly.  Click here for details.