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Sample records for protein molecular interactions

  1. Specificity of molecular interactions in transient protein-protein interaction interfaces.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, Kyu-il; Lee, KiYoung; Lee, Kwang H; Kim, Dongsup; Lee, Doheon

    2006-11-15

    In this study, we investigate what types of interactions are specific to their biological function, and what types of interactions are persistent regardless of their functional category in transient protein-protein heterocomplexes. This is the first approach to analyze protein-protein interfaces systematically at the molecular interaction level in the context of protein functions. We perform systematic analysis at the molecular interaction level using classification and feature subset selection technique prevalent in the field of pattern recognition. To represent the physicochemical properties of protein-protein interfaces, we design 18 molecular interaction types using canonical and noncanonical interactions. Then, we construct input vector using the frequency of each interaction type in protein-protein interface. We analyze the 131 interfaces of transient protein-protein heterocomplexes in PDB: 33 protease-inhibitors, 52 antibody-antigens, 46 signaling proteins including 4 cyclin dependent kinase and 26 G-protein. Using kNN classification and feature subset selection technique, we show that there are specific interaction types based on their functional category, and such interaction types are conserved through the common binding mechanism, rather than through the sequence or structure conservation. The extracted interaction types are C(alpha)-- H...O==C interaction, cation...anion interaction, amine...amine interaction, and amine...cation interaction. With these four interaction types, we achieve the classification success rate up to 83.2% with leave-one-out cross-validation at k = 15. Of these four interaction types, C(alpha)--H...O==C shows binding specificity for protease-inhibitor complexes, while cation-anion interaction is predominant in signaling complexes. The amine ... amine and amine...cation interaction give a minor contribution to the classification accuracy. When combined with these two interactions, they increase the accuracy by 3.8%. In the case of

  2. Molecular tweezers modulate 14-3-3 protein-protein interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bier, David; Rose, Rolf; Bravo-Rodriguez, Kenny; Bartel, Maria; Ramirez-Anguita, Juan Manuel; Dutt, Som; Wilch, Constanze; Klärner, Frank-Gerrit; Sanchez-Garcia, Elsa; Schrader, Thomas; Ottmann, Christian

    2013-03-01

    Supramolecular chemistry has recently emerged as a promising way to modulate protein functions, but devising molecules that will interact with a protein in the desired manner is difficult as many competing interactions exist in a biological environment (with solvents, salts or different sites for the target biomolecule). We now show that lysine-specific molecular tweezers bind to a 14-3-3 adapter protein and modulate its interaction with partner proteins. The tweezers inhibit binding between the 14-3-3 protein and two partner proteins—a phosphorylated (C-Raf) protein and an unphosphorylated one (ExoS)—in a concentration-dependent manner. Protein crystallography shows that this effect arises from the binding of the tweezers to a single surface-exposed lysine (Lys214) of the 14-3-3 protein in the proximity of its central channel, which normally binds the partner proteins. A combination of structural analysis and computer simulations provides rules for the tweezers' binding preferences, thus allowing us to predict their influence on this type of protein-protein interactions.

  3. Prediction and Dissection of Protein-RNA Interactions by Molecular Descriptors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Zhi-Ping; Chen, Luonan

    2016-01-01

    Protein-RNA interactions play crucial roles in numerous biological processes. However, detecting the interactions and binding sites between protein and RNA by traditional experiments is still time consuming and labor costing. Thus, it is of importance to develop bioinformatics methods for predicting protein-RNA interactions and binding sites. Accurate prediction of protein-RNA interactions and recognitions will highly benefit to decipher the interaction mechanisms between protein and RNA, as well as to improve the RNA-related protein engineering and drug design. In this work, we summarize the current bioinformatics strategies of predicting protein-RNA interactions and dissecting protein-RNA interaction mechanisms from local structure binding motifs. In particular, we focus on the feature-based machine learning methods, in which the molecular descriptors of protein and RNA are extracted and integrated as feature vectors of representing the interaction events and recognition residues. In addition, the available methods are classified and compared comprehensively. The molecular descriptors are expected to elucidate the binding mechanisms of protein-RNA interaction and reveal the functional implications from structural complementary perspective.

  4. Density functional study of molecular interactions in secondary structures of proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takano, Yu; Kusaka, Ayumi; Nakamura, Haruki

    2016-01-01

    Proteins play diverse and vital roles in biology, which are dominated by their three-dimensional structures. The three-dimensional structure of a protein determines its functions and chemical properties. Protein secondary structures, including α-helices and β-sheets, are key components of the protein architecture. Molecular interactions, in particular hydrogen bonds, play significant roles in the formation of protein secondary structures. Precise and quantitative estimations of these interactions are required to understand the principles underlying the formation of three-dimensional protein structures. In the present study, we have investigated the molecular interactions in α-helices and β-sheets, using ab initio wave function-based methods, the Hartree-Fock method (HF) and the second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2), density functional theory, and molecular mechanics. The characteristic interactions essential for forming the secondary structures are discussed quantitatively.

  5. Quantifying the molecular origins of opposite solvent effects on protein-protein interactions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vincent Vagenende

    Full Text Available Although the nature of solvent-protein interactions is generally weak and non-specific, addition of cosolvents such as denaturants and osmolytes strengthens protein-protein interactions for some proteins, whereas it weakens protein-protein interactions for others. This is exemplified by the puzzling observation that addition of glycerol oppositely affects the association constants of two antibodies, D1.3 and D44.1, with lysozyme. To resolve this conundrum, we develop a methodology based on the thermodynamic principles of preferential interaction theory and the quantitative characterization of local protein solvation from molecular dynamics simulations. We find that changes of preferential solvent interactions at the protein-protein interface quantitatively account for the opposite effects of glycerol on the antibody-antigen association constants. Detailed characterization of local protein solvation in the free and associated protein states reveals how opposite solvent effects on protein-protein interactions depend on the extent of dewetting of the protein-protein contact region and on structural changes that alter cooperative solvent-protein interactions at the periphery of the protein-protein interface. These results demonstrate the direct relationship between macroscopic solvent effects on protein-protein interactions and atom-scale solvent-protein interactions, and establish a general methodology for predicting and understanding solvent effects on protein-protein interactions in diverse biological environments.

  6. Determination and Quantification of Molecular Interactions in Protein Films: A Review

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    Felicia Hammann

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Protein based films are nowadays also prepared with the aim of replacing expensive, crude oil-based polymers as environmentally friendly and renewable alternatives. The protein structure determines the ability of protein chains to form intra- and intermolecular bonds, whereas the degree of cross-linking depends on the amino acid composition and molecular weight of the protein, besides the conditions used in film preparation and processing. The functionality varies significantly depending on the type of protein and affects the resulting film quality and properties. This paper reviews the methods used in examination of molecular interactions in protein films and discusses how these intermolecular interactions can be quantified. The qualitative determination methods can be distinguished by structural analysis of solutions (electrophoretic analysis, size exclusion chromatography and analysis of solid films (spectroscopy techniques, X-ray scattering methods. To quantify molecular interactions involved, two methods were found to be the most suitable: protein film swelling and solubility. The importance of non-covalent and covalent interactions in protein films can be investigated using different solvents. The research was focused on whey protein, whereas soy protein and wheat gluten were included as further examples of proteins.

  7. Determination and Quantification of Molecular Interactions in Protein Films: A Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammann, Felicia; Schmid, Markus

    2014-12-10

    Protein based films are nowadays also prepared with the aim of replacing expensive, crude oil-based polymers as environmentally friendly and renewable alternatives. The protein structure determines the ability of protein chains to form intra- and intermolecular bonds, whereas the degree of cross-linking depends on the amino acid composition and molecular weight of the protein, besides the conditions used in film preparation and processing. The functionality varies significantly depending on the type of protein and affects the resulting film quality and properties. This paper reviews the methods used in examination of molecular interactions in protein films and discusses how these intermolecular interactions can be quantified. The qualitative determination methods can be distinguished by structural analysis of solutions (electrophoretic analysis, size exclusion chromatography) and analysis of solid films (spectroscopy techniques, X-ray scattering methods). To quantify molecular interactions involved, two methods were found to be the most suitable: protein film swelling and solubility. The importance of non-covalent and covalent interactions in protein films can be investigated using different solvents. The research was focused on whey protein, whereas soy protein and wheat gluten were included as further examples of proteins.

  8. Fanconi Anemia Proteins and Their Interacting Partners: A Molecular Puzzle

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaddar, Tagrid; Carreau, Madeleine

    2012-01-01

    In recent years, Fanconi anemia (FA) has been the subject of intense investigations, primarily in the DNA repair research field. Many discoveries have led to the notion of a canonical pathway, termed the FA pathway, where all FA proteins function sequentially in different protein complexes to repair DNA cross-link damages. Although a detailed architecture of this DNA cross-link repair pathway is emerging, the question of how a defective DNA cross-link repair process translates into the disease phenotype is unresolved. Other areas of research including oxidative metabolism, cell cycle progression, apoptosis, and transcriptional regulation have been studied in the context of FA, and some of these areas were investigated before the fervent enthusiasm in the DNA repair field. These other molecular mechanisms may also play an important role in the pathogenesis of this disease. In addition, several FA-interacting proteins have been identified with roles in these “other” nonrepair molecular functions. Thus, the goal of this paper is to revisit old ideas and to discuss protein-protein interactions related to other FA-related molecular functions to try to give the reader a wider perspective of the FA molecular puzzle. PMID:22737580

  9. Molecular Analysis of AFP and HSA Interactions with PTEN Protein

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    Mingyue Zhu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Human cytoplasmic alpha-fetoprotein (AFP has been classified as a member of the albuminoid gene family. The protein sequence of AFP has significant homology to that of human serum albumin (HSA, but its biological characteristics are vastly different from HSA. The AFP functions as a regulator in the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K/protein kinase B (AKT pathway, but HSA plays a key role as a transport protein. To probe their molecular mechanisms, we have applied colocalization, coimmunoprecipitation (co-IP, and molecular docking approaches to analyze the differences between AFP and HSA. The data from colocalization and co-IP displayed a strong interaction between AFP and PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homolog, demonstrating that AFP did bind to PTEN, but HSA did not. The molecular docking study further showed that the AFP domains I and III could contact with PTEN. In silicon substitutions of AFP binding site residues at position 490M/K and 105L/R corresponding to residues K490 and R105 in HSA resulted in steric clashes with PTEN residues R150 and K46, respectively. These steric clashes may explain the reason why HSA cannot bind to PTEN. Ultimately, the experimental results and the molecular modeling data from the interactions of AFP and HSA with PTEN will help us to identify targets for designing drugs and vaccines against human hepatocellular carcinoma.

  10. Interaction of sucralose with whey protein: Experimental and molecular modeling studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Hongmei; Sun, Shixin; Wang, Yanqing; Cao, Jian

    2017-12-01

    The objective of this research was to study the interactions of sucralose with whey protein isolate (WPI) by using the three-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism spectroscopy and molecular modeling. The results showed that the peptide strands structure of WPI had been changed by sucralose. Sucralose binding induced the secondary structural changes and increased content of aperiodic structure of WPI. Sucralose decreased the thermal stability of WPI and acted as a structure destabilizer during the thermal unfolding process of protein. In addition, the existence of sucralose decreased the reversibility of the unfolding of WPI. Nonetheless, sucralose-WPI complex was less stable than protein alone. The molecular modeling result showed that van der Waals and hydrogen bonding interactions contribute to the complexation free binding energy. There are more than one possible binding sites of WPI with sucralose by surface binding mode.

  11. Getting the ion-protein interactions right in molecular dynamics simulations

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Duboué-Dijon, Elise; Mason, Philip E.; Jungwirth, Pavel

    2017-01-01

    Roč. 46, Suppl 1 (2017), S66 ISSN 0175-7571. [IUPAB congress /19./ and EBSA congress /11./. 16.07.2017-20.07.2017, Edinburgh] Institutional support: RVO:61388963 Keywords : ion-protein interaction * molecular dynamics simulations * neutron scattering * insulin Subject RIV: BO - Biophysics

  12. Interaction of Tenebrio Molitor Antifreeze Protein with Ice Crystal: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramya, L; Ramakrishnan, Vigneshwar

    2016-07-01

    Antifreeze proteins (AFP) observed in cold-adapting organisms bind to ice crystals and prevent further ice growth. However, the molecular mechanism of AFP-ice binding and AFP-inhibited ice growth remains unclear. Here we report the interaction of the insect antifreeze protein (Tenebrio molitor, TmAFP) with ice crystal by molecular dynamics simulation studies. Two sets of simulations were carried out at 263 K by placing the protein near the primary prism plane (PP) and basal plane (BL) of the ice crystal. To delineate the effect of temperatures, both the PP and BL simulations were carried out at 253 K as well. The analyses revealed that the protein interacts strongly with the ice crystal in BL simulation than in PP simulation both at 263 K and 253 K. Further, it was observed that the interactions are primarily mediated through the interface waters. We also observed that as the temperature decreases, the interaction between the protein and the ice increases which can be attributed to the decreased flexibility and the increased structuring of the protein at low temperature. In essence, our study has shed light on the interaction mechanism between the TmAFP antifreeze protein and the ice crystal. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  13. Specific interactions between DNA and regulatory protein controlled by ligand-binding: Ab initio molecular simulation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Matsushita, Y., E-mail: kurita@cs.tut.ac.jp; Murakawa, T., E-mail: kurita@cs.tut.ac.jp; Shimamura, K., E-mail: kurita@cs.tut.ac.jp; Oishi, M., E-mail: kurita@cs.tut.ac.jp; Ohyama, T., E-mail: kurita@cs.tut.ac.jp; Kurita, N., E-mail: kurita@cs.tut.ac.jp [Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi, Aichi, 441-8580 (Japan)

    2015-02-27

    The catabolite activator protein (CAP) is one of the regulatory proteins controlling the transcription mechanism of gene. Biochemical experiments elucidated that the complex of CAP with cyclic AMP (cAMP) is indispensable for controlling the mechanism, while previous molecular simulations for the monomer of CAP+cAMP complex revealed the specific interactions between CAP and cAMP. However, the effect of cAMP-binding to CAP on the specific interactions between CAP and DNA is not elucidated at atomic and electronic levels. We here considered the ternary complex of CAP, cAMP and DNA in solvating water molecules and investigated the specific interactions between them at atomic and electronic levels using ab initio molecular simulations based on classical molecular dynamics and ab initio fragment molecular orbital methods. The results highlight the important amino acid residues of CAP for the interactions between CAP and cAMP and between CAP and DNA.

  14. Specific interactions between DNA and regulatory protein controlled by ligand-binding: Ab initio molecular simulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Matsushita, Y.; Murakawa, T.; Shimamura, K.; Oishi, M.; Ohyama, T.; Kurita, N.

    2015-01-01

    The catabolite activator protein (CAP) is one of the regulatory proteins controlling the transcription mechanism of gene. Biochemical experiments elucidated that the complex of CAP with cyclic AMP (cAMP) is indispensable for controlling the mechanism, while previous molecular simulations for the monomer of CAP+cAMP complex revealed the specific interactions between CAP and cAMP. However, the effect of cAMP-binding to CAP on the specific interactions between CAP and DNA is not elucidated at atomic and electronic levels. We here considered the ternary complex of CAP, cAMP and DNA in solvating water molecules and investigated the specific interactions between them at atomic and electronic levels using ab initio molecular simulations based on classical molecular dynamics and ab initio fragment molecular orbital methods. The results highlight the important amino acid residues of CAP for the interactions between CAP and cAMP and between CAP and DNA

  15. Intracellular antibody capture: A molecular biology approach to inhibitors of protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jing; Rabbitts, Terence H

    2014-11-01

    Many proteins of interest in basic biology, translational research studies and for clinical targeting in diseases reside inside the cell and function by interacting with other macromolecules. Protein complexes control basic processes such as development and cell division but also abnormal cell growth when mutations occur such as found in cancer. Interfering with protein-protein interactions is an important aspiration in both basic and disease biology but small molecule inhibitors have been difficult and expensive to isolate. Recently, we have adapted molecular biology techniques to develop a simple set of protocols for isolation of high affinity antibody fragments (in the form of single VH domains) that function within the reducing environment of higher organism cells and can bind to their target molecules. The method called Intracellular Antibody Capture (IAC) has been used to develop inhibitory anti-RAS and anti-LMO2 single domains that have been used for target validation of these antigens in pre-clinical cancer models and illustrate the efficacy of the IAC approach to generation of drug surrogates. Future use of inhibitory VH antibody fragments as drugs in their own right (we term these macrodrugs to distinguish them from small molecule drugs) requires their delivery to target cells in vivo but they can also be templates for small molecule drug development that emulate the binding sites of the antibody fragments. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Recent advances in molecular engineering of antibody. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Molecular simulations of lipid-mediated protein-protein interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Meyer, F.J.M.; Venturoli, M.; Smit, B.

    2008-01-01

    Recent experimental results revealed that lipid-mediated interactions due to hydrophobic forces may be important in determining the protein topology after insertion in the membrane, in regulating the protein activity, in protein aggregation and in signal transduction. To gain insight into the

  17. MOLECULAR DOCKING AND DYNAMICS STUDIES ON THE PROTEIN-PROTEIN INTERACTIONS OF ELECTRICALLY ACTIVE PILIN NANOWIRES OF GEOBACTER SULFURREDUCENS.

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    D. Jeya Sundara Sharmila1 *

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Molecular interactions are key aspects in biological recognitions applicable in nano/micro systems. Bacterial nanowires are pilus filament based structures that can conduct electrons. The transport of electron is proposed to be facilitated by filamentous fibers made up of polymeric assemblies of proteins called pilin. Geobacter sulfurreducens is capable of delivering electrons through extracellular electron transport (EET by employing conductive nanowires, which are pilin proteins composed of type IV subunit PilA. Protein-protein interactions play an important role in the stabilization of the pilin nanowire assembly complex and it contains transmembrane (TM domain. In current study, protein-protein docking and multiple molecular dynamic (MD simulations were performed to understand the binding mode of pilin nanowires. The MD result explains the conformational behavior and folding of pilin nanowires in water environment in different time scale duration 20, 5, 5, 10 and 20ns (total of 60ns. Direct hydrogen bonds and water mediated hydrogen bonds that play a crucial role during the simulation were investigated. The conformational state, folding, end-toend distance profile and hydrogen bonding behavior had indicated that the Geobacter sulfurreducens pilin nanowires have electrical conductivity properties.

  18. Statistical Estimation of the Protein-Ligand Binding Free Energy Based On Direct Protein-Ligand Interaction Obtained by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

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    Haruki Nakamura

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available We have developed a method for estimating protein-ligand binding free energy (DG based on the direct protein-ligand interaction obtained by a molecular dynamics simulation. Using this method, we estimated the DG value statistically by the average values of the van der Waals and electrostatic interactions between each amino acid of the target protein and the ligand molecule. In addition, we introduced fluctuations in the accessible surface area (ASA and dihedral angles of the protein-ligand complex system as the entropy terms of the DG estimation. The present method included the fluctuation term of structural change of the protein and the effective dielectric constant. We applied this method to 34 protein-ligand complex structures. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the experimental and calculated DG values was 0.81, and the average error of DG was 1.2 kcal/mol with the use of the fixed parameters. These results were obtained from a 2 nsec molecular dynamics simulation.

  19. Interactions between proteins and carbon-based nanoparticles: exploring the origin of nanotoxicity at the molecular level.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuo, Guanghong; Kang, Seung-Gu; Xiu, Peng; Zhao, Yuliang; Zhou, Ruhong

    2013-05-27

    The widespread application of nanomaterials has spurred an interest in the study of interactions between nanoparticles and proteins due to the biosafety concerns of these nanomaterials. In this review, a summary is presented of some of the recent studies on this important subject, especially on the interactions of proteins with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and metallofullerenols. Two potential molecular mechanisms have been proposed for CNTs' inhibition of protein functions. The driving forces of CNTs' adsorption onto proteins are found to be mainly hydrophobic interactions and the so-called π-π stacking between CNTs' carbon rings and proteins' aromatic residues. However, there is also recent evidence showing that endohedral metallofullerenol Gd@C82 (OH)22 can be used to inhibit tumor growth, thus acting as a potential nanomedicine. These recent findings have provided a better understanding of nanotoxicity at the molecular level and also suggested therapeutic potential by using nanoparticles' cytotoxicity against cancer cells. Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  20. Molecular landscape of the interaction between the urease accessory proteins UreE and UreG.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merloni, Anna; Dobrovolska, Olena; Zambelli, Barbara; Agostini, Federico; Bazzani, Micaela; Musiani, Francesco; Ciurli, Stefano

    2014-09-01

    Urease, the most efficient enzyme so far discovered, depends on the presence of nickel ions in the catalytic site for its activity. The transformation of inactive apo-urease into active holo-urease requires the insertion of two Ni(II) ions in the substrate binding site, a process that involves the interaction of four accessory proteins named UreD, UreF, UreG and UreE. This study, carried out using calorimetric and NMR-based structural analysis, is focused on the interaction between UreE and UreG from Sporosarcina pasteurii, a highly ureolytic bacterium. Isothermal calorimetric protein-protein titrations revealed the occurrence of a binding event between SpUreE and SpUreG, entailing two independent steps with positive cooperativity (Kd1=42±9μM; Kd2=1.7±0.3μM). This was interpreted as indicating the formation of the (UreE)2(UreG)2 hetero-oligomer upon binding of two UreG monomers onto the pre-formed UreE dimer. The molecular details of this interaction were elucidated using high-resolution NMR spectroscopy. The occurrence of SpUreE chemical shift perturbations upon addition of SpUreG was investigated and analyzed to establish the protein-protein interaction site. The latter appears to involve the Ni(II) binding site as well as mobile portions on the C-terminal and the N-terminal domains. Docking calculations based on the information obtained from NMR provided a structural basis for the protein-protein contact site. The high sequence and structural similarity within these protein classes suggests a generality of the interaction mode among homologous proteins. The implications of these results on the molecular details of the urease activation process are considered and analyzed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Molecular imaging of drug-modulated protein-protein interactions in living subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paulmurugan, Ramasamy; Massoud, Tarik F; Huang, Jing; Gambhir, Sanjiv S

    2004-03-15

    Networks of protein interactions mediate cellular responses to environmental stimuli and direct the execution of many different cellular functional pathways. Small molecules synthesized within cells or recruited from the external environment mediate many protein interactions. The study of small molecule-mediated interactions of proteins is important to understand abnormal signal transduction pathways in cancer and in drug development and validation. In this study, we used split synthetic renilla luciferase (hRLUC) protein fragment-assisted complementation to evaluate heterodimerization of the human proteins FRB and FKBP12 mediated by the small molecule rapamycin. The concentration of rapamycin required for efficient dimerization and that of its competitive binder ascomycin required for dimerization inhibition were studied in cell lines. The system was dually modulated in cell culture at the transcription level, by controlling nuclear factor kappaB promoter/enhancer elements using tumor necrosis factor alpha, and at the interaction level, by controlling the concentration of the dimerizer rapamycin. The rapamycin-mediated dimerization of FRB and FKBP12 also was studied in living mice by locating, quantifying, and timing the hRLUC complementation-based bioluminescence imaging signal using a cooled charged coupled device camera. This split reporter system can be used to efficiently screen small molecule drugs that modulate protein-protein interactions and also to assess drugs in living animals. Both are essential steps in the preclinical evaluation of candidate pharmaceutical agents targeting protein-protein interactions, including signaling pathways in cancer cells.

  2. Interaction of the minocycline with extracelluar protein and intracellular protein by multi-spectral techniques and molecular docking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fang, Qing; Wang, Yirun; Hu, Taoying; Liu, Ying

    2017-02-01

    The interaction of minocyeline (MNC) with extracelluar protein (lysozyme, LYSO) or intracellular protein (bovine hemoglobin, BHb) was investigated using multi-spectral techniques and molecular docking in vitro. Fluorescence studies suggested that MNC quenched LYSO/BHb fluorescence in a static mode with binding constants of 2.01 and 0.26 × 104 L•mol-1 at 298 K, respectively. The LYZO-MNC system was more easily influenced by temperature (298 and 310 K) than the BHb-MNC system. The thermodynamic parameters demonstrated that hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces played the major role in the binding process. Based on the Förster theory of nonradiative energy transfer, the binding distances between MNC and the inner tryptophan residues of LYSO and BHb were calculated to be 4.34 and 3.49 nm, respectively. Furthermore, circular dichroism spectra (CD), Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR), UV-vis, and three-dimensional fluorescence spectra results indicated the secondary structures of LYSO and BHb were partially destroyed by MNC with the α-helix percentage of LYZO-MNC increased (17.8-28.6%) while that of BHb-MNC was decreased (41.6-39.6%). UV-vis spectral results showed these binding interactions could cause conformational and some micro-environmental changes of LYSO and BHb. In accordance with the results of molecular docking, In LYZO-MNC system, MNC was mainly bound in the active site hinge region where Trp-62 and Trp-63 are located, and in MNC-BHb system, MNC was close to the subunit α 1 of BHb, molecular docking analysis supported the thermodynamic results well. The work contributes to clarify the mechanism of MNC with two proteins at molecular level.

  3. Protein-binding RNA aptamers affect molecular interactions distantly from their binding sites.

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    Daniel M Dupont

    Full Text Available Nucleic acid aptamer selection is a powerful strategy for the development of regulatory agents for molecular intervention. Accordingly, aptamers have proven their diligence in the intervention with serine protease activities, which play important roles in physiology and pathophysiology. Nonetheless, there are only a few studies on the molecular basis underlying aptamer-protease interactions and the associated mechanisms of inhibition. In the present study, we use site-directed mutagenesis to delineate the binding sites of two 2´-fluoropyrimidine RNA aptamers (upanap-12 and upanap-126 with therapeutic potential, both binding to the serine protease urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA. We determine the subsequent impact of aptamer binding on the well-established molecular interactions (plasmin, PAI-1, uPAR, and LRP-1A controlling uPA activities. One of the aptamers (upanap-126 binds to the area around the C-terminal α-helix in pro-uPA, while the other aptamer (upanap-12 binds to both the β-hairpin of the growth factor domain and the kringle domain of uPA. Based on the mapping studies, combined with data from small-angle X-ray scattering analysis, we construct a model for the upanap-12:pro-uPA complex. The results suggest and highlight that the size and shape of an aptamer as well as the domain organization of a multi-domain protein such as uPA, may provide the basis for extensive sterical interference with protein ligand interactions considered distant from the aptamer binding site.

  4. Structural interface parameters are discriminatory in recognising near-native poses of protein-protein interactions.

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    Sony Malhotra

    Full Text Available Interactions at the molecular level in the cellular environment play a very crucial role in maintaining the physiological functioning of the cell. These molecular interactions exist at varied levels viz. protein-protein interactions, protein-nucleic acid interactions or protein-small molecules interactions. Presently in the field, these interactions and their mechanisms mark intensively studied areas. Molecular interactions can also be studied computationally using the approach named as Molecular Docking. Molecular docking employs search algorithms to predict the possible conformations for interacting partners and then calculates interaction energies. However, docking proposes number of solutions as different docked poses and hence offers a serious challenge to identify the native (or near native structures from the pool of these docked poses. Here, we propose a rigorous scoring scheme called DockScore which can be used to rank the docked poses and identify the best docked pose out of many as proposed by docking algorithm employed. The scoring identifies the optimal interactions between the two protein partners utilising various features of the putative interface like area, short contacts, conservation, spatial clustering and the presence of positively charged and hydrophobic residues. DockScore was first trained on a set of 30 protein-protein complexes to determine the weights for different parameters. Subsequently, we tested the scoring scheme on 30 different protein-protein complexes and native or near-native structure were assigned the top rank from a pool of docked poses in 26 of the tested cases. We tested the ability of DockScore to discriminate likely dimer interactions that differ substantially within a homologous family and also demonstrate that DOCKSCORE can distinguish correct pose for all 10 recent CAPRI targets.

  5. Understanding Protein-Protein Interactions Using Local Structural Features

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Planas-Iglesias, Joan; Bonet, Jaume; García-García, Javier

    2013-01-01

    Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) play a relevant role among the different functions of a cell. Identifying the PPI network of a given organism (interactome) is useful to shed light on the key molecular mechanisms within a biological system. In this work, we show the role of structural features...... interacting and non-interacting protein pairs to classify the structural features that sustain the binding (or non-binding) behavior. Our study indicates that not only the interacting region but also the rest of the protein surface are important for the interaction fate. The interpretation...... to score the likelihood of the interaction between two proteins and to develop a method for the prediction of PPIs. We have tested our method on several sets with unbalanced ratios of interactions and non-interactions to simulate real conditions, obtaining accuracies higher than 25% in the most unfavorable...

  6. Investigation of the molecular level interactions between mucins and food proteins: Spectroscopic, tribological and rheological studies

    OpenAIRE

    Celebioglu, Hilal Yilmaz; Chronakis, Ioannis S.; Lee, Seunghwan; Guðjónsdóttir, María

    2017-01-01

    The thesis investigated the structure and molecular-level interaction of β-lactoglobulin (BLG) and mucins, representing major components of the dairy products and saliva/digestion systems, respectively. Mucins are long glycoprotein molecules responsible for the gel nature of the mucous layer covers epithelial surfaces throughout the body. A literature review of the interactions of different mucin types and saliva mucins with several food proteins and food protein emulsions, as well as their f...

  7. Development of a Model Protein Interaction Pair as a Benchmarking Tool for the Quantitative Analysis of 2-Site Protein-Protein Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamniuk, Aaron P; Newitt, John A; Doyle, Michael L; Arisaka, Fumio; Giannetti, Anthony M; Hensley, Preston; Myszka, David G; Schwarz, Fred P; Thomson, James A; Eisenstein, Edward

    2015-12-01

    A significant challenge in the molecular interaction field is to accurately determine the stoichiometry and stepwise binding affinity constants for macromolecules having >1 binding site. The mission of the Molecular Interactions Research Group (MIRG) of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF) is to show how biophysical technologies are used to quantitatively characterize molecular interactions, and to educate the ABRF members and scientific community on the utility and limitations of core technologies [such as biosensor, microcalorimetry, or analytic ultracentrifugation (AUC)]. In the present work, the MIRG has developed a robust model protein interaction pair consisting of a bivalent variant of the Bacillus amyloliquefaciens extracellular RNase barnase and a variant of its natural monovalent intracellular inhibitor protein barstar. It is demonstrated that this system can serve as a benchmarking tool for the quantitative analysis of 2-site protein-protein interactions. The protein interaction pair enables determination of precise binding constants for the barstar protein binding to 2 distinct sites on the bivalent barnase binding partner (termed binase), where the 2 binding sites were engineered to possess affinities that differed by 2 orders of magnitude. Multiple MIRG laboratories characterized the interaction using isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), AUC, and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) methods to evaluate the feasibility of the system as a benchmarking model. Although general agreement was seen for the binding constants measured using solution-based ITC and AUC approaches, weaker affinity was seen for surface-based method SPR, with protein immobilization likely affecting affinity. An analysis of the results from multiple MIRG laboratories suggests that the bivalent barnase-barstar system is a suitable model for benchmarking new approaches for the quantitative characterization of complex biomolecular interactions.

  8. Structural Refinement of Proteins by Restrained Molecular Dynamics Simulations with Non-interacting Molecular Fragments.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rong Shen

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The knowledge of multiple conformational states is a prerequisite to understand the function of membrane transport proteins. Unfortunately, the determination of detailed atomic structures for all these functionally important conformational states with conventional high-resolution approaches is often difficult and unsuccessful. In some cases, biophysical and biochemical approaches can provide important complementary structural information that can be exploited with the help of advanced computational methods to derive structural models of specific conformational states. In particular, functional and spectroscopic measurements in combination with site-directed mutations constitute one important source of information to obtain these mixed-resolution structural models. A very common problem with this strategy, however, is the difficulty to simultaneously integrate all the information from multiple independent experiments involving different mutations or chemical labels to derive a unique structural model consistent with the data. To resolve this issue, a novel restrained molecular dynamics structural refinement method is developed to simultaneously incorporate multiple experimentally determined constraints (e.g., engineered metal bridges or spin-labels, each treated as an individual molecular fragment with all atomic details. The internal structure of each of the molecular fragments is treated realistically, while there is no interaction between different molecular fragments to avoid unphysical steric clashes. The information from all the molecular fragments is exploited simultaneously to constrain the backbone to refine a three-dimensional model of the conformational state of the protein. The method is illustrated by refining the structure of the voltage-sensing domain (VSD of the Kv1.2 potassium channel in the resting state and by exploring the distance histograms between spin-labels attached to T4 lysozyme. The resulting VSD structures are in good

  9. Potential disruption of protein-protein interactions by graphene oxide

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Feng, Mei; Kang, Hongsuk; Luan, Binquan; Yang, Zaixing; Zhou, Ruhong

    2016-01-01

    Graphene oxide (GO) is a promising novel nanomaterial with a wide range of potential biomedical applications due to its many intriguing properties. However, very little research has been conducted to study its possible adverse effects on protein-protein interactions (and thus subsequent toxicity to human). Here, the potential cytotoxicity of GO is investigated at molecular level using large-scale, all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to explore the interaction mechanism between a protein dimer and a GO nanosheet oxidized at different levels. Our theoretical results reveal that GO nanosheet could intercalate between the two monomers of HIV-1 integrase dimer, disrupting the protein-protein interactions and eventually lead to dimer disassociation as graphene does [B. Luan et al., ACS Nano 9(1), 663 (2015)], albeit its insertion process is slower when compared with graphene due to the additional steric and attractive interactions. This study helps to better understand the toxicity of GO to cell functions which could shed light on how to improve its biocompatibility and biosafety for its wide potential biomedical applications.

  10. Potential disruption of protein-protein interactions by graphene oxide

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Feng, Mei [Department of Physics, Institute of Quantitative Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027 (China); Kang, Hongsuk; Luan, Binquan [Computational Biological Center, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598 (United States); Yang, Zaixing [Institute of Quantitative Biology and Medicine, SRMP and RAD-X, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiation Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123 (China); Zhou, Ruhong, E-mail: ruhong@us.ibm.com [Department of Physics, Institute of Quantitative Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027 (China); Computational Biological Center, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598 (United States); Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027 (United States)

    2016-06-14

    Graphene oxide (GO) is a promising novel nanomaterial with a wide range of potential biomedical applications due to its many intriguing properties. However, very little research has been conducted to study its possible adverse effects on protein-protein interactions (and thus subsequent toxicity to human). Here, the potential cytotoxicity of GO is investigated at molecular level using large-scale, all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to explore the interaction mechanism between a protein dimer and a GO nanosheet oxidized at different levels. Our theoretical results reveal that GO nanosheet could intercalate between the two monomers of HIV-1 integrase dimer, disrupting the protein-protein interactions and eventually lead to dimer disassociation as graphene does [B. Luan et al., ACS Nano 9(1), 663 (2015)], albeit its insertion process is slower when compared with graphene due to the additional steric and attractive interactions. This study helps to better understand the toxicity of GO to cell functions which could shed light on how to improve its biocompatibility and biosafety for its wide potential biomedical applications.

  11. NatalieQ: A web server for protein-protein interaction network querying

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    El-Kebir, M.; Brandt, B.W.; Heringa, J.; Klau, G.W.

    2014-01-01

    Background Molecular interactions need to be taken into account to adequately model the complex behavior of biological systems. These interactions are captured by various types of biological networks, such as metabolic, gene-regulatory, signal transduction and protein-protein interaction networks.

  12. DockingShop: A Tool for Interactive Molecular Docking

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lu, Ting-Cheng; Max, Nelson L.; Ding, Jinhui; Bethel, E. Wes; Crivelli, Silvia N.

    2005-04-24

    Given two independently determined molecular structures, the molecular docking problem predicts the bound association, or best fit between them, while allowing for conformational changes of the individual molecules during construction of a molecular complex. Docking Shop is an integrated environment that permits interactive molecular docking by navigating a ligand or protein to an estimated binding site of a receptor with real-time graphical feedback of scoring factors as visual guides. Our program can be used to create initial configurations for a protein docking prediction process. Its output--the structure of aprotein-ligand or protein-protein complex--may serve as an input for aprotein docking algorithm, or an optimization process. This tool provides molecular graphics interfaces for structure modeling, interactive manipulation, navigation, optimization, and dynamic visualization to aid users steer the prediction process using their biological knowledge.

  13. Investigation of the molecular level interactions between mucins and food proteins: Spectroscopic, tribological and rheological studies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Celebioglu, Hilal Yilmaz

    The thesis investigated the structure and molecular-level interaction of β-lactoglobulin (BLG) and mucins, representing major components of the dairy products and saliva/digestion systems, respectively. Mucins are long glycoprotein molecules responsible for the gel nature of the mucous layer covers...... epithelial surfaces throughout the body. A literature review of the interactions of different mucin types and saliva mucins with several food proteins and food protein emulsions, as well as their functional properties related to the food oral processing is presented at the first chapter of the thesis (Paper...... V). Most of the studies suggest an electrostatic attraction between positively charged food proteins with negatively charged moieties of mucins (mainly on glycosylated region of mucins). The structural changes occurring during the interaction between BLG, the major whey protein, and bovine...

  14. Entropy in molecular recognition by proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caro, José A; Harpole, Kyle W; Kasinath, Vignesh; Lim, Jackwee; Granja, Jeffrey; Valentine, Kathleen G; Sharp, Kim A; Wand, A Joshua

    2017-06-20

    Molecular recognition by proteins is fundamental to molecular biology. Dissection of the thermodynamic energy terms governing protein-ligand interactions has proven difficult, with determination of entropic contributions being particularly elusive. NMR relaxation measurements have suggested that changes in protein conformational entropy can be quantitatively obtained through a dynamical proxy, but the generality of this relationship has not been shown. Twenty-eight protein-ligand complexes are used to show a quantitative relationship between measures of fast side-chain motion and the underlying conformational entropy. We find that the contribution of conformational entropy can range from favorable to unfavorable, which demonstrates the potential of this thermodynamic variable to modulate protein-ligand interactions. For about one-quarter of these complexes, the absence of conformational entropy would render the resulting affinity biologically meaningless. The dynamical proxy for conformational entropy or "entropy meter" also allows for refinement of the contributions of solvent entropy and the loss in rotational-translational entropy accompanying formation of high-affinity complexes. Furthermore, structure-based application of the approach can also provide insight into long-lived specific water-protein interactions that escape the generic treatments of solvent entropy based simply on changes in accessible surface area. These results provide a comprehensive and unified view of the general role of entropy in high-affinity molecular recognition by proteins.

  15. VPAC receptors: structure, molecular pharmacology and interaction with accessory proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Couvineau, Alain; Laburthe, Marc

    2012-05-01

    The vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) is a neuropeptide with wide distribution in both central and peripheral nervous systems, where it plays important regulatory role in many physiological processes. VIP displays a large biological functions including regulation of exocrine secretions, hormone release, fetal development, immune responses, etc. VIP appears to exert beneficial effect in neuro-degenerative and inflammatory diseases. The mechanism of action of VIP implicates two subtypes of receptors (VPAC1 and VPAC2), which are members of class B receptors belonging to the super-family of GPCR. This article reviews the current knowledge regarding the structure and molecular pharmacology of VPAC receptors. The structure-function relationship of VPAC1 receptor has been extensively studied, allowing to understand the molecular basis for receptor affinity, specificity, desensitization and coupling to adenylyl cyclase. Those studies have clearly demonstrated the crucial role of the N-terminal ectodomain (N-ted) of VPAC1 receptor in VIP recognition. By using different approaches including directed mutagenesis, photoaffinity labelling, NMR, molecular modelling and molecular dynamic simulation, it has been shown that the VIP molecule interacts with the N-ted of VPAC1 receptor, which is itself structured as a 'Sushi' domain. VPAC1 receptor also interacts with a few accessory proteins that play a role in cell signalling of receptors. Recent advances in the structural characterization of VPAC receptor and more generally of class B GPCRs will lead to the design of new molecules, which could have considerable interest for the treatment of inflammatory and neuro-degenerative diseases. © 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Pharmacology © 2011 The British Pharmacological Society.

  16. Bioinformatic Prediction of WSSV-Host Protein-Protein Interaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zheng Sun

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available WSSV is one of the most dangerous pathogens in shrimp aquaculture. However, the molecular mechanism of how WSSV interacts with shrimp is still not very clear. In the present study, bioinformatic approaches were used to predict interactions between proteins from WSSV and shrimp. The genome data of WSSV (NC_003225.1 and the constructed transcriptome data of F. chinensis were used to screen potentially interacting proteins by searching in protein interaction databases, including STRING, Reactome, and DIP. Forty-four pairs of proteins were suggested to have interactions between WSSV and the shrimp. Gene ontology analysis revealed that 6 pairs of these interacting proteins were classified into “extracellular region” or “receptor complex” GO-terms. KEGG pathway analysis showed that they were involved in the “ECM-receptor interaction pathway.” In the 6 pairs of interacting proteins, an envelope protein called “collagen-like protein” (WSSV-CLP encoded by an early virus gene “wsv001” in WSSV interacted with 6 deduced proteins from the shrimp, including three integrin alpha (ITGA, two integrin beta (ITGB, and one syndecan (SDC. Sequence analysis on WSSV-CLP, ITGA, ITGB, and SDC revealed that they possessed the sequence features for protein-protein interactions. This study might provide new insights into the interaction mechanisms between WSSV and shrimp.

  17. PyBioMed: a python library for various molecular representations of chemicals, proteins and DNAs and their interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dong, Jie; Yao, Zhi-Jiang; Zhang, Lin; Luo, Feijun; Lin, Qinlu; Lu, Ai-Ping; Chen, Alex F; Cao, Dong-Sheng

    2018-03-20

    With the increasing development of biotechnology and informatics technology, publicly available data in chemistry and biology are undergoing explosive growth. Such wealthy information in these data needs to be extracted and transformed to useful knowledge by various data mining methods. Considering the amazing rate at which data are accumulated in chemistry and biology fields, new tools that process and interpret large and complex interaction data are increasingly important. So far, there are no suitable toolkits that can effectively link the chemical and biological space in view of molecular representation. To further explore these complex data, an integrated toolkit for various molecular representation is urgently needed which could be easily integrated with data mining algorithms to start a full data analysis pipeline. Herein, the python library PyBioMed is presented, which comprises functionalities for online download for various molecular objects by providing different IDs, the pretreatment of molecular structures, the computation of various molecular descriptors for chemicals, proteins, DNAs and their interactions. PyBioMed is a feature-rich and highly customized python library used for the characterization of various complex chemical and biological molecules and interaction samples. The current version of PyBioMed could calculate 775 chemical descriptors and 19 kinds of chemical fingerprints, 9920 protein descriptors based on protein sequences, more than 6000 DNA descriptors from nucleotide sequences, and interaction descriptors from pairwise samples using three different combining strategies. Several examples and five real-life applications were provided to clearly guide the users how to use PyBioMed as an integral part of data analysis projects. By using PyBioMed, users are able to start a full pipelining from getting molecular data, pretreating molecules, molecular representation to constructing machine learning models conveniently. PyBioMed provides

  18. gRINN: a tool for calculation of residue interaction energies and protein energy network analysis of molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Serçinoglu, Onur; Ozbek, Pemra

    2018-05-25

    Atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations generate a wealth of information related to the dynamics of proteins. If properly analyzed, this information can lead to new insights regarding protein function and assist wet-lab experiments. Aiming to identify interactions between individual amino acid residues and the role played by each in the context of MD simulations, we present a stand-alone software called gRINN (get Residue Interaction eNergies and Networks). gRINN features graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and a command-line interface for generating and analyzing pairwise residue interaction energies and energy correlations from protein MD simulation trajectories. gRINN utilizes the features of NAMD or GROMACS MD simulation packages and automatizes the steps necessary to extract residue-residue interaction energies from user-supplied simulation trajectories, greatly simplifying the analysis for the end-user. A GUI, including an embedded molecular viewer, is provided for visualization of interaction energy time-series, distributions, an interaction energy matrix, interaction energy correlations and a residue correlation matrix. gRINN additionally offers construction and analysis of Protein Energy Networks, providing residue-based metrics such as degrees, betweenness-centralities, closeness centralities as well as shortest path analysis. gRINN is free and open to all users without login requirement at http://grinn.readthedocs.io.

  19. The ER stress sensor PERK luminal domain functions as a molecular chaperone to interact with misfolded proteins

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang, Peng; Li, Jingzhi; Sha, Bingdong

    2016-11-29

    PERK is one of the major sensor proteins which can detect the protein-folding imbalance generated by endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. It remains unclear how the sensor protein PERK is activated by ER stress. It has been demonstrated that the PERK luminal domain can recognize and selectively interact with misfolded proteins but not native proteins. Moreover, the PERK luminal domain may function as a molecular chaperone to directly bind to and suppress the aggregation of a number of misfolded model proteins. The data strongly support the hypothesis that the PERK luminal domain can interact directly with misfolded proteins to induce ER stress signaling. To illustrate the mechanism by which the PERK luminal domain interacts with misfolded proteins, the crystal structure of the human PERK luminal domain was determined to 3.2 Å resolution. Two dimers of the PERK luminal domain constitute a tetramer in the asymmetric unit. Superimposition of the PERK luminal domain molecules indicated that the β-sandwich domain could adopt multiple conformations. It is hypothesized that the PERK luminal domain may utilize its flexible β-sandwich domain to recognize and interact with a broad range of misfolded proteins.

  20. Adaptation of Tri-molecular fluorescence complementation allows assaying of regulatory Csr RNA-protein interactions in bacteria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gelderman, Grant; Sivakumar, Anusha; Lipp, Sarah; Contreras, Lydia

    2015-02-01

    sRNAs play a significant role in controlling and regulating cellular metabolism. One of the more interesting aspects of certain sRNAs is their ability to make global changes in the cell by interacting with regulatory proteins. In this work, we demonstrate the use of an in vivo Tri-molecular Fluorescence Complementation assay to detect and visualize the central regulatory sRNA-protein interaction of the Carbon Storage Regulatory system in E. coli. The Carbon Storage Regulator consists primarily of an RNA binding protein, CsrA, that alters the activity of mRNA targets and of an sRNA, CsrB, that modulates the activity of CsrA. We describe the construction of a fluorescence complementation system that detects the interactions between CsrB and CsrA. Additionally, we demonstrate that the intensity of the fluorescence of this system is able to detect changes in the affinity of the CsrB-CsrA interaction, as caused by mutations in the protein sequence of CsrA. While previous methods have adopted this technique to study mRNA or RNA localization, this is the first attempt to use this technique to study the sRNA-protein interaction directly in bacteria. This method presents a potentially powerful tool to study complex bacterial RNA protein interactions in vivo. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. Intra-membrane molecular interactions of K+ channel proteins :

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Moczydlowski, Edward G.

    2013-07-01

    Ion channel proteins regulate complex patterns of cellular electrical activity and ionic signaling. Certain K+ channels play an important role in immunological biodefense mechanisms of adaptive and innate immunity. Most ion channel proteins are oligomeric complexes with the conductive pore located at the central subunit interface. The long-term activity of many K+ channel proteins is dependent on the concentration of extracellular K+; however, the mechanism is unclear. Thus, this project focused on mechanisms underlying structural stability of tetrameric K+ channels. Using KcsA of Streptomyces lividans as a model K+ channel of known structure, the molecular basis of tetramer stability was investigated by: 1. Bioinformatic analysis of the tetramer interface. 2. Effect of two local anesthetics (lidocaine, tetracaine) on tetramer stability. 3. Molecular simulation of drug docking to the ion conduction pore. The results provide new insights regarding the structural stability of K+ channels and its possible role in cell physiology.

  2. MIiSR: Molecular Interactions in Super-Resolution Imaging Enables the Analysis of Protein Interactions, Dynamics and Formation of Multi-protein Structures.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fabiana A Caetano

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms which regulate cellular processes such as vesicular trafficking has been enabled by conventional biochemical and microscopy techniques. However, these methods often obscure the heterogeneity of the cellular environment, thus precluding a quantitative assessment of the molecular interactions regulating these processes. Herein, we present Molecular Interactions in Super Resolution (MIiSR software which provides quantitative analysis tools for use with super-resolution images. MIiSR combines multiple tools for analyzing intermolecular interactions, molecular clustering and image segmentation. These tools enable quantification, in the native environment of the cell, of molecular interactions and the formation of higher-order molecular complexes. The capabilities and limitations of these analytical tools are demonstrated using both modeled data and examples derived from the vesicular trafficking system, thereby providing an established and validated experimental workflow capable of quantitatively assessing molecular interactions and molecular complex formation within the heterogeneous environment of the cell.

  3. Intrinsically disordered proteins as molecular shields†

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chakrabortee, Sohini; Tripathi, Rashmi; Watson, Matthew; Kaminski Schierle, Gabriele S.; Kurniawan, Davy P.; Kaminski, Clemens F.; Wise, Michael J.; Tunnacliffe, Alan

    2017-01-01

    The broad family of LEA proteins are intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) with several potential roles in desiccation tolerance, or anhydrobiosis, one of which is to limit desiccation-induced aggregation of cellular proteins. We show here that this activity, termed molecular shield function, is distinct from that of a classical molecular chaperone, such as HSP70 – while HSP70 reduces aggregation of citrate synthase (CS) on heating, two LEA proteins, a nematode group 3 protein, AavLEA1, and a plant group 1 protein, Em, do not; conversely, the LEA proteins reduce CS aggregation on desiccation, while HSP70 lacks this ability. There are also differences in interaction with client proteins – HSP70 can be co-immunoprecipitated with a polyglutamine-containing client, consistent with tight complex formation, whereas the LEA proteins can not, although a loose interaction is observed by Förster resonance energy transfer. In a further exploration of molecular shield function, we demonstrate that synthetic polysaccharides, like LEA proteins, are able to reduce desiccation-induced aggregation of a water-soluble proteome, consistent with a steric interference model of anti-aggregation activity. If molecular shields operate by reducing intermolecular cohesion rates, they should not protect against intramolecular protein damage. This was tested using the monomeric red fluorescent protein, mCherry, which does not undergo aggregation on drying, but the absorbance and emission spectra of its intrinsic fluorophore are dramatically reduced, indicative of intramolecular conformational changes. As expected, these changes are not prevented by AavLEA1, except for a slight protection at high molar ratios, and an AavLEA1-mCherry fusion protein is damaged to the same extent as mCherry alone. A recent hypothesis proposed that proteomes from desiccation-tolerant species contain a higher degree of disorder than intolerant examples, and that this might provide greater intrinsic stability

  4. Intrinsically disordered proteins as molecular shields.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chakrabortee, Sohini; Tripathi, Rashmi; Watson, Matthew; Schierle, Gabriele S Kaminski; Kurniawan, Davy P; Kaminski, Clemens F; Wise, Michael J; Tunnacliffe, Alan

    2012-01-01

    The broad family of LEA proteins are intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) with several potential roles in desiccation tolerance, or anhydrobiosis, one of which is to limit desiccation-induced aggregation of cellular proteins. We show here that this activity, termed molecular shield function, is distinct from that of a classical molecular chaperone, such as HSP70 - while HSP70 reduces aggregation of citrate synthase (CS) on heating, two LEA proteins, a nematode group 3 protein, AavLEA1, and a plant group 1 protein, Em, do not; conversely, the LEA proteins reduce CS aggregation on desiccation, while HSP70 lacks this ability. There are also differences in interaction with client proteins - HSP70 can be co-immunoprecipitated with a polyglutamine-containing client, consistent with tight complex formation, whereas the LEA proteins can not, although a loose interaction is observed by Förster resonance energy transfer. In a further exploration of molecular shield function, we demonstrate that synthetic polysaccharides, like LEA proteins, are able to reduce desiccation-induced aggregation of a water-soluble proteome, consistent with a steric interference model of anti-aggregation activity. If molecular shields operate by reducing intermolecular cohesion rates, they should not protect against intramolecular protein damage. This was tested using the monomeric red fluorescent protein, mCherry, which does not undergo aggregation on drying, but the absorbance and emission spectra of its intrinsic fluorophore are dramatically reduced, indicative of intramolecular conformational changes. As expected, these changes are not prevented by AavLEA1, except for a slight protection at high molar ratios, and an AavLEA1-mCherry fusion protein is damaged to the same extent as mCherry alone. A recent hypothesis proposed that proteomes from desiccation-tolerant species contain a higher degree of disorder than intolerant examples, and that this might provide greater intrinsic stability

  5. Molecular aspects of the interaction between Mason-Pfizer monkey virus matrix protein and artificial phospholipid membrane

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Junková, P.; Prchal, J.; Spiwok, V.; Pleskot, Roman; Kadlec, Jan; Krásný, L.; Hynek, R.; Hrabal, R.; Ruml, T.

    2016-01-01

    Roč. 84, č. 11 (2016), s. 1717-1727 ISSN 0887-3585 Institutional support: RVO:61388963 Keywords : covalent labelling * mass spectrometry * multiscale molecular dynamics * protein-membrane interaction * phosphatidylinositol-(4,5)-bisphosphate * liposomes Subject RIV: CE - Biochemistry Impact factor: 2.289, year: 2016

  6. [Detection of protein-protein interactions by FRET and BRET methods].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matoulková, E; Vojtěšek, B

    2014-01-01

    Nowadays, in vivo protein-protein interaction studies have become preferable detecting meth-ods that enable to show or specify (already known) protein interactions and discover their inhibitors. They also facilitate detection of protein conformational changes and discovery or specification of signaling pathways in living cells. One group of in vivo methods enabling these findings is based on fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET) and its bio-luminescent modification (BRET). They are based on visualization of protein-protein interactions via light or enzymatic excitation of fluorescent or bio-luminescent proteins. These methods allow not only protein localization within the cell or its organelles (or small animals) but they also allow us to quantify fluorescent signals and to discover weak or strong interaction partners. In this review, we explain the principles of FRET and BRET, their applications in the characterization of protein-protein interactions and we describe several findings using these two methods that clarify molecular and cellular mechanisms and signals related to cancer biology.

  7. Quality control methodology for high-throughput protein-protein interaction screening.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vazquez, Alexei; Rual, Jean-François; Venkatesan, Kavitha

    2011-01-01

    Protein-protein interactions are key to many aspects of the cell, including its cytoskeletal structure, the signaling processes in which it is involved, or its metabolism. Failure to form protein complexes or signaling cascades may sometimes translate into pathologic conditions such as cancer or neurodegenerative diseases. The set of all protein interactions between the proteins encoded by an organism constitutes its protein interaction network, representing a scaffold for biological function. Knowing the protein interaction network of an organism, combined with other sources of biological information, can unravel fundamental biological circuits and may help better understand the molecular basics of human diseases. The protein interaction network of an organism can be mapped by combining data obtained from both low-throughput screens, i.e., "one gene at a time" experiments and high-throughput screens, i.e., screens designed to interrogate large sets of proteins at once. In either case, quality controls are required to deal with the inherent imperfect nature of experimental assays. In this chapter, we discuss experimental and statistical methodologies to quantify error rates in high-throughput protein-protein interactions screens.

  8. Alignment of non-covalent interactions at protein-protein interfaces.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hongbo Zhu

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The study and comparison of protein-protein interfaces is essential for the understanding of the mechanisms of interaction between proteins. While there are many methods for comparing protein structures and protein binding sites, so far no methods have been reported for comparing the geometry of non-covalent interactions occurring at protein-protein interfaces. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we present a method for aligning non-covalent interactions between different protein-protein interfaces. The method aligns the vector representations of van der Waals interactions and hydrogen bonds based on their geometry. The method has been applied to a dataset which comprises a variety of protein-protein interfaces. The alignments are consistent to a large extent with the results obtained using two other complementary approaches. In addition, we apply the method to three examples of protein mimicry. The method successfully aligns respective interfaces and allows for recognizing conserved interface regions. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The Galinter method has been validated in the comparison of interfaces in which homologous subunits are involved, including cases of mimicry. The method is also applicable to comparing interfaces involving non-peptidic compounds. Galinter assists users in identifying local interface regions with similar patterns of non-covalent interactions. This is particularly relevant to the investigation of the molecular basis of interaction mimicry.

  9. Molecular dynamics simulations of protein-tyrosine phosphatase 1B: II. Substrate-enzyme interactions and dynamics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Peters, Günther H.j.; Frimurer, T. M.; Andersen, J. N.

    2000-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) complexed with the phosphorylated peptide substrate DADEpYL and the free substrate have been conducted to investigate 1) the physical forces involved in substrate-protein interactions, 2) the importance of enzyme...... to substrate binding. Based on essential dynamics analysis of the PTP1B/DADEpYL trajectory, it is shown that internal motions in the binding pocket occur in a subspace of only a few degrees of freedom. in particular, relatively large flexibilities are observed along several eigenvectors in the segments: Arg(24...... for catalysis. Analysis of the individual enzyme-substrate interaction energies revealed that mainly electrostatic forces contribute to binding. Indeed, calculation of the electrostatic field of the enzyme reveals that only the field surrounding the binding pocket is positive, while the remaining protein...

  10. Information assessment on predicting protein-protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gerstein Mark

    2004-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Identifying protein-protein interactions is fundamental for understanding the molecular machinery of the cell. Proteome-wide studies of protein-protein interactions are of significant value, but the high-throughput experimental technologies suffer from high rates of both false positive and false negative predictions. In addition to high-throughput experimental data, many diverse types of genomic data can help predict protein-protein interactions, such as mRNA expression, localization, essentiality, and functional annotation. Evaluations of the information contributions from different evidences help to establish more parsimonious models with comparable or better prediction accuracy, and to obtain biological insights of the relationships between protein-protein interactions and other genomic information. Results Our assessment is based on the genomic features used in a Bayesian network approach to predict protein-protein interactions genome-wide in yeast. In the special case, when one does not have any missing information about any of the features, our analysis shows that there is a larger information contribution from the functional-classification than from expression correlations or essentiality. We also show that in this case alternative models, such as logistic regression and random forest, may be more effective than Bayesian networks for predicting interactions. Conclusions In the restricted problem posed by the complete-information subset, we identified that the MIPS and Gene Ontology (GO functional similarity datasets as the dominating information contributors for predicting the protein-protein interactions under the framework proposed by Jansen et al. Random forests based on the MIPS and GO information alone can give highly accurate classifications. In this particular subset of complete information, adding other genomic data does little for improving predictions. We also found that the data discretizations used in the

  11. Multiscale Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Beta-Amyloid Interactions with Neurons

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qiu, Liming; Vaughn, Mark; Cheng, Kelvin

    2012-10-01

    Early events of human beta-amyloid protein interactions with cholesterol-containing membranes are critical to understanding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to exploring new therapeutic interventions of AD. Atomistic molecular dynamics (AMD) simulations have been extensively used to study the protein-lipid interaction at high atomic resolutions. However, traditional MD simulations are not efficient in sampling the phase space of complex lipid/protein systems with rugged free energy landscapes. Meanwhile, coarse-grained MD (CGD) simulations are efficient in the phase space sampling but suffered from low spatial resolutions and from the fact that the energy landscapes are not identical to those of the AMD. Here, a multiscale approach was employed to simulate the protein-lipid interactions of beta-amyloid upon its release from proteolysis residing in the neuronal membranes. We utilized a forward (AMD to CGD) and reverse (CGD-AMD) strategy to explore new transmembrane and surface protein configuration and evaluate the stabilization mechanisms by measuring the residue-specific protein-lipid or protein conformations. The detailed molecular interactions revealed in this multiscale MD approach will provide new insights into understanding the early molecular events leading to the pathogenesis of AD.

  12. Prediction of localization and interactions of apoptotic proteins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matula Pavel

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract During apoptosis several mitochondrial proteins are released. Some of them participate in caspase-independent nuclear DNA degradation, especially apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF and endonuclease G (endoG. Another interesting protein, which was expected to act similarly as AIF due to the high sequence homology with AIF is AIF-homologous mitochondrion-associated inducer of death (AMID. We studied the structure, cellular localization, and interactions of several proteins in silico and also in cells using fluorescent microscopy. We found the AMID protein to be cytoplasmic, most probably incorporated into the cytoplasmic side of the lipid membranes. Bioinformatic predictions were conducted to analyze the interactions of the studied proteins with each other and with other possible partners. We conducted molecular modeling of proteins with unknown 3D structures. These models were then refined by MolProbity server and employed in molecular docking simulations of interactions. Our results show data acquired using a combination of modern in silico methods and image analysis to understand the localization, interactions and functions of proteins AMID, AIF, endonuclease G, and other apoptosis-related proteins.

  13. Hot-spot analysis for drug discovery targeting protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosell, Mireia; Fernández-Recio, Juan

    2018-04-01

    Protein-protein interactions are important for biological processes and pathological situations, and are attractive targets for drug discovery. However, rational drug design targeting protein-protein interactions is still highly challenging. Hot-spot residues are seen as the best option to target such interactions, but their identification requires detailed structural and energetic characterization, which is only available for a tiny fraction of protein interactions. Areas covered: In this review, the authors cover a variety of computational methods that have been reported for the energetic analysis of protein-protein interfaces in search of hot-spots, and the structural modeling of protein-protein complexes by docking. This can help to rationalize the discovery of small-molecule inhibitors of protein-protein interfaces of therapeutic interest. Computational analysis and docking can help to locate the interface, molecular dynamics can be used to find suitable cavities, and hot-spot predictions can focus the search for inhibitors of protein-protein interactions. Expert opinion: A major difficulty for applying rational drug design methods to protein-protein interactions is that in the majority of cases the complex structure is not available. Fortunately, computational docking can complement experimental data. An interesting aspect to explore in the future is the integration of these strategies for targeting PPIs with large-scale mutational analysis.

  14. Interaction of monomeric Ebola VP40 protein with a plasma membrane: A coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) simulation study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohamad Yusoff, Mohamad Ariff; Abdul Hamid, Azzmer Azzar; Mohammad Bunori, Noraslinda; Abd Halim, Khairul Bariyyah

    2018-06-01

    Ebola virus is a lipid-enveloped filamentous virus that affects human and non-human primates and consists of several types of protein: nucleoprotein, VP30, VP35, L protein, VP40, VP24, and transmembrane glycoprotein. Among the Ebola virus proteins, its matrix protein VP40 is abundantly expressed during infection and plays a number of critical roles in oligomerization, budding and egress from the host cell. VP40 exists predominantly as a monomer at the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, and has been suggested to interact with negatively charged lipids such as phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP 2 ) and phosphatidylserine (PS) via its cationic patch. The hydrophobic loop at the C-terminal domain has also been shown to be important in the interaction between the VP40 and the membrane. However, details of the molecular mechanisms underpinning their interactions are not fully understood. This study aimed at investigating the effects of mutation in the cationic patch and hydrophobic loop on the interaction between the VP40 monomer and the plasma membrane using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation (CGMD). Our simulations revealed that the interaction between VP40 and the plasma membrane is mediated by the cationic patch residues. This led to the clustering of PIP 2 around the protein in the inner leaflet as a result of interactions between some cationic residues including R52, K127, K221, K224, K225, K256, K270, K274, K275 and K279 and PIP 2 lipids via electrostatic interactions. Mutation of the cationic patch or hydrophobic loop amino acids caused the protein to bind at the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane in a different orientation, where no significant clustering of PIP 2 was observed around the mutated protein. This study provides basic understanding of the interaction of the VP40 monomer and its mutants with the plasma membrane. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Protein-protein interactions and cancer: targeting the central dogma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garner, Amanda L; Janda, Kim D

    2011-01-01

    Between 40,000 and 200,000 protein-protein interactions have been predicted to exist within the human interactome. As these interactions are of a critical nature in many important cellular functions and their dysregulation is causal of disease, the modulation of these binding events has emerged as a leading, yet difficult therapeutic arena. In particular, the targeting of protein-protein interactions relevant to cancer is of fundamental importance as the tumor-promoting function of several aberrantly expressed proteins in the cancerous state is directly resultant of its ability to interact with a protein-binding partner. Of significance, these protein complexes play a crucial role in each of the steps of the central dogma of molecular biology, the fundamental processes of genetic transmission. With the many important discoveries being made regarding the mechanisms of these genetic process, the identification of new chemical probes are needed to better understand and validate the druggability of protein-protein interactions related to the central dogma. In this review, we provide an overview of current small molecule-based protein-protein interaction inhibitors for each stage of the central dogma: transcription, mRNA splicing and translation. Importantly, through our analysis we have uncovered a lack of necessary probes targeting mRNA splicing and translation, thus, opening up the possibility for expansion of these fields.

  16. Computational design of protein interactions: designing proteins that neutralize influenza by inhibiting its hemagglutinin surface protein

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fleishman, Sarel

    2012-02-01

    Molecular recognition underlies all life processes. Design of interactions not seen in nature is a test of our understanding of molecular recognition and could unlock the vast potential of subtle control over molecular interaction networks, allowing the design of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for basic and applied research. We developed the first general method for designing protein interactions. The method starts by computing a region of high affinity interactions between dismembered amino acid residues and the target surface and then identifying proteins that can harbor these residues. Designs are tested experimentally for binding the target surface and successful ones are affinity matured using yeast cell surface display. Applied to the conserved stem region of influenza hemagglutinin we designed two unrelated proteins that, following affinity maturation, bound hemagglutinin at subnanomolar dissociation constants. Co-crystal structures of hemagglutinin bound to the two designed binders were within 1Angstrom RMSd of their models, validating the accuracy of the design strategy. One of the designed proteins inhibits the conformational changes that underlie hemagglutinin's cell-invasion functions and blocks virus infectivity in cell culture, suggesting that such proteins may in future serve as diagnostics and antivirals against a wide range of pathogenic influenza strains. We have used this method to obtain experimentally validated binders of several other target proteins, demonstrating the generality of the approach. We discuss the combination of modeling and high-throughput characterization of design variants which has been key to the success of this approach, as well as how we have used the data obtained in this project to enhance our understanding of molecular recognition. References: Science 332:816 JMB, in press Protein Sci 20:753

  17. Correlations and symmetry of interactions influence collective dynamics of molecular motors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Celis-Garza, Daniel; Teimouri, Hamid; Kolomeisky, Anatoly B

    2015-01-01

    Enzymatic molecules that actively support many cellular processes, including transport, cell division and cell motility, are known as motor proteins or molecular motors. Experimental studies indicate that they interact with each other and they frequently work together in large groups. To understand the mechanisms of collective behavior of motor proteins we study the effect of interactions in the transport of molecular motors along linear filaments. It is done by analyzing a recently introduced class of totally asymmetric exclusion processes that takes into account the intermolecular interactions via thermodynamically consistent approach. We develop a new theoretical method that allows us to compute analytically all dynamic properties of the system. Our analysis shows that correlations play important role in dynamics of interacting molecular motors. Surprisingly, we find that the correlations for repulsive interactions are weaker and more short-range than the correlations for the attractive interactions. In addition, it is shown that symmetry of interactions affect dynamic properties of molecular motors. The implications of these findings for motor proteins transport are discussed. Our theoretical predictions are tested by extensive Monte Carlo computer simulations. (paper)

  18. Interaction of Classical Platinum Agents with the Monomeric and Dimeric Atox1 Proteins: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaolei Wang

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available We carried out molecular dynamics simulations and free energy calculations for a series of binary and ternary models of the cisplatin, transplatin and oxaliplatin agents binding to a monomeric Atox1 protein and a dimeric Atox1 protein to investigate their interaction mechanisms. All three platinum agents could respectively combine with the monomeric Atox1 protein and the dimeric Atox1 protein to form a stable binary and ternary complex due to the covalent interaction of the platinum center with the Atox1 protein. The results suggested that the extra interaction from the oxaliplatin ligand–Atox1 protein interface increases its affinity only for the OxaliPt + Atox1 model. The binding of the oxaliplatin agent to the Atox1 protein might cause larger deformation of the protein than those of the cisplatin and transplatin agents due to the larger size of the oxaliplatin ligand. However, the extra interactions to facilitate the stabilities of the ternary CisPt + 2Atox1 and OxaliPt + 2Atox1 models come from the α1 helices and α2-β4 loops of the Atox1 protein–Atox1 protein interface due to the cis conformation of the platinum agents. The combinations of two Atox1 proteins in an asymmetric way in the three ternary models were analyzed. These investigations might provide detailed information for understanding the interaction mechanism of the platinum agents binding to the Atox1 protein in the cytoplasm.

  19. Molecular interactions of mussel protective coating protein, mcfp-1, from Mytilus californianus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Qingye; Hwang, Dong Soo; Liu, Yang; Zeng, Hongbo

    2012-02-01

    Protective coating of the byssus of mussels (Mytilus sp.) has been suggested as a new paradigm of medical coating due to its high extensibility and hardness co-existence without their mutual detriment. The only known biomacromolecule in the extensible and tough coating on the byssus is mussel foot protein-1 (mfp-1), which is made up with positively charged residues (~20 mol%) and lack of negatively charged residues. Here, adhesion and molecular interaction mechanisms of Mytilus californianus foot protein-1 (mcfp-1) from California blue mussel were investigated using a surface forces apparatus (SFA) in buffer solutions of different ionic concentrations (0.2-0.7 M) and pHs (3.0-5.5). Strong and reversible cohesion between opposed positively charged mcfp-1 films was measured in 0.1 M sodium acetate buffer with 0.1 M KNO(3). Cohesion of mcfp-1 was gradually reduced with increasing the ionic strength, but was not changed with pH variations. Oxidation of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) residues of mcfp-1, a key residue for adhesive and coating proteins of mussel, didn't change the cohesion strength of mcfp-1 films, but the addition of chemicals with aromatic groups (i.e., aspirin and 4-methylcatechol) increased the cohesion. These results suggest that the cohesion of mcfp-1 films is mainly mediated by cation-π interactions between the positively charged residues and benzene rings of DOPA and other aromatic amino acids (~20 mol% of total amino acids of mcfp-1), and π-π interactions between the phenyl groups in mcfp-1. The adhesion mechanism obtained for the mcfp-1 proteins provides important insight into the design and development of functional biomaterials and coatings mimicking the extensible and robust mussel cuticle coating. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. A Mesoscopic Model for Protein-Protein Interactions in Solution

    OpenAIRE

    Lund, Mikael; Jönsson, Bo

    2003-01-01

    Protein self-association may be detrimental in biological systems, but can be utilized in a controlled fashion for protein crystallization. It is hence of considerable interest to understand how factors like solution conditions prevent or promote aggregation. Here we present a computational model describing interactions between protein molecules in solution. The calculations are based on a molecular description capturing the detailed structure of the protein molecule using x-ray or nuclear ma...

  1. Drosophila protein interaction map (DPiM): a paradigm for metazoan protein complex interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guruharsha, K G; Obar, Robert A; Mintseris, Julian; Aishwarya, K; Krishnan, R T; Vijayraghavan, K; Artavanis-Tsakonas, Spyros

    2012-01-01

    Proteins perform essential cellular functions as part of protein complexes, often in conjunction with RNA, DNA, metabolites and other small molecules. The genome encodes thousands of proteins but not all of them are expressed in every cell type; and expressed proteins are not active at all times. Such diversity of protein expression and function accounts for the level of biological intricacy seen in nature. Defining protein-protein interactions in protein complexes, and establishing the when, what and where of potential interactions, is therefore crucial to understanding the cellular function of any protein-especially those that have not been well studied by traditional molecular genetic approaches. We generated a large-scale resource of affinity-tagged expression-ready clones and used co-affinity purification combined with tandem mass-spectrometry to identify protein partners of nearly 5,000 Drosophila melanogaster proteins. The resulting protein complex "map" provided a blueprint of metazoan protein complex organization. Here we describe how the map has provided valuable insights into protein function in addition to generating hundreds of testable hypotheses. We also discuss recent technological advancements that will be critical in addressing the next generation of questions arising from the map.

  2. Towards a better understanding of the specificity of protein-protein interaction

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Kysilka, Jiří; Vondrášek, Jiří

    2012-01-01

    Roč. 25, č. 11 (2012), s. 604-615 ISSN 0952-3499 R&D Projects: GA ČR GAP208/10/0725; GA ČR GAP302/10/0427; GA MŠk(CZ) LH11020 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z40550506; CEZ:AV0Z50520701 Keywords : protein-protein interaction * molecular recognition * x-ray structure analysis * empirical potentials * side chain-side chain interaction * interaction energy * bioinformatics Subject RIV: CE - Biochemistry Impact factor: 3.006, year: 2012

  3. A lock-and-key model for protein–protein interactions

    OpenAIRE

    Morrison, Julie L.; Breitling, Rainer; Higham, Desmond J.; Gilbert, David R.

    2006-01-01

    Motivation: Protein–protein interaction networks are one of the major post-genomic data sources available to molecular biologists. They provide a comprehensive view of the global interaction structure of an organism’s proteome, as well as detailed information on specific interactions. Here we suggest a physical model of protein interactions that can be used to extract additional information at an intermediate level: It enables us to identify proteins which share biological interaction motifs,...

  4. Regulation of PCNA-protein interactions for genome stability

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mailand, Niels; Gibbs-Seymour, Ian; Bekker-Jensen, Simon

    2013-01-01

    Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) has a central role in promoting faithful DNA replication, providing a molecular platform that facilitates the myriad protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions that occur at the replication fork. Numerous PCNA-associated proteins compete for binding...

  5. Free-solution, label-free molecular interactions studied by back-scattering interferometry

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bornhop, D.J.; Latham, J.C.; Kussrow, A.

    2007-01-01

    Free-solution, label-free molecular interactions were investigated with back-scattering interferometry in a simple optical train composed of a helium-neon laser, a microfluidic channel, and a position sensor. Molecular binding interactions between proteins, ions and protein, and small molecules...... and protein, were determined with high dynamic range dissociation constants (K-d spanning six decades) and unmatched sensitivity (picomolar K-d's and detection limits of 10,000s of molecules). With this technique, equilibrium dissociation constants were quantified for protein A and immunoglobulin G...

  6. Affinity purification combined with mass spectrometry to identify herpes simplex virus protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meckes, David G

    2014-01-01

    The identification and characterization of herpes simplex virus protein interaction complexes are fundamental to understanding the molecular mechanisms governing the replication and pathogenesis of the virus. Recent advances in affinity-based methods, mass spectrometry configurations, and bioinformatics tools have greatly increased the quantity and quality of protein-protein interaction datasets. In this chapter, detailed and reliable methods that can easily be implemented are presented for the identification of protein-protein interactions using cryogenic cell lysis, affinity purification, trypsin digestion, and mass spectrometry.

  7. Protein Charge and Mass Contribute to the Spatio-temporal Dynamics of Protein-Protein Interactions in a Minimal Proteome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Yu; Wang, Hong; Nussinov, Ruth; Ma, Buyong

    2013-01-01

    We constructed and simulated a ‘minimal proteome’ model using Langevin dynamics. It contains 206 essential protein types which were compiled from the literature. For comparison, we generated six proteomes with randomized concentrations. We found that the net charges and molecular weights of the proteins in the minimal genome are not random. The net charge of a protein decreases linearly with molecular weight, with small proteins being mostly positively charged and large proteins negatively charged. The protein copy numbers in the minimal genome have the tendency to maximize the number of protein-protein interactions in the network. Negatively charged proteins which tend to have larger sizes can provide large collision cross-section allowing them to interact with other proteins; on the other hand, the smaller positively charged proteins could have higher diffusion speed and are more likely to collide with other proteins. Proteomes with random charge/mass populations form less stable clusters than those with experimental protein copy numbers. Our study suggests that ‘proper’ populations of negatively and positively charged proteins are important for maintaining a protein-protein interaction network in a proteome. It is interesting to note that the minimal genome model based on the charge and mass of E. Coli may have a larger protein-protein interaction network than that based on the lower organism M. pneumoniae. PMID:23420643

  8. Molecular printboards as general platforms for protein immobilization

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ludden, M.J.W.

    2007-01-01

    This thesis describes the selective attachment of proteins to β-cyclodextrin (βCD) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), termed molecular printboards through multivalent orthogonal interactions. It is shown that the molecular printboards allow different assembly pathways for the build-up of (complex)

  9. Multiplex single-molecule interaction profiling of DNA-barcoded proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Liangcai; Li, Chao; Aach, John; Hill, David E; Vidal, Marc; Church, George M

    2014-11-27

    In contrast with advances in massively parallel DNA sequencing, high-throughput protein analyses are often limited by ensemble measurements, individual analyte purification and hence compromised quality and cost-effectiveness. Single-molecule protein detection using optical methods is limited by the number of spectrally non-overlapping chromophores. Here we introduce a single-molecular-interaction sequencing (SMI-seq) technology for parallel protein interaction profiling leveraging single-molecule advantages. DNA barcodes are attached to proteins collectively via ribosome display or individually via enzymatic conjugation. Barcoded proteins are assayed en masse in aqueous solution and subsequently immobilized in a polyacrylamide thin film to construct a random single-molecule array, where barcoding DNAs are amplified into in situ polymerase colonies (polonies) and analysed by DNA sequencing. This method allows precise quantification of various proteins with a theoretical maximum array density of over one million polonies per square millimetre. Furthermore, protein interactions can be measured on the basis of the statistics of colocalized polonies arising from barcoding DNAs of interacting proteins. Two demanding applications, G-protein coupled receptor and antibody-binding profiling, are demonstrated. SMI-seq enables 'library versus library' screening in a one-pot assay, simultaneously interrogating molecular binding affinity and specificity.

  10. Scanning number and brightness yields absolute protein concentrations in live cells: a crucial parameter controlling functional bio-molecular interaction networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papini, Christina; Royer, Catherine A

    2018-02-01

    Biological function results from properly timed bio-molecular interactions that transduce external or internal signals, resulting in any number of cellular fates, including triggering of cell-state transitions (division, differentiation, transformation, apoptosis), metabolic homeostasis and adjustment to changing physical or nutritional environments, amongst many more. These bio-molecular interactions can be modulated by chemical modifications of proteins, nucleic acids, lipids and other small molecules. They can result in bio-molecular transport from one cellular compartment to the other and often trigger specific enzyme activities involved in bio-molecular synthesis, modification or degradation. Clearly, a mechanistic understanding of any given high level biological function requires a quantitative characterization of the principal bio-molecular interactions involved and how these may change dynamically. Such information can be obtained using fluctation analysis, in particular scanning number and brightness, and used to build and test mechanistic models of the functional network to define which characteristics are the most important for its regulation.

  11. Molecular mechanisms of protein-cholesterol interactions in plasma membranes: Functional distinction between topological (tilted) and consensus (CARC/CRAC) domains.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fantini, Jacques; Di Scala, Coralie; Baier, Carlos J; Barrantes, Francisco J

    2016-09-01

    The molecular mechanisms that control the multiple possible modes of protein association with membrane cholesterol are remarkably convergent. These mechanisms, which include hydrogen bonding, CH-π stacking and dispersion forces, are used by a wide variety of extracellular proteins (e.g. microbial or amyloid) and membrane receptors. Virus fusion peptides penetrate the membrane of host cells with a tilted orientation that is compatible with a transient interaction with cholesterol; this tilted orientation is also characteristic of the process of insertion of amyloid proteins that subsequently form oligomeric pores in the plasma membrane of brain cells. Membrane receptors that are associated with cholesterol generally display linear consensus binding motifs (CARC and CRAC) characterized by a triad of basic (Lys/Arg), aromatic (Tyr/phe) and aliphatic (Leu/Val) amino acid residues. In some cases, the presence of both CARC and CRAC within the same membrane-spanning domain allows the simultaneous binding of two cholesterol molecules, one in each membrane leaflet. In this review the molecular basis and the functional significance of the different modes of protein-cholesterol interactions in plasma membranes are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Fragment molecular orbital method for studying lanthanide interactions with proteins

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tsushima, Satoru [Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf e.V., Dresden (Germany). Biophysics; Komeiji, Y. [National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba (Japan); Mochizuki, Y. [Rikkyo Univ., Tokyo (Japan)

    2017-06-01

    The binding affinity of the calcium-binding protein calmodulin towards Eu{sup 3+} was studied as a model for lanthanide protein interactions in the large family of ''EF-hand'' calcium-binding proteins.

  13. The interface of protein structure, protein biophysics, and molecular evolution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liberles, David A; Teichmann, Sarah A; Bahar, Ivet; Bastolla, Ugo; Bloom, Jesse; Bornberg-Bauer, Erich; Colwell, Lucy J; de Koning, A P Jason; Dokholyan, Nikolay V; Echave, Julian; Elofsson, Arne; Gerloff, Dietlind L; Goldstein, Richard A; Grahnen, Johan A; Holder, Mark T; Lakner, Clemens; Lartillot, Nicholas; Lovell, Simon C; Naylor, Gavin; Perica, Tina; Pollock, David D; Pupko, Tal; Regan, Lynne; Roger, Andrew; Rubinstein, Nimrod; Shakhnovich, Eugene; Sjölander, Kimmen; Sunyaev, Shamil; Teufel, Ashley I; Thorne, Jeffrey L; Thornton, Joseph W; Weinreich, Daniel M; Whelan, Simon

    2012-01-01

    Abstract The interface of protein structural biology, protein biophysics, molecular evolution, and molecular population genetics forms the foundations for a mechanistic understanding of many aspects of protein biochemistry. Current efforts in interdisciplinary protein modeling are in their infancy and the state-of-the art of such models is described. Beyond the relationship between amino acid substitution and static protein structure, protein function, and corresponding organismal fitness, other considerations are also discussed. More complex mutational processes such as insertion and deletion and domain rearrangements and even circular permutations should be evaluated. The role of intrinsically disordered proteins is still controversial, but may be increasingly important to consider. Protein geometry and protein dynamics as a deviation from static considerations of protein structure are also important. Protein expression level is known to be a major determinant of evolutionary rate and several considerations including selection at the mRNA level and the role of interaction specificity are discussed. Lastly, the relationship between modeling and needed high-throughput experimental data as well as experimental examination of protein evolution using ancestral sequence resurrection and in vitro biochemistry are presented, towards an aim of ultimately generating better models for biological inference and prediction. PMID:22528593

  14. Dynamic functional modules in co-expressed protein interaction networks of dilated cardiomyopathy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oyang Yen-Jen

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Molecular networks represent the backbone of molecular activity within cells and provide opportunities for understanding the mechanism of diseases. While protein-protein interaction data constitute static network maps, integration of condition-specific co-expression information provides clues to the dynamic features of these networks. Dilated cardiomyopathy is a leading cause of heart failure. Although previous studies have identified putative biomarkers or therapeutic targets for heart failure, the underlying molecular mechanism of dilated cardiomyopathy remains unclear. Results We developed a network-based comparative analysis approach that integrates protein-protein interactions with gene expression profiles and biological function annotations to reveal dynamic functional modules under different biological states. We found that hub proteins in condition-specific co-expressed protein interaction networks tended to be differentially expressed between biological states. Applying this method to a cohort of heart failure patients, we identified two functional modules that significantly emerged from the interaction networks. The dynamics of these modules between normal and disease states further suggest a potential molecular model of dilated cardiomyopathy. Conclusions We propose a novel framework to analyze the interaction networks in different biological states. It successfully reveals network modules closely related to heart failure; more importantly, these network dynamics provide new insights into the cause of dilated cardiomyopathy. The revealed molecular modules might be used as potential drug targets and provide new directions for heart failure therapy.

  15. The Ser/Thr Protein Kinase Protein-Protein Interaction Map of M. tuberculosis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Fan-Lin; Liu, Yin; Jiang, He-Wei; Luan, Yi-Zhao; Zhang, Hai-Nan; He, Xiang; Xu, Zhao-Wei; Hou, Jing-Li; Ji, Li-Yun; Xie, Zhi; Czajkowsky, Daniel M; Yan, Wei; Deng, Jiao-Yu; Bi, Li-Jun; Zhang, Xian-En; Tao, Sheng-Ce

    2017-08-01

    Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is the causative agent of tuberculosis, the leading cause of death among all infectious diseases. There are 11 eukaryotic-like serine/threonine protein kinases (STPKs) in Mtb, which are thought to play pivotal roles in cell growth, signal transduction and pathogenesis. However, their underlying mechanisms of action remain largely uncharacterized. In this study, using a Mtb proteome microarray, we have globally identified the binding proteins in Mtb for all of the STPKs, and constructed the first STPK protein interaction (KPI) map that includes 492 binding proteins and 1,027 interactions. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the interacting proteins reflect diverse functions, including roles in two-component system, transcription, protein degradation, and cell wall integrity. Functional investigations confirmed that PknG regulates cell wall integrity through key components of peptidoglycan (PG) biosynthesis, e.g. MurC. The global STPK-KPIs network constructed here is expected to serve as a rich resource for understanding the key signaling pathways in Mtb, thus facilitating drug development and effective control of Mtb. © 2017 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  16. PL-PatchSurfer: A Novel Molecular Local Surface-Based Method for Exploring Protein-Ligand Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bingjie Hu

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Structure-based computational methods have been widely used in exploring protein-ligand interactions, including predicting the binding ligands of a given protein based on their structural complementarity. Compared to other protein and ligand representations, the advantages of a surface representation include reduced sensitivity to subtle changes in the pocket and ligand conformation and fast search speed. Here we developed a novel method named PL-PatchSurfer (Protein-Ligand PatchSurfer. PL-PatchSurfer represents the protein binding pocket and the ligand molecular surface as a combination of segmented surface patches. Each patch is characterized by its geometrical shape and the electrostatic potential, which are represented using the 3D Zernike descriptor (3DZD. We first tested PL-PatchSurfer on binding ligand prediction and found it outperformed the pocket-similarity based ligand prediction program. We then optimized the search algorithm of PL-PatchSurfer using the PDBbind dataset. Finally, we explored the utility of applying PL-PatchSurfer to a larger and more diverse dataset and showed that PL-PatchSurfer was able to provide a high early enrichment for most of the targets. To the best of our knowledge, PL-PatchSurfer is the first surface patch-based method that treats ligand complementarity at protein binding sites. We believe that using a surface patch approach to better understand protein-ligand interactions has the potential to significantly enhance the design of new ligands for a wide array of drug-targets.

  17. PL-PatchSurfer: a novel molecular local surface-based method for exploring protein-ligand interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Bingjie; Zhu, Xiaolei; Monroe, Lyman; Bures, Mark G; Kihara, Daisuke

    2014-08-27

    Structure-based computational methods have been widely used in exploring protein-ligand interactions, including predicting the binding ligands of a given protein based on their structural complementarity. Compared to other protein and ligand representations, the advantages of a surface representation include reduced sensitivity to subtle changes in the pocket and ligand conformation and fast search speed. Here we developed a novel method named PL-PatchSurfer (Protein-Ligand PatchSurfer). PL-PatchSurfer represents the protein binding pocket and the ligand molecular surface as a combination of segmented surface patches. Each patch is characterized by its geometrical shape and the electrostatic potential, which are represented using the 3D Zernike descriptor (3DZD). We first tested PL-PatchSurfer on binding ligand prediction and found it outperformed the pocket-similarity based ligand prediction program. We then optimized the search algorithm of PL-PatchSurfer using the PDBbind dataset. Finally, we explored the utility of applying PL-PatchSurfer to a larger and more diverse dataset and showed that PL-PatchSurfer was able to provide a high early enrichment for most of the targets. To the best of our knowledge, PL-PatchSurfer is the first surface patch-based method that treats ligand complementarity at protein binding sites. We believe that using a surface patch approach to better understand protein-ligand interactions has the potential to significantly enhance the design of new ligands for a wide array of drug-targets.

  18. General and specific lipid-protein interactions in Na,K-ATPase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cornelius, F; Habeck, M; Kanai, R; Toyoshima, C; Karlish, S J D

    2015-09-01

    The molecular activity of Na,K-ATPase and other P2 ATPases like Ca(2+)-ATPase is influenced by the lipid environment via both general (physical) and specific (chemical) interactions. Whereas the general effects of bilayer structure on membrane protein function are fairly well described and understood, the importance of the specific interactions has only been realized within the last decade due particularly to the growing field of membrane protein crystallization, which has shed new light on the molecular details of specific lipid-protein interactions. It is a remarkable observation that specific lipid-protein interactions seem to be evolutionarily conserved, and conformations of specifically bound lipids at the lipid-protein surface within the membrane are similar in crystal structures determined with different techniques and sources of the protein, despite the rather weak lipid-protein interaction energy. Studies of purified detergent-soluble recombinant αβ or αβFXYD Na,K-ATPase complexes reveal three separate functional effects of phospholipids and cholesterol with characteristic structural selectivity. The observations suggest that these three effects are exerted at separate binding sites for phophatidylserine/cholesterol (stabilizing), polyunsaturated phosphatidylethanolamine (stimulatory), and saturated PC or sphingomyelin/cholesterol (inhibitory), which may be located within three lipid-binding pockets identified in recent crystal structures of Na,K-ATPase. The findings point to a central role of direct and specific interactions of different phospholipids and cholesterol in determining both stability and molecular activity of Na,K-ATPase and possible implications for physiological regulation by membrane lipid composition. This article is part of a special issue titled "Lipid-Protein Interactions." Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. The malaria parasite RhopH protein complex interacts with erythrocyte calmyrin identified from a comprehensive erythrocyte protein library.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miura, Toyokazu; Takeo, Satoru; Ntege, Edward H; Otsuki, Hitoshi; Sawasaki, Tatsuya; Ishino, Tomoko; Takashima, Eizo; Tsuboi, Takafumi

    2018-06-02

    Malaria merozoite apical organelles; microneme and rhoptry secreted proteins play functional roles during and following invasion of host erythrocytes. Among numerous proteins, the rhoptries discharge high molecular weight proteins known as RhopH complex. Recent reports suggest that the RhopH complex is essential for growth and survival of the malaria parasite within erythrocytes. However, an in-depth understanding of the host-parasite molecular interactions is indispensable. Here we utilized a comprehensive mouse erythrocyte protein library consisting of 443 proteins produced by a wheat germ cell-free system, combined with AlphaScreen technology to identify mouse erythrocyte calmyrin as an interacting molecule of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium yoelii RhopH complex (PyRhopH). The PyRhopH interaction was dependent on the calmyrin N-terminus and divalent cation capacity. The finding unveils a recommendable and invaluable usefulness of our comprehensive mouse erythrocyte protein library together with the AlphaScreen technology in investigating a wide-range of host-parasite molecular interactions. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. (S)Pinning down protein interactions by NMR

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Teilum, Kaare; Kunze, Micha Ben Achim; Erlendsson, Simon

    2017-01-01

    Protein molecules are highly diverse communication platforms and their interaction repertoire stretches from atoms over small molecules such as sugars and lipids to macromolecules. An important route to understanding molecular communication is to quantitatively describe their interactions...... all types of protein reactions, which can span orders of magnitudes in affinities, reaction rates and lifetimes of states. As the more versatile technique, solution NMR spectroscopy offers a remarkable catalogue of methods that can be successfully applied to the quantitative as well as qualitative...... descriptions of protein interactions. In this review we provide an easy-access approach to NMR for the non-NMR specialist and describe how and when solution state NMR spectroscopy is the method of choice for addressing protein ligand interaction. We describe very briefly the theoretical background...

  1. Multiplex single-molecule interaction profiling of DNA barcoded proteins

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Liangcai; Li, Chao; Aach, John; Hill, David E.; Vidal, Marc; Church, George M.

    2014-01-01

    In contrast with advances in massively parallel DNA sequencing1, high-throughput protein analyses2-4 are often limited by ensemble measurements, individual analyte purification and hence compromised quality and cost-effectiveness. Single-molecule (SM) protein detection achieved using optical methods5 is limited by the number of spectrally nonoverlapping chromophores. Here, we introduce a single molecular interaction-sequencing (SMI-Seq) technology for parallel protein interaction profiling leveraging SM advantages. DNA barcodes are attached to proteins collectively via ribosome display6 or individually via enzymatic conjugation. Barcoded proteins are assayed en masse in aqueous solution and subsequently immobilized in a polyacrylamide (PAA) thin film to construct a random SM array, where barcoding DNAs are amplified into in situ polymerase colonies (polonies)7 and analyzed by DNA sequencing. This method allows precise quantification of various proteins with a theoretical maximum array density of over one million polonies per square millimeter. Furthermore, protein interactions can be measured based on the statistics of colocalized polonies arising from barcoding DNAs of interacting proteins. Two demanding applications, G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) and antibody binding profiling, were demonstrated. SMI-Seq enables “library vs. library” screening in a one-pot assay, simultaneously interrogating molecular binding affinity and specificity. PMID:25252978

  2. The simulation approach to lipid-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paramo, Teresa; Garzón, Diana; Holdbrook, Daniel A; Khalid, Syma; Bond, Peter J

    2013-01-01

    The interactions between lipids and proteins are crucial for a range of biological processes, from the folding and stability of membrane proteins to signaling and metabolism facilitated by lipid-binding proteins. However, high-resolution structural details concerning functional lipid/protein interactions are scarce due to barriers in both experimental isolation of native lipid-bound complexes and subsequent biophysical characterization. The molecular dynamics (MD) simulation approach provides a means to complement available structural data, yielding dynamic, structural, and thermodynamic data for a protein embedded within a physiologically realistic, modelled lipid environment. In this chapter, we provide a guide to current methods for setting up and running simulations of membrane proteins and soluble, lipid-binding proteins, using standard atomistically detailed representations, as well as simplified, coarse-grained models. In addition, we outline recent studies that illustrate the power of the simulation approach in the context of biologically relevant lipid/protein interactions.

  3. Prediction of Protein-Protein Interactions Related to Protein Complexes Based on Protein Interaction Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peng Liu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A method for predicting protein-protein interactions based on detected protein complexes is proposed to repair deficient interactions derived from high-throughput biological experiments. Protein complexes are pruned and decomposed into small parts based on the adaptive k-cores method to predict protein-protein interactions associated with the complexes. The proposed method is adaptive to protein complexes with different structure, number, and size of nodes in a protein-protein interaction network. Based on different complex sets detected by various algorithms, we can obtain different prediction sets of protein-protein interactions. The reliability of the predicted interaction sets is proved by using estimations with statistical tests and direct confirmation of the biological data. In comparison with the approaches which predict the interactions based on the cliques, the overlap of the predictions is small. Similarly, the overlaps among the predicted sets of interactions derived from various complex sets are also small. Thus, every predicted set of interactions may complement and improve the quality of the original network data. Meanwhile, the predictions from the proposed method replenish protein-protein interactions associated with protein complexes using only the network topology.

  4. Molecular interactions between tomato and the leaf mold pathogen Cladosporium fulvum.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rivas, Susana; Thomas, Colwyn M

    2005-01-01

    The interaction between tomato and the leaf mold pathogen Cladosporium fulvum is controlled in a gene-for-gene manner. This interaction has provided useful insights to the molecular basis of recognition specificity in plant disease resistance (R) proteins, disease resistance (R) gene evolution, R-protein mediated signaling, and cellular responses to pathogen attack. Tomato Cf genes encode type I membrane-associated receptor-like proteins (RLPs) comprised predominantly of extracellular leucine-rich repeats (eLRRs) and which are anchored in the plasma membrane. Cf proteins recognize fungal avirulence (Avr) peptides secreted into the leaf apoplast during infection. A direct interaction of Cf proteins with their cognate Avr proteins has not been demonstrated and the molecular mechanism of Avr protein perception is not known. Following ligand perception Cf proteins trigger a hypersensitive response (HR) and the arrest of pathogen development. Cf proteins lack an obvious signaling domain, suggesting that defense response activation is mediated through interactions with other partners. Avr protein perception results in the rapid accumulation of active oxygen species (AOS), changes in cellular ion fluxes, activation of protein kinase cascades, changes in gene expression and, possibly, targeted protein degradation. Here we review our current understanding of Cf-mediated responses in resistance to C. fulvum.

  5. Parallel force assay for protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aschenbrenner, Daniela; Pippig, Diana A; Klamecka, Kamila; Limmer, Katja; Leonhardt, Heinrich; Gaub, Hermann E

    2014-01-01

    Quantitative proteome research is greatly promoted by high-resolution parallel format assays. A characterization of protein complexes based on binding forces offers an unparalleled dynamic range and allows for the effective discrimination of non-specific interactions. Here we present a DNA-based Molecular Force Assay to quantify protein-protein interactions, namely the bond between different variants of GFP and GFP-binding nanobodies. We present different strategies to adjust the maximum sensitivity window of the assay by influencing the binding strength of the DNA reference duplexes. The binding of the nanobody Enhancer to the different GFP constructs is compared at high sensitivity of the assay. Whereas the binding strength to wild type and enhanced GFP are equal within experimental error, stronger binding to superfolder GFP is observed. This difference in binding strength is attributed to alterations in the amino acids that form contacts according to the crystal structure of the initial wild type GFP-Enhancer complex. Moreover, we outline the potential for large-scale parallelization of the assay.

  6. Molecular mechanics work station for protein conformational studies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fine, R.; Levinthal, C.; Schoenborn, B.; Dimmier, G.; Rankowitz, C.

    1984-01-01

    Interest in computational problems in Biology has intensified over the last few years, partly due to the development of techniques for the rapid cloning, sequencing, and mutagenesis of genes from organisims ranging from E. coli to Man. The central dogma of molecular biology; that DNA codes for mRNA which codes for protein, has been understood in a linear programming sense since the genetic code was cracked. But what is not understood at present is how a protein, once assembled as a long sequence of amino acids, folds back on itself to produce a three-dimensional structure which is unique to that protein and which dictates its chemical and biological activity. This folding process is purely physics, and involves the time evolution of a system of several thousand atoms which interact with each other and with atoms from the surrounding solvent. Molecular dynamics simulations on smaller molecules suggest that approaches which treat the protein as a classical ensemble of atoms interacting with each other via an empirical Hamiltonian can yield the kind of predictive results one would like when applied to proteins

  7. Kinome signaling through regulated protein-protein interactions in normal and cancer cells.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pawson, Tony; Kofler, Michael

    2009-04-01

    The flow of molecular information through normal and oncogenic signaling pathways frequently depends on protein phosphorylation, mediated by specific kinases, and the selective binding of the resulting phosphorylation sites to interaction domains present on downstream targets. This physical and functional interplay of catalytic and interaction domains can be clearly seen in cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases such as Src, Abl, Fes, and ZAP-70. Although the kinase and SH2 domains of these proteins possess similar intrinsic properties of phosphorylating tyrosine residues or binding phosphotyrosine sites, they also undergo intramolecular interactions when linked together, in a fashion that varies from protein to protein. These cooperative interactions can have diverse effects on substrate recognition and kinase activity, and provide a variety of mechanisms to link the stimulation of catalytic activity to substrate recognition. Taken together, these data have suggested how protein kinases, and the signaling pathways in which they are embedded, can evolve complex properties through the stepwise linkage of domains within single polypeptides or multi-protein assemblies.

  8. Molecular interactions between chondroitin-dermatan sulfate and growth factors/receptors/matrix proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mizumoto, Shuji; Yamada, Shuhei; Sugahara, Kazuyuki

    2015-10-01

    Recent functional studies on chondroitin sulfate-dermatan sulfate (CS-DS) demonstrated its indispensable roles in various biological events including brain development and cancer. CS-DS proteoglycans exert their physiological activity through interactions with specific proteins including growth factors, cell surface receptors, and matrix proteins. The characterization of these interactions is essential for regulating the biological functions of CS-DS proteoglycans. Although amino acid sequences on the bioactive proteins required for these interactions have already been elucidated, the specific saccharide sequences involved in the binding of CS-DS to target proteins have not yet been sufficiently identified. In this review, recent findings are described on the interaction between CS-DS and some proteins which are especially involved in the central nervous system and cancer development/metastasis. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  9. PREFACE: Physics approaches to protein interactions and gene regulation Physics approaches to protein interactions and gene regulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nussinov, Ruth; Panchenko, Anna R.; Przytycka, Teresa

    2011-06-01

    Physics approaches focus on uncovering, modeling and quantitating the general principles governing the micro and macro universe. This has always been an important component of biological research, however recent advances in experimental techniques and the accumulation of unprecedented genome-scale experimental data produced by these novel technologies now allow for addressing fundamental questions on a large scale. These relate to molecular interactions, principles of bimolecular recognition, and mechanisms of signal propagation. The functioning of a cell requires a variety of intermolecular interactions including protein-protein, protein-DNA, protein-RNA, hormones, peptides, small molecules, lipids and more. Biomolecules work together to provide specific functions and perturbations in intermolecular communication channels often lead to cellular malfunction and disease. A full understanding of the interactome requires an in-depth grasp of the biophysical principles underlying individual interactions as well as their organization in cellular networks. Phenomena can be described at different levels of abstraction. Computational and systems biology strive to model cellular processes by integrating and analyzing complex data from multiple experimental sources using interdisciplinary tools. As a result, both the causal relationships between the variables and the general features of the system can be discovered, which even without knowing the details of the underlying mechanisms allow for putting forth hypotheses and predicting the behavior of the systems in response to perturbation. And here lies the strength of in silico models which provide control and predictive power. At the same time, the complexity of individual elements and molecules can be addressed by the fields of molecular biophysics, physical biology and structural biology, which focus on the underlying physico-chemical principles and may explain the molecular mechanisms of cellular function. In this issue

  10. Chaperoning Roles of Macromolecules Interacting with Proteins in Vivo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Baik L. Seong

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available The principles obtained from studies on molecular chaperones have provided explanations for the assisted protein folding in vivo. However, the majority of proteins can fold without the assistance of the known molecular chaperones, and little attention has been paid to the potential chaperoning roles of other macromolecules. During protein biogenesis and folding, newly synthesized polypeptide chains interact with a variety of macromolecules, including ribosomes, RNAs, cytoskeleton, lipid bilayer, proteolytic system, etc. In general, the hydrophobic interactions between molecular chaperones and their substrates have been widely believed to be mainly responsible for the substrate stabilization against aggregation. Emerging evidence now indicates that other features of macromolecules such as their surface charges, probably resulting in electrostatic repulsions, and steric hindrance, could play a key role in the stabilization of their linked proteins against aggregation. Such stabilizing mechanisms are expected to give new insights into our understanding of the chaperoning functions for de novo protein folding. In this review, we will discuss the possible chaperoning roles of these macromolecules in de novo folding, based on their charge and steric features.

  11. The role of electrostatics in protein-protein interactions of a monoclonal antibody.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, D; Keeling, R; Tracka, M; van der Walle, C F; Uddin, S; Warwicker, J; Curtis, R

    2014-07-07

    Understanding how protein-protein interactions depend on the choice of buffer, salt, ionic strength, and pH is needed to have better control over protein solution behavior. Here, we have characterized the pH and ionic strength dependence of protein-protein interactions in terms of an interaction parameter kD obtained from dynamic light scattering and the osmotic second virial coefficient B22 measured by static light scattering. A simplified protein-protein interaction model based on a Baxter adhesive potential and an electric double layer force is used to separate out the contributions of longer-ranged electrostatic interactions from short-ranged attractive forces. The ionic strength dependence of protein-protein interactions for solutions at pH 6.5 and below can be accurately captured using a Deryaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (DLVO) potential to describe the double layer forces. In solutions at pH 9, attractive electrostatics occur over the ionic strength range of 5-275 mM. At intermediate pH values (7.25 to 8.5), there is a crossover effect characterized by a nonmonotonic ionic strength dependence of protein-protein interactions, which can be rationalized by the competing effects of long-ranged repulsive double layer forces at low ionic strength and a shorter ranged electrostatic attraction, which dominates above a critical ionic strength. The change of interactions from repulsive to attractive indicates a concomitant change in the angular dependence of protein-protein interaction from isotropic to anisotropic. In the second part of the paper, we show how the Baxter adhesive potential can be used to predict values of kD from fitting to B22 measurements, thus providing a molecular basis for the linear correlation between the two protein-protein interaction parameters.

  12. Probing Molecular Insights into Zika Virus–Host Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ina Lee

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The recent Zika virus (ZIKV outbreak in the Americas surprised all of us because of its rapid spread and association with neurologic disorders including fetal microcephaly, brain and ocular anomalies, and Guillain–Barré syndrome. In response to this global health crisis, unprecedented and world-wide efforts are taking place to study the ZIKV-related human diseases. Much has been learned about this virus in the areas of epidemiology, genetic diversity, protein structures, and clinical manifestations, such as consequences of ZIKV infection on fetal brain development. However, progress on understanding the molecular mechanism underlying ZIKV-associated neurologic disorders remains elusive. To date, we still lack a good understanding of; (1 what virologic factors are involved in the ZIKV-associated human diseases; (2 which ZIKV protein(s contributes to the enhanced viral pathogenicity; and (3 how do the newly adapted and pandemic ZIKV strains alter their interactions with the host cells leading to neurologic defects? The goal of this review is to explore the molecular insights into the ZIKV–host interactions with an emphasis on host cell receptor usage for viral entry, cell innate immunity to ZIKV, and the ability of ZIKV to subvert antiviral responses and to cause cytopathic effects. We hope this literature review will inspire additional molecular studies focusing on ZIKV–host Interactions.

  13. Probing Molecular Insights into Zika Virus–Host Interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Ina; Li, Ge; Wang, Shusheng; Desprès, Philippe; Zhao, Richard Y.

    2018-01-01

    The recent Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak in the Americas surprised all of us because of its rapid spread and association with neurologic disorders including fetal microcephaly, brain and ocular anomalies, and Guillain–Barré syndrome. In response to this global health crisis, unprecedented and world-wide efforts are taking place to study the ZIKV-related human diseases. Much has been learned about this virus in the areas of epidemiology, genetic diversity, protein structures, and clinical manifestations, such as consequences of ZIKV infection on fetal brain development. However, progress on understanding the molecular mechanism underlying ZIKV-associated neurologic disorders remains elusive. To date, we still lack a good understanding of; (1) what virologic factors are involved in the ZIKV-associated human diseases; (2) which ZIKV protein(s) contributes to the enhanced viral pathogenicity; and (3) how do the newly adapted and pandemic ZIKV strains alter their interactions with the host cells leading to neurologic defects? The goal of this review is to explore the molecular insights into the ZIKV–host interactions with an emphasis on host cell receptor usage for viral entry, cell innate immunity to ZIKV, and the ability of ZIKV to subvert antiviral responses and to cause cytopathic effects. We hope this literature review will inspire additional molecular studies focusing on ZIKV–host Interactions. PMID:29724036

  14. Reconstruction and validation of RefRec: a global model for the yeast molecular interaction network.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tommi Aho

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Molecular interaction networks establish all cell biological processes. The networks are under intensive research that is facilitated by new high-throughput measurement techniques for the detection, quantification, and characterization of molecules and their physical interactions. For the common model organism yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, public databases store a significant part of the accumulated information and, on the way to better understanding of the cellular processes, there is a need to integrate this information into a consistent reconstruction of the molecular interaction network. This work presents and validates RefRec, the most comprehensive molecular interaction network reconstruction currently available for yeast. The reconstruction integrates protein synthesis pathways, a metabolic network, and a protein-protein interaction network from major biological databases. The core of the reconstruction is based on a reference object approach in which genes, transcripts, and proteins are identified using their primary sequences. This enables their unambiguous identification and non-redundant integration. The obtained total number of different molecular species and their connecting interactions is approximately 67,000. In order to demonstrate the capacity of RefRec for functional predictions, it was used for simulating the gene knockout damage propagation in the molecular interaction network in approximately 590,000 experimentally validated mutant strains. Based on the simulation results, a statistical classifier was subsequently able to correctly predict the viability of most of the strains. The results also showed that the usage of different types of molecular species in the reconstruction is important for accurate phenotype prediction. In general, the findings demonstrate the benefits of global reconstructions of molecular interaction networks. With all the molecular species and their physical interactions explicitly modeled, our

  15. THERMODYNAMICS OF PROTEIN-LIGAND INTERACTIONS AND THEIR ANALYSIS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rummi Devi Saini

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Physiological processes are controlled mainly by intermolecular recognition mechanisms which involve protein–protein and protein–ligand interactions with a high specificity and affinity to form a specific complex. Proteins being an important class of macromolecules in biological systems, it is important to understand their actions through binding to other molecules of proteins or ligands. In fact, the binding of low molecular weight ligands to proteins plays a significant role in regulating biological processes such as cellular metabolism and signal transmission. Therefore knowledge of the protein–ligand interactions and the knowledge of the mechanisms involved in the protein-ligand recognition and binding are key in understanding biology at molecular level which will facilitate the discovery, design, and development of drugs. In this review, the mechanisms involved in protein–ligand binding, the binding kinetics, thermodynamic concepts and binding driving forces are discussed. Thermodynamic mechanisms involved in a few important protein-ligand binding are described. Various spectroscopic, non-spectroscopic and computational method for analysis of protein–ligand binding are also discussed.

  16. Transcription Factor Functional Protein-Protein Interactions in Plant Defense Responses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Murilo S. Alves

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Responses to biotic stress in plants lead to dramatic reprogramming of gene expression, favoring stress responses at the expense of normal cellular functions. Transcription factors are master regulators of gene expression at the transcriptional level, and controlling the activity of these factors alters the transcriptome of the plant, leading to metabolic and phenotypic changes in response to stress. The functional analysis of interactions between transcription factors and other proteins is very important for elucidating the role of these transcriptional regulators in different signaling cascades. In this review, we present an overview of protein-protein interactions for the six major families of transcription factors involved in plant defense: basic leucine zipper containing domain proteins (bZIP, amino-acid sequence WRKYGQK (WRKY, myelocytomatosis related proteins (MYC, myeloblastosis related proteins (MYB, APETALA2/ ETHYLENE-RESPONSIVE ELEMENT BINDING FACTORS (AP2/EREBP and no apical meristem (NAM, Arabidopsis transcription activation factor (ATAF, and cup-shaped cotyledon (CUC (NAC. We describe the interaction partners of these transcription factors as molecular responses during pathogen attack and the key components of signal transduction pathways that take place during plant defense responses. These interactions determine the activation or repression of response pathways and are crucial to understanding the regulatory networks that modulate plant defense responses.

  17. Weak Molecular Interactions in Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sarah M. Smith

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Clathrin-mediated endocytosis is a process by which specific molecules are internalized from the cell periphery for delivery to early endosomes. The key stages in this step-wise process, from the starting point of cargo recognition, to the later stage of assembly of the clathrin coat, are dependent on weak interactions between a large network of proteins. This review discusses the structural and functional data that have improved our knowledge and understanding of the main weak molecular interactions implicated in clathrin-mediated endocytosis, with a particular focus on the two key proteins: AP2 and clathrin.

  18. Natural Compounds Interacting with Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors: From Low-Molecular Weight Ones to Peptides and Proteins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Denis Kudryavtsev

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs fulfill a variety of functions making identification and analysis of nAChR subtypes a challenging task. Traditional instruments for nAChR research are d-tubocurarine, snake venom protein α-bungarotoxin (α-Bgt, and α-conotoxins, neurotoxic peptides from Conus snails. Various new compounds of different structural classes also interacting with nAChRs have been recently identified. Among the low-molecular weight compounds are alkaloids pibocin, varacin and makaluvamines C and G. 6-Bromohypaphorine from the mollusk Hermissenda crassicornis does not bind to Torpedo nAChR but behaves as an agonist on human α7 nAChR. To get more selective α-conotoxins, computer modeling of their complexes with acetylcholine-binding proteins and distinct nAChRs was used. Several novel three-finger neurotoxins targeting nAChRs were described and α-Bgt inhibition of GABA-A receptors was discovered. Information on the mechanisms of nAChR interactions with the three-finger proteins of the Ly6 family was found. Snake venom phospholipases A2 were recently found to inhibit different nAChR subtypes. Blocking of nAChRs in Lymnaea stagnalis neurons was shown for venom C-type lectin-like proteins, appearing to be the largest molecules capable to interact with the receptor. A huge nAChR molecule sensible to conformational rearrangements accommodates diverse binding sites recognizable by structurally very different compounds.

  19. Structural Bioinformatics and Protein Docking Analysis of the Molecular Chaperone-Kinase Interactions: Towards Allosteric Inhibition of Protein Kinases by Targeting the Hsp90-Cdc37 Chaperone Machinery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gennady Verkhivker

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available A fundamental role of the Hsp90-Cdc37 chaperone system in mediating maturation of protein kinase clients and supporting kinase functional activity is essential for the integrity and viability of signaling pathways involved in cell cycle control and organism development. Despite significant advances in understanding structure and function of molecular chaperones, the molecular mechanisms and guiding principles of kinase recruitment to the chaperone system are lacking quantitative characterization. Structural and thermodynamic characterization of Hsp90-Cdc37 binding with protein kinase clients by modern experimental techniques is highly challenging, owing to a transient nature of chaperone-mediated interactions. In this work, we used experimentally-guided protein docking to probe the allosteric nature of the Hsp90-Cdc37 binding with the cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (Cdk4 kinase clients. The results of docking simulations suggest that the kinase recognition and recruitment to the chaperone system may be primarily determined by Cdc37 targeting of the N-terminal kinase lobe. The interactions of Hsp90 with the C-terminal kinase lobe may provide additional “molecular brakes” that can lock (or unlock kinase from the system during client loading (release stages. The results of this study support a central role of the Cdc37 chaperone in recognition and recruitment of the kinase clients. Structural analysis may have useful implications in developing strategies for allosteric inhibition of protein kinases by targeting the Hsp90-Cdc37 chaperone machinery.

  20. A lock-and-key model for protein–protein interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Morrison, Julie L.; Breitling, Rainer; Higham, Desmond J.; Gilbert, David R.

    2006-01-01

    Motivation: Protein–protein interaction networks are one of the major post-genomic data sources available to molecular biologists. They provide a comprehensive view of the global interaction structure of an organism’s proteome, as well as detailed information on specific interactions. Here we

  1. Visualization of Host-Polerovirus Interaction Topologies Using Protein Interaction Reporter Technology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeBlasio, Stacy L; Chavez, Juan D; Alexander, Mariko M; Ramsey, John; Eng, Jimmy K; Mahoney, Jaclyn; Gray, Stewart M; Bruce, James E; Cilia, Michelle

    2016-02-15

    Demonstrating direct interactions between host and virus proteins during infection is a major goal and challenge for the field of virology. Most protein interactions are not binary or easily amenable to structural determination. Using infectious preparations of a polerovirus (Potato leafroll virus [PLRV]) and protein interaction reporter (PIR), a revolutionary technology that couples a mass spectrometric-cleavable chemical cross-linker with high-resolution mass spectrometry, we provide the first report of a host-pathogen protein interaction network that includes data-derived, topological features for every cross-linked site that was identified. We show that PLRV virions have hot spots of protein interaction and multifunctional surface topologies, revealing how these plant viruses maximize their use of binding interfaces. Modeling data, guided by cross-linking constraints, suggest asymmetric packing of the major capsid protein in the virion, which supports previous epitope mapping studies. Protein interaction topologies are conserved with other species in the Luteoviridae and with unrelated viruses in the Herpesviridae and Adenoviridae. Functional analysis of three PLRV-interacting host proteins in planta using a reverse-genetics approach revealed a complex, molecular tug-of-war between host and virus. Structural mimicry and diversifying selection-hallmarks of host-pathogen interactions-were identified within host and viral binding interfaces predicted by our models. These results illuminate the functional diversity of the PLRV-host protein interaction network and demonstrate the usefulness of PIR technology for precision mapping of functional host-pathogen protein interaction topologies. The exterior shape of a plant virus and its interacting host and insect vector proteins determine whether a virus will be transmitted by an insect or infect a specific host. Gaining this information is difficult and requires years of experimentation. We used protein interaction

  2. Surface dynamics in allosteric regulation of protein-protein interactions: modulation of calmodulin functions by Ca2+.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yosef Y Kuttner

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Knowledge of the structural basis of protein-protein interactions (PPI is of fundamental importance for understanding the organization and functioning of biological networks and advancing the design of therapeutics which target PPI. Allosteric modulators play an important role in regulating such interactions by binding at site(s orthogonal to the complex interface and altering the protein's propensity for complex formation. In this work, we apply an approach recently developed by us for analyzing protein surfaces based on steered molecular dynamics simulation (SMD to the study of the dynamic properties of functionally distinct conformations of a model protein, calmodulin (CaM, whose ability to interact with target proteins is regulated by the presence of the allosteric modulator Ca(2+. Calmodulin is a regulatory protein that acts as an intracellular Ca(2+ sensor to control a wide variety of cellular processes. We demonstrate that SMD analysis is capable of pinpointing CaM surfaces implicated in the recognition of both the allosteric modulator Ca(2+ and target proteins. Our analysis of changes in the dynamic properties of the CaM backbone elicited by Ca(2+ binding yielded new insights into the molecular mechanism of allosteric regulation of CaM-target interactions.

  3. Uncovering Viral Protein-Protein Interactions and their Role in Arenavirus Life Cycle

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nora López

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available The Arenaviridae family includes widely distributed pathogens that cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans. Replication and packaging of their single-stranded RNA genome involve RNA recognition by viral proteins and a number of key protein-protein interactions. Viral RNA synthesis is directed by the virus-encoded RNA dependent-RNA polymerase (L protein and requires viral RNA encapsidation by the Nucleoprotein. In addition to the role that the interaction between L and the Nucleoprotein may have in the replication process, polymerase activity appears to be modulated by the association between L and the small multifunctional Z protein. Z is also a structural component of the virions that plays an essential role in viral morphogenesis. Indeed, interaction of the Z protein with the Nucleoprotein is critical for genome packaging. Furthermore, current evidence suggests that binding between Z and the viral envelope glycoprotein complex is required for virion infectivity, and that Z homo-oligomerization is an essential step for particle assembly and budding. Efforts to understand the molecular basis of arenavirus life cycle have revealed important details on these viral protein-protein interactions that will be reviewed in this article.

  4. Parallel force assay for protein-protein interactions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniela Aschenbrenner

    Full Text Available Quantitative proteome research is greatly promoted by high-resolution parallel format assays. A characterization of protein complexes based on binding forces offers an unparalleled dynamic range and allows for the effective discrimination of non-specific interactions. Here we present a DNA-based Molecular Force Assay to quantify protein-protein interactions, namely the bond between different variants of GFP and GFP-binding nanobodies. We present different strategies to adjust the maximum sensitivity window of the assay by influencing the binding strength of the DNA reference duplexes. The binding of the nanobody Enhancer to the different GFP constructs is compared at high sensitivity of the assay. Whereas the binding strength to wild type and enhanced GFP are equal within experimental error, stronger binding to superfolder GFP is observed. This difference in binding strength is attributed to alterations in the amino acids that form contacts according to the crystal structure of the initial wild type GFP-Enhancer complex. Moreover, we outline the potential for large-scale parallelization of the assay.

  5. Specificity and evolvability in eukaryotic protein interaction networks.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pedro Beltrao

    2007-02-01

    Full Text Available Progress in uncovering the protein interaction networks of several species has led to questions of what underlying principles might govern their organization. Few studies have tried to determine the impact of protein interaction network evolution on the observed physiological differences between species. Using comparative genomics and structural information, we show here that eukaryotic species have rewired their interactomes at a fast rate of approximately 10(-5 interactions changed per protein pair, per million years of divergence. For Homo sapiens this corresponds to 10(3 interactions changed per million years. Additionally we find that the specificity of binding strongly determines the interaction turnover and that different biological processes show significantly different link dynamics. In particular, human proteins involved in immune response, transport, and establishment of localization show signs of positive selection for change of interactions. Our analysis suggests that a small degree of molecular divergence can give rise to important changes at the network level. We propose that the power law distribution observed in protein interaction networks could be partly explained by the cell's requirement for different degrees of protein binding specificity.

  6. The dynamic multisite interactions between two intrinsically disordered proteins

    KAUST Repository

    Wu, Shaowen

    2017-05-11

    Protein interactions involving intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) comprise a variety of binding modes, from the well characterized folding upon binding to dynamic fuzzy complex. To date, most studies concern the binding of an IDP to a structured protein, while the Interaction between two IDPs is poorly understood. In this study, we combined NMR, smFRET, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to characterize the interaction between two IDPs, the C-terminal domain (CTD) of protein 4.1G and the nuclear mitotic apparatus (NuMA) protein. It is revealed that CTD and NuMA form a fuzzy complex with remaining structural disorder. Multiple binding sites on both proteins were identified by MD and mutagenesis studies. Our study provides an atomic scenario in which two IDPs bearing multiple binding sites interact with each other in dynamic equilibrium. The combined approach employed here could be widely applicable for investigating IDPs and their dynamic interactions.

  7. Surface force analysis of molecular interfacial interactions of proteins and lipids with polymeric biomaterials

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hamilton-Brown, P.; Griesser, H.J.; Meagher, L.

    2001-01-01

    Full text: Adverse biological responses to biomedical devices are often caused by the irreversible accumulation of biological deposits onto the surfaces of devices. Such deposits cause blocking of artificial blood vessels, fibrous encapsulation of soft tissue regenerative devices, 'fouling' of contact lenses, secondary cataracts on intraocular lenses, and other undesirable events that interfere with the intended functions of biomedical devices. The formation of deposits is triggered by an initial stage in which various proteins and lipids rapidly adsorb onto the synthetic material surface; further biological molecules and ultimately cellular entities (e.g., host cells, bacteria) then settle onto the initial adsorbed layer. Hence, to avoid or control the accumulation of biological deposits, molecular understanding is required of the initial adsorption processes. Such adsorption is caused by attractive interfacial forces, which we are characterising by the use of a novel method. In the present study, polymeric thin film coatings, polyethylene oxide (PEO), and polysaccharide coatings have been analysed in terms of their surface forces and the ensuing propensity for protein and lipid adsorption. Interfacial forces are measured using atomic force microscopy (AFM) with a colloid-modified tip in a liquid cell using solutions of physiological pH and ionic strength. The chemical composition and uniformity of the coatings was characterised by X-ray Photon Spectroscopy (XPS). For a polymeric solid coating, repulsive forces have been measured against a silica colloid probe, and the dominant surface force is electrostatic. For the highly hydrated, 'soft' PEO and polysaccharide coatings, on the other hand, steric/entropic forces are also significant and contribute to interfacial interactions with proteins and lipids. In one system we have observed a time dependence of the electrostatic surface potential, which affects interaction with charged proteins. Force measurements were

  8. Molecular evolution, intracellular organization, and the quinary structure of proteins.

    OpenAIRE

    McConkey, E H

    1982-01-01

    High-resolution two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis shows that at least half of 370 denatured polypeptides from hamster cells and human cells are indistinguishable in terms of isoelectric points and molecular weights. Molecular evolution may have been more conservative for this set of proteins than sequence studies on soluble proteins have implied. This may be a consequence of complexities of intracellular organization and the numerous macromolecular interactions in which most ...

  9. Monitoring peptide-surface interaction by means of molecular dynamics simulation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nonella, Marco, E-mail: mnonella@pci.uzh.ch [Physikalisch-Chemisches Institut, Universitaet Zuerich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zuerich (Switzerland); Seeger, Stefan, E-mail: sseeger@pci.uzh.ch [Physikalisch-Chemisches Institut, Universitaet Zuerich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zuerich (Switzerland)

    2010-12-09

    Graphical abstract: Protein-surface interactions play a crucial role in a wide field of research areas like biology, biotechnology, or pharmacology. Only recently, it has been shown that not only peptide adsorption represents an important process but also spreading and clustering of adsorbed proteins. By means of classical molecular dynamics, peptide adsorption as well as the dynamics of adsorbed peptides have been investigated in order to gain deeper insight into such processes. The picture shows a snapshot of an adsorbed peptide on a silica surface showing strong direct hydrogen bonding. Research highlights: {yields} Simulation of peptide surface interaction. {yields} Dynamics of hydrogen bond formation and destruction. {yields} Internal flexibility of adsorbed peptides. - Abstract: Protein adsorption and protein surface interactions have become an important research topic in recent years. Very recently, for example, it has been shown that protein clusters can undergo a surface-induced spreading after adsorption. Such phenomena emphasize the need of a more detailed insight into protein-silica interaction at an atomic level. Therefore, we have studied a model system consisting of a short peptide, a silica slab, and water molecules by means of classical molecular dynamics simulations. The study reveals that, besides of electrostatic interactions caused by the chosen charge distribution, the peptide interacts with the silica surface through formation of direct peptide-surface hydrogen bonds as well as indirect peptide-water-surface hydrogen bonds. The number of created hydrogen bonds varies considerably among the simulated structures. The strength of hydrogen bonding determines the mobility of the peptide on the surface and the internal flexibility of the adsorbed peptide.

  10. [Inhibitory proteins of neuritic regeneration in the extracellular matrix: structure, molecular interactions and their functions. Mechanisms of extracellular balance].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas, Javier; Uribe-Escamilla, Rebeca; Alfaro-Rodríguez, Alfonso

    2013-01-01

    After injury of the central nervous system (CNS) in higher vertebrates, neurons neither grow nor reconnect with their targets because their axons or dendrites cannot regenerate within the injured site. In the CNS, the signal from the environment regulating neurite regeneration is not exclusively generated by one molecular group. This signal is generated by the interaction of various types of molecules such as extracellular matrix proteins, soluble factors and surface membrane molecules; all these elements interact with one another generating the matrix's biological state: the extracellular balance. Proteins in the balanced extracellular matrix, support and promote cellular physiological states, including neuritic regeneration. We have reviewed three types of proteins of the extracellular matrix possessing an inhibitory effect and that are determinant of neuritic regeneration failure in the CNS: chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, keratan sulfate proteoglycans and tenascin. We also review some of the mechanisms involved in the balance of extracellular proteins such as isomerization, epimerization, sulfation and glycosylation as well as the assemblage of the extracellular matrix, the interaction between the matrix and soluble factors and its proteolytic degradation. In the final section, we have presented some examples of the matrix's role in development and in tumor propagation.

  11. Recovering protein-protein and domain-domain interactions from aggregation of IP-MS proteomics of coregulator complexes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amin R Mazloom

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Coregulator proteins (CoRegs are part of multi-protein complexes that transiently assemble with transcription factors and chromatin modifiers to regulate gene expression. In this study we analyzed data from 3,290 immuno-precipitations (IP followed by mass spectrometry (MS applied to human cell lines aimed at identifying CoRegs complexes. Using the semi-quantitative spectral counts, we scored binary protein-protein and domain-domain associations with several equations. Unlike previous applications, our methods scored prey-prey protein-protein interactions regardless of the baits used. We also predicted domain-domain interactions underlying predicted protein-protein interactions. The quality of predicted protein-protein and domain-domain interactions was evaluated using known binary interactions from the literature, whereas one protein-protein interaction, between STRN and CTTNBP2NL, was validated experimentally; and one domain-domain interaction, between the HEAT domain of PPP2R1A and the Pkinase domain of STK25, was validated using molecular docking simulations. The scoring schemes presented here recovered known, and predicted many new, complexes, protein-protein, and domain-domain interactions. The networks that resulted from the predictions are provided as a web-based interactive application at http://maayanlab.net/HT-IP-MS-2-PPI-DDI/.

  12. Wiki-pi: a web-server of annotated human protein-protein interactions to aid in discovery of protein function.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Naoki Orii

    Full Text Available Protein-protein interactions (PPIs are the basis of biological functions. Knowledge of the interactions of a protein can help understand its molecular function and its association with different biological processes and pathways. Several publicly available databases provide comprehensive information about individual proteins, such as their sequence, structure, and function. There also exist databases that are built exclusively to provide PPIs by curating them from published literature. The information provided in these web resources is protein-centric, and not PPI-centric. The PPIs are typically provided as lists of interactions of a given gene with links to interacting partners; they do not present a comprehensive view of the nature of both the proteins involved in the interactions. A web database that allows search and retrieval based on biomedical characteristics of PPIs is lacking, and is needed. We present Wiki-Pi (read Wiki-π, a web-based interface to a database of human PPIs, which allows users to retrieve interactions by their biomedical attributes such as their association to diseases, pathways, drugs and biological functions. Each retrieved PPI is shown with annotations of both of the participant proteins side-by-side, creating a basis to hypothesize the biological function facilitated by the interaction. Conceptually, it is a search engine for PPIs analogous to PubMed for scientific literature. Its usefulness in generating novel scientific hypotheses is demonstrated through the study of IGSF21, a little-known gene that was recently identified to be associated with diabetic retinopathy. Using Wiki-Pi, we infer that its association to diabetic retinopathy may be mediated through its interactions with the genes HSPB1, KRAS, TMSB4X and DGKD, and that it may be involved in cellular response to external stimuli, cytoskeletal organization and regulation of molecular activity. The website also provides a wiki-like capability allowing users

  13. Filtering high-throughput protein-protein interaction data using a combination of genomic features

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patil Ashwini

    2005-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Protein-protein interaction data used in the creation or prediction of molecular networks is usually obtained from large scale or high-throughput experiments. This experimental data is liable to contain a large number of spurious interactions. Hence, there is a need to validate the interactions and filter out the incorrect data before using them in prediction studies. Results In this study, we use a combination of 3 genomic features – structurally known interacting Pfam domains, Gene Ontology annotations and sequence homology – as a means to assign reliability to the protein-protein interactions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae determined by high-throughput experiments. Using Bayesian network approaches, we show that protein-protein interactions from high-throughput data supported by one or more genomic features have a higher likelihood ratio and hence are more likely to be real interactions. Our method has a high sensitivity (90% and good specificity (63%. We show that 56% of the interactions from high-throughput experiments in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have high reliability. We use the method to estimate the number of true interactions in the high-throughput protein-protein interaction data sets in Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens to be 27%, 18% and 68% respectively. Our results are available for searching and downloading at http://helix.protein.osaka-u.ac.jp/htp/. Conclusion A combination of genomic features that include sequence, structure and annotation information is a good predictor of true interactions in large and noisy high-throughput data sets. The method has a very high sensitivity and good specificity and can be used to assign a likelihood ratio, corresponding to the reliability, to each interaction.

  14. Characterization of host proteins interacting with the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus L protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khamina, Kseniya; Lercher, Alexander; Caldera, Michael; Schliehe, Christopher; Vilagos, Bojan; Sahin, Mehmet; Kosack, Lindsay; Bhattacharya, Anannya; Májek, Peter; Stukalov, Alexey; Sacco, Roberto; James, Leo C; Pinschewer, Daniel D; Bennett, Keiryn L; Menche, Jörg; Bergthaler, Andreas

    2017-12-01

    RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRps) play a key role in the life cycle of RNA viruses and impact their immunobiology. The arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) strain Clone 13 provides a benchmark model for studying chronic infection. A major genetic determinant for its ability to persist maps to a single amino acid exchange in the viral L protein, which exhibits RdRp activity, yet its functional consequences remain elusive. To unravel the L protein interactions with the host proteome, we engineered infectious L protein-tagged LCMV virions by reverse genetics. A subsequent mass-spectrometric analysis of L protein pulldowns from infected human cells revealed a comprehensive network of interacting host proteins. The obtained LCMV L protein interactome was bioinformatically integrated with known host protein interactors of RdRps from other RNA viruses, emphasizing interconnected modules of human proteins. Functional characterization of selected interactors highlighted proviral (DDX3X) as well as antiviral (NKRF, TRIM21) host factors. To corroborate these findings, we infected Trim21-/- mice with LCMV and found impaired virus control in chronic infection. These results provide insights into the complex interactions of the arenavirus LCMV and other viral RdRps with the host proteome and contribute to a better molecular understanding of how chronic viruses interact with their host.

  15. Protein-protein interaction inference based on semantic similarity of Gene Ontology terms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Shu-Bo; Tang, Qiang-Rong

    2016-07-21

    Identifying protein-protein interactions is important in molecular biology. Experimental methods to this issue have their limitations, and computational approaches have attracted more and more attentions from the biological community. The semantic similarity derived from the Gene Ontology (GO) annotation has been regarded as one of the most powerful indicators for protein interaction. However, conventional methods based on GO similarity fail to take advantage of the specificity of GO terms in the ontology graph. We proposed a GO-based method to predict protein-protein interaction by integrating different kinds of similarity measures derived from the intrinsic structure of GO graph. We extended five existing methods to derive the semantic similarity measures from the descending part of two GO terms in the GO graph, then adopted a feature integration strategy to combines both the ascending and the descending similarity scores derived from the three sub-ontologies to construct various kinds of features to characterize each protein pair. Support vector machines (SVM) were employed as discriminate classifiers, and five-fold cross validation experiments were conducted on both human and yeast protein-protein interaction datasets to evaluate the performance of different kinds of integrated features, the experimental results suggest the best performance of the feature that combines information from both the ascending and the descending parts of the three ontologies. Our method is appealing for effective prediction of protein-protein interaction. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Protein-material interactions: From micro-to-nano scale

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsapikouni, Theodora S.; Missirlis, Yannis F.

    2008-01-01

    The article presents a survey on the significance of protein-material interactions, the mechanisms which control them and the techniques used for their study. Protein-surface interactions play a key role in regenerative medicine, drug delivery, biosensor technology and chromatography, while it is related to various undesired effects such as biofouling and bio-prosthetic malfunction. Although the effects of protein-surface interaction concern the micro-scale, being sometimes obvious even with bare eyes, they derive from biophysical events at the nano-scale. The sequential steps for protein adsorption involve events at the single biomolecule level and the forces driving or inhibiting protein adsorption act at the molecular level too. Following the scaling of protein-surface interactions, various techniques have been developed for their study both in the micro- and nano-scale. Protein labelling with radioisotopes or fluorescent probes, colorimetric assays and the quartz crystal microbalance were the first techniques used to monitor protein adsorption isotherms, while the surface force apparatus was used to measure the interaction forces between protein layers at the micro-scale. Recently, more elaborate techniques like total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), surface plasmon resonance, Raman spectroscopy, ellipsometry and time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) have been applied for the investigation of protein density, structure or orientation at the interfaces. However, a turning point in the study of protein interactions with the surfaces was the invention and the wide-spread use of atomic force microscopy (AFM) which can both image single protein molecules on surfaces and directly measure the interaction force

  17. Molecular dynamics simulation of S100B protein to explore ligand blockage of the interaction with p53 protein

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Zhigang; Li, Yumin

    2009-10-01

    As a tumor suppressor, p53 plays an important role in cancer suppression. The biological function of p53 as a tumor suppressor is disabled when it binds to S100B. Developing the ligands to block the S100B-p53 interaction has been proposed as one of the most important approaches to the development of anti-cancer agents. We screened a small compound library against the binding interface of S100B and p53 to identify potential compounds to interfere with the interaction. The ligand-binding effect on the S100B-p53 interaction was explored by molecular dynamics at the atomic level. The results show that the ligand bound between S100B and p53 propels the two proteins apart by about 2 Å compared to the unligated S100B-p53 complex. The binding affinity of S100B and p53 decreases by 8.5-14.6 kcal/mol after a ligand binds to the interface from the original unligated state of the S100B-p53 complex. Ligand-binding interferes with the interaction of S100B and p53. Such interference could impact the association of S100B and p53, which would free more p53 protein from the pairing with S100B and restore the biological function of p53 as a tumor suppressor. The analysis of the binding mode and ligand structural features would facilitate our effort to identify and design ligands to block S100B-p53 interaction effectively. The results from the work suggest that developing ligands targeting the interface of S100B and p53 could be a promising approach to recover the normal function of p53 as a tumor suppressor.

  18. Genome-wide analysis of protein-protein interactions and involvement of viral proteins in SARS-CoV replication.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ji'an Pan

    Full Text Available Analyses of viral protein-protein interactions are an important step to understand viral protein functions and their underlying molecular mechanisms. In this study, we adopted a mammalian two-hybrid system to screen the genome-wide intraviral protein-protein interactions of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV and therefrom revealed a number of novel interactions which could be partly confirmed by in vitro biochemical assays. Three pairs of the interactions identified were detected in both directions: non-structural protein (nsp 10 and nsp14, nsp10 and nsp16, and nsp7 and nsp8. The interactions between the multifunctional nsp10 and nsp14 or nsp16, which are the unique proteins found in the members of Nidovirales with large RNA genomes including coronaviruses and toroviruses, may have important implication for the mechanisms of replication/transcription complex assembly and functions of these viruses. Using a SARS-CoV replicon expressing a luciferase reporter under the control of a transcription regulating sequence, it has been shown that several viral proteins (N, X and SUD domains of nsp3, and nsp12 provided in trans stimulated the replicon reporter activity, indicating that these proteins may regulate coronavirus replication and transcription. Collectively, our findings provide a basis and platform for further characterization of the functions and mechanisms of coronavirus proteins.

  19. Study of the interaction of potassium ion channel protein with micelle by molecular dynamics simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shantappa, Anil; Talukdar, Keka

    2018-04-01

    Ion channels are proteins forming pore inside the body of all living organisms. This potassium ion channel known as KcsA channel and it is found in the each cell and nervous system. Flow of various ions is regulated by the function of the ion channels. The nerve ion channel protein with protein data bank entry 1BL8, which is basically an ion channel protein in Streptomyces Lividans and which is taken up to form micelle-protein system and the system is analyzed by using molecular dynamics simulation. Firstly, ion channel pore is engineered by CHARMM potential and then Micelle-protein system is subjected to molecular dynamics simulation. For some specific micelle concentration, the protein unfolding is observed.

  20. Identification of novel direct protein-protein interactions by irradiating living cells with femtosecond UV laser pulses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Itri, Francesco; Monti, Daria Maria; Chino, Marco; Vinciguerra, Roberto; Altucci, Carlo; Lombardi, Angela; Piccoli, Renata; Birolo, Leila; Arciello, Angela

    2017-10-07

    The identification of protein-protein interaction networks in living cells is becoming increasingly fundamental to elucidate main biological processes and to understand disease molecular bases on a system-wide level. We recently described a method (LUCK, Laser UV Cross-linKing) to cross-link interacting protein surfaces in living cells by UV laser irradiation. By using this innovative methodology, that does not require any protein modification or cell engineering, here we demonstrate that, upon UV laser irradiation of HeLa cells, a direct interaction between GAPDH and alpha-enolase was "frozen" by a cross-linking event. We validated the occurrence of this direct interaction by co-immunoprecipitation and Immuno-FRET analyses. This represents a proof of principle of the LUCK capability to reveal direct protein interactions in their physiological environment. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. NMR and molecular modeling of wine tannins binding to saliva proteins: revisiting astringency from molecular and colloidal prospects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cala, Olivier; Pinaud, Noël; Simon, Cécile; Fouquet, Eric; Laguerre, Michel; Dufourc, Erick J; Pianet, Isabelle

    2010-11-01

    In organoleptic science, the association of tannins to saliva proteins leads to the poorly understood phenomenon of astringency. To decipher this interaction at molecular and colloidal levels, the binding of 4 procyanidin dimers (B1-4) and 1 trimer (C2) to a human saliva proline-rich peptide, IB7(14), was studied. Interactions have been characterized by measuring dissociation constants, sizes of complexes, number, and nature of binding sites using NMR (chemical shift variations, diffusion-ordered spectroscopy, and saturation transfer diffusion). The binding sites were identified using molecular mechanics, and the hydrophilic/hydrophobic nature of the interactions was resolved by calculating the molecular lipophilicity potential within the complexes. The following comprehensive scheme can be proposed: 1) below the tannin critical micelle concentration (CMC), interaction is specific, and the procyanidin anchorage always occurs on the same three IB7(14) sites. The tannin 3-dimensional structure plays a key role in the binding force and in the tannin's ability to act as a bidentate ligand: tannins adopting an extended conformation exhibit higher affinity toward protein and initiate the formation of a network. 2) Above the CMC, after the first specific hydrophilic interaction has taken place, a random hydrophobic stacking occurs between tannins and proteins. The whole process is discussed in the general frame of wine tannins eliciting astringency.

  2. Semi-supervised drug-protein interaction prediction from heterogeneous biological spaces.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xia, Zheng; Wu, Ling-Yun; Zhou, Xiaobo; Wong, Stephen T C

    2010-09-13

    Predicting drug-protein interactions from heterogeneous biological data sources is a key step for in silico drug discovery. The difficulty of this prediction task lies in the rarity of known drug-protein interactions and myriad unknown interactions to be predicted. To meet this challenge, a manifold regularization semi-supervised learning method is presented to tackle this issue by using labeled and unlabeled information which often generates better results than using the labeled data alone. Furthermore, our semi-supervised learning method integrates known drug-protein interaction network information as well as chemical structure and genomic sequence data. Using the proposed method, we predicted certain drug-protein interactions on the enzyme, ion channel, GPCRs, and nuclear receptor data sets. Some of them are confirmed by the latest publicly available drug targets databases such as KEGG. We report encouraging results of using our method for drug-protein interaction network reconstruction which may shed light on the molecular interaction inference and new uses of marketed drugs.

  3. Molecular basis of Bcl-X(L-p53 interaction: insights from molecular dynamics simulations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nagakumar Bharatham

    Full Text Available Bcl-X(L, an antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family protein, plays a central role in the regulation of the apoptotic pathway. Heterodimerization of the antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins with the proapoptotic family members such as Bad, Bak, Bim and Bid is a crucial step in the apoptotic regulation. In addition to these conventional binding partners, recent evidences reveal that the Bcl-2 family proteins also interact with noncanonical binding partners such as p53. Our previous NMR studies showed that Bcl-X(L: BH3 peptide and Bcl-X(L: SN15 peptide (a peptide derived from residues S15-N29 of p53 complex structures share similar modes of bindings. To further elucidate the molecular basis of the interactions, here we have employed molecular dynamics simulations coupled with MM/PBSA approach. Bcl-X(L and other Bcl-2 family proteins have 4 hydrophobic pockets (p1-p4, which are occupied by four systematically spaced hydrophobic residues (h1-h4 of the proapoptotic Bad and Bak BH3 peptides. We observed that three conserved hydrophobic residues (F19, W23 and L26 of p53 (SN15 peptide anchor into three hydrophobic pockets (p2-p4 of Bcl-X(L in a similar manner as BH3 peptide. Our results provide insights into the novel molecular recognition by Bcl-X(L with p53.

  4. Unveiling protein functions through the dynamics of the interaction network.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irene Sendiña-Nadal

    Full Text Available Protein interaction networks have become a tool to study biological processes, either for predicting molecular functions or for designing proper new drugs to regulate the main biological interactions. Furthermore, such networks are known to be organized in sub-networks of proteins contributing to the same cellular function. However, the protein function prediction is not accurate and each protein has traditionally been assigned to only one function by the network formalism. By considering the network of the physical interactions between proteins of the yeast together with a manual and single functional classification scheme, we introduce a method able to reveal important information on protein function, at both micro- and macro-scale. In particular, the inspection of the properties of oscillatory dynamics on top of the protein interaction network leads to the identification of misclassification problems in protein function assignments, as well as to unveil correct identification of protein functions. We also demonstrate that our approach can give a network representation of the meta-organization of biological processes by unraveling the interactions between different functional classes.

  5. Molecular interactions and redox effects of carvacrol and thymol on myofibrillar proteins using a non-destructive and solvent-free methodological approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lahmar, Aida; Akcan, Tolga; Chekir-Ghedira, Leila; Estévez, Mario

    2018-04-01

    The present study provides molecular insight into the effect of thymol and carvacrol on the oxidative damage caused to myofibrillar proteins by a hydroxyl-radical generating system (HRGS). An innovative model system was designed, in which gels, prepared with increasing levels of myofibrillar proteins, were oxidized by a HRGS (Fe 3+ /H 2 O 2 , 60 °C and 7 days) in the presence of lipids. The molecular affinity between myofibrillar proteins and both terpenes, as well as their effect on the oxidative stability of the gel systems, were studied using a non-destructive and solvent-free procedure based on fluorescence spectroscopy. Carvacrol displayed more affinity than thymol for establishing chemical interactions with protein residues. Both terpenes exhibited a significant antioxidant potential against the generation of lipid-derived volatile carbonyls and against the formation of protein crosslinking. This procedure may be applied to meat products to assess the effectiveness of a given antioxidant additive without size reduction or sample processing. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. InSilico Proteomics System: Integration and Application of Protein and Protein-Protein Interaction Data using Microsoft .NET

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Straßer Wolfgang

    2006-12-01

    Full Text Available In the last decades, biological databases became the major knowledge resource for researchers in the field of molecular biology. The distribution of information among these databases is one of the major problems. An overview about the subject area of data access and representation of protein and protein-protein interaction data within public biological databases is described. For a comprehensive and consistent way of searching and analysing integrated protein and protein-protein interaction data, the InSilico Proteomics (ISP project has been initiated. Its three main objectives are (1 to provide an integrated knowledge pool for data investigation and global network analysis functions for a better understanding of a cell’s interactome, (2 employment of public data for plausibility analysis and validation of in-house experimental data and (3 testing the applicability of Microsoft’s .NET architecture for bioinformatics applications. Data integrated into the ISP database can be queried through the Web portal PRIMOS (PRotein Interaction and MOlecule Search which is freely available at http://biomis.fh-hagenberg.at/isp/primos.

  7. Mimicking protein-protein interactions through peptide-peptide interactions: HIV-1 gp120 and CXCR4

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea eGross

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available We have recently designed a soluble synthetic peptide that functionally mimics the HIV-1 coreceptor CXCR4, which is a chemokine receptor that belongs to the family of seven-transmembrane GPCRs. This CXCR4 mimetic peptide, termed CX4-M1, presents the three extracellular loops (ECLs of the receptor. In binding assays involving recombinant proteins, as well as in cellular infection assays, CX4-M1 was found to selectively recognize gp120 from HIV-1 strains that use CXCR4 for cell entry (X4 tropic HIV-1. Furthermore, anti-HIV-1 antibodies modulate this interaction in a molecular mechanism related to that of their impact on the gp120-CXCR4 interaction. We could now show that the selectivity of CX4-M1 pertains not only to gp120 from X4 tropic HIV-1, but also to synthetic peptides presenting the V3 loops of these gp120 proteins. The V3 loop is thought to be an essential part of the coreceptor binding site of gp120 that contacts the second ECL of the coreceptor. We were able to experimentally confirm this notion in binding assays using substitution analogs of CX4-M1 and the V3 loop peptides, respectively, as well as in cellular infection assays. These results indicate that interactions of the HIV-1 Env with coreceptors can be mimicked by synthetic peptides, which may be useful to explore these interactions at the molecular level in more detail.

  8. Identification of Redox and Glucose-Dependent Txnip Protein Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Benjamin J. Forred

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Thioredoxin-interacting protein (Txnip acts as a negative regulator of thioredoxin function and is a critical modulator of several diseases including, but not limited to, diabetes, ischemia-reperfusion cardiac injury, and carcinogenesis. Therefore, Txnip has become an attractive therapeutic target to alleviate disease pathologies. Although Txnip has been implicated with numerous cellular processes such as proliferation, fatty acid and glucose metabolism, inflammation, and apoptosis, the molecular mechanisms underlying these processes are largely unknown. The objective of these studies was to identify Txnip interacting proteins using the proximity-based labeling method, BioID, to understand differential regulation of pleiotropic Txnip cellular functions. The BioID transgene fused to Txnip expressed in HEK293 identified 31 interacting proteins. Many protein interactions were redox-dependent and were disrupted through mutation of a previously described reactive cysteine (C247S. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this model can be used to identify dynamic Txnip interactions due to known physiological regulators such as hyperglycemia. These data identify novel Txnip protein interactions and demonstrate dynamic interactions dependent on redox and glucose perturbations, providing clarification to the pleiotropic cellular functions of Txnip.

  9. HCVpro: Hepatitis C virus protein interaction database

    KAUST Repository

    Kwofie, Samuel K.

    2011-12-01

    It is essential to catalog characterized hepatitis C virus (HCV) protein-protein interaction (PPI) data and the associated plethora of vital functional information to augment the search for therapies, vaccines and diagnostic biomarkers. In furtherance of these goals, we have developed the hepatitis C virus protein interaction database (HCVpro) by integrating manually verified hepatitis C virus-virus and virus-human protein interactions curated from literature and databases. HCVpro is a comprehensive and integrated HCV-specific knowledgebase housing consolidated information on PPIs, functional genomics and molecular data obtained from a variety of virus databases (VirHostNet, VirusMint, HCVdb and euHCVdb), and from BIND and other relevant biology repositories. HCVpro is further populated with information on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) related genes that are mapped onto their encoded cellular proteins. Incorporated proteins have been mapped onto Gene Ontologies, canonical pathways, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) and extensively cross-referenced to other essential annotations. The database is enriched with exhaustive reviews on structure and functions of HCV proteins, current state of drug and vaccine development and links to recommended journal articles. Users can query the database using specific protein identifiers (IDs), chromosomal locations of a gene, interaction detection methods, indexed PubMed sources as well as HCVpro, BIND and VirusMint IDs. The use of HCVpro is free and the resource can be accessed via http://apps.sanbi.ac.za/hcvpro/ or http://cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/hcvpro/. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

  10. Interaction of amyloid inhibitor proteins with amyloid beta peptides: insight from molecular dynamics simulations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Payel Das

    Full Text Available Knowledge of the detailed mechanism by which proteins such as human αB- crystallin and human lysozyme inhibit amyloid beta (Aβ peptide aggregation is crucial for designing treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Thus, unconstrained, atomistic molecular dynamics simulations in explicit solvent have been performed to characterize the Aβ17-42 assembly in presence of the αB-crystallin core domain and of lysozyme. Simulations reveal that both inhibitor proteins compete with inter-peptide interaction by binding to the peptides during the early stage of aggregation, which is consistent with their inhibitory action reported in experiments. However, the Aβ binding dynamics appear different for each inhibitor. The binding between crystallin and the peptide monomer, dominated by electrostatics, is relatively weak and transient due to the heterogeneous amino acid distribution of the inhibitor surface. The crystallin-bound Aβ oligomers are relatively long-lived, as they form more extensive contact surface with the inhibitor protein. In contrast, a high local density of arginines from lysozyme allows strong binding with Aβ peptide monomers, resulting in stable complexes. Our findings not only illustrate, in atomic detail, how the amyloid inhibitory mechanism of human αB-crystallin, a natural chaperone, is different from that of human lysozyme, but also may aid de novo design of amyloid inhibitors.

  11. Molecular modeling of human neutral sphingomyelinase provides insight into its molecular interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dinesh; Goswami, Angshumala; Suresh, Panneer Selvam; Thirunavukkarasu, Chinnasamy; Weiergräber, Oliver H; Kumar, Muthuvel Suresh

    2011-01-01

    The neutral sphingomyelinase (N-SMase) is considered a major candidate for mediating the stress-induced production of ceramide, and it plays an important role in cell-cycle arrest, apoptosis, inflammation, and eukaryotic stress responses. Recent studies have identified a small region at the very N-terminus of the 55 kDa tumour necrosis factor receptor (TNF-R55), designated the neutral sphingomyelinase activating domain (NSD) that is responsible for the TNF-induced activation of N-SMase. There is no direct association between TNF-R55 NSD and N-SMase; instead, a protein named factor associated with N-SMase activation (FAN) has been reported to couple the TNF-R55 NSD to N-SMase. Since the three-dimensional fold of N-SMase is still unknown, we have modeled the structure using the protein fold recognition and threading method. Moreover, we propose models for the TNF-R55 NSD as well as the FAN protein in order to study the structural basis of N-SMase activation and regulation. Protein-protein interaction studies suggest that FAN is crucially involved in mediating TNF-induced activation of the N-SMase pathway, which in turn regulates mitogenic and proinflammatory responses. Inhibition of N-SMase may lead to reduction of ceramide levels and hence may provide a novel therapeutic strategy for inflammation and autoimmune diseases. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to check the stability of the predicted model and protein-protein complex; indeed, stable RMS deviations were obtained throughout the simulation. Furthermore, in silico docking of low molecular mass ligands into the active site of N-SMase suggests that His135, Glu48, Asp177, and Asn179 residues play crucial roles in this interaction. Based on our results, these ligands are proposed to be potent and selective N-SMase inhibitors, which may ultimately prove useful as lead compounds for drug development.

  12. False positive reduction in protein-protein interaction predictions using gene ontology annotations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin Yen-Han

    2007-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Many crucial cellular operations such as metabolism, signalling, and regulations are based on protein-protein interactions. However, the lack of robust protein-protein interaction information is a challenge. One reason for the lack of solid protein-protein interaction information is poor agreement between experimental findings and computational sets that, in turn, comes from huge false positive predictions in computational approaches. Reduction of false positive predictions and enhancing true positive fraction of computationally predicted protein-protein interaction datasets based on highly confident experimental results has not been adequately investigated. Results Gene Ontology (GO annotations were used to reduce false positive protein-protein interactions (PPI pairs resulting from computational predictions. Using experimentally obtained PPI pairs as a training dataset, eight top-ranking keywords were extracted from GO molecular function annotations. The sensitivity of these keywords is 64.21% in the yeast experimental dataset and 80.83% in the worm experimental dataset. The specificities, a measure of recovery power, of these keywords applied to four predicted PPI datasets for each studied organisms, are 48.32% and 46.49% (by average of four datasets in yeast and worm, respectively. Based on eight top-ranking keywords and co-localization of interacting proteins a set of two knowledge rules were deduced and applied to remove false positive protein pairs. The 'strength', a measure of improvement provided by the rules was defined based on the signal-to-noise ratio and implemented to measure the applicability of knowledge rules applying to the predicted PPI datasets. Depending on the employed PPI-predicting methods, the strength varies between two and ten-fold of randomly removing protein pairs from the datasets. Conclusion Gene Ontology annotations along with the deduced knowledge rules could be implemented to partially

  13. Molecular screening of compounds to the predicted Protein-Protein Interaction site of Rb1-E7 with p53- E6 in HPV

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaikh, Faraz; Sanehi, Parvish; Rawal, Rakesh

    2012-01-01

    Cervical cancer is malignant neoplasm of the cervix uteri or cervical area. Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs) which are heterogeneous groups of small double stranded DNA viruses are considered as the primary cause of cervical cancer, involved in 90% of all Cervical Cancers. Two early HPV genes, E6 and E7, are known to play crucial role in tumor formation. E6 binds with p53 and prevents its translocation and thereby inhibit the ability of p53 to activate or repress target genes. E7 binds to hypophosphorylated Rb and thereby induces cells to enter into premature S-phase by disrupting Rb-E2F complexes. The strategy of the research work was to target the site of interaction of Rb1 -E7 & p53-E6. A total of 88 compounds were selected for molecular screening, based on comprehensive literature survey for natural compounds with anti-cancer activity. Molecular docking analysis was carried out with Molegro Virtual Docker, to screen the 88 chosen compounds and rank them according to their binding affinity towards the site of interaction of the viral oncoproteins and human tumor suppressor proteins. The docking result revealed that Nicandrenone a member of Withanolides family of chemical compounds as the most likely molecule that can be used as a candidate drug against HPV induced cervical cancer. Abbreviations HPV - Human Papiloma Virus, HTSP - Human Tumor Suppressor Proteins, VOP - Viral oncoproteins. PMID:22829740

  14. Characterization of wise protein and its molecular mechanism to interact with both Wnt and BMP signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lintern, Katherine B; Guidato, Sonia; Rowe, Alison; Saldanha, José W; Itasaki, Nobue

    2009-08-21

    Cross-talk of BMP and Wnt signaling pathways has been implicated in many aspects of biological events during embryogenesis and in adulthood. A secreted protein Wise and its orthologs (Sostdc1, USAG-1, and Ectodin) have been shown to modulate Wnt signaling and also inhibit BMP signals. Modulation of Wnt signaling activity by Wise is brought about by an interaction with the Wnt co-receptor LRP6, whereas BMP inhibition is by binding to BMP ligands. Here we have investigated the mode of action of Wise on Wnt and BMP signals. It was found that Wise binds LRP6 through one of three loops formed by the cystine knot. The Wise deletion construct lacking the LRP6-interacting loop domain nevertheless binds BMP4 and inhibits BMP signals. Moreover, BMP4 does not interfere with Wise-LRP6 binding, suggesting separate domains for the physical interaction. Functional assays also show that the ability of Wise to block Wnt1 activity through LRP6 is not impeded by BMP4. In contrast, the ability of Wise to inhibit BMP4 is prevented by additional LRP6, implying a preference of Wise in binding LRP6 over BMP4. In addition to the interaction of Wise with BMP4 and LRP6, the molecular characteristics of Wise, such as glycosylation and association with heparan sulfate proteoglycans on the cell surface, are suggested. This study helps to understand the multiple functions of Wise at the molecular level and suggests a possible role for Wise in balancing Wnt and BMP signals.

  15. Sequence motifs in MADS transcription factors responsible for specificity and diversification of protein-protein interaction.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aalt D J van Dijk

    Full Text Available Protein sequences encompass tertiary structures and contain information about specific molecular interactions, which in turn determine biological functions of proteins. Knowledge about how protein sequences define interaction specificity is largely missing, in particular for paralogous protein families with high sequence similarity, such as the plant MADS domain transcription factor family. In comparison to the situation in mammalian species, this important family of transcription regulators has expanded enormously in plant species and contains over 100 members in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana. Here, we provide insight into the mechanisms that determine protein-protein interaction specificity for the Arabidopsis MADS domain transcription factor family, using an integrated computational and experimental approach. Plant MADS proteins have highly similar amino acid sequences, but their dimerization patterns vary substantially. Our computational analysis uncovered small sequence regions that explain observed differences in dimerization patterns with reasonable accuracy. Furthermore, we show the usefulness of the method for prediction of MADS domain transcription factor interaction networks in other plant species. Introduction of mutations in the predicted interaction motifs demonstrated that single amino acid mutations can have a large effect and lead to loss or gain of specific interactions. In addition, various performed bioinformatics analyses shed light on the way evolution has shaped MADS domain transcription factor interaction specificity. Identified protein-protein interaction motifs appeared to be strongly conserved among orthologs, indicating their evolutionary importance. We also provide evidence that mutations in these motifs can be a source for sub- or neo-functionalization. The analyses presented here take us a step forward in understanding protein-protein interactions and the interplay between protein sequences and

  16. Dynamics of relaxation to a stationary state for interacting molecular motors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gomes, Luiza V. F.; Kolomeisky, Anatoly B.

    2018-01-01

    Motor proteins are active enzymatic molecules that drive a variety of biological processes, including transfer of genetic information, cellular transport, cell motility and muscle contraction. It is known that these biological molecular motors usually perform their cellular tasks by acting collectively, and there are interactions between individual motors that specify the overall collective behavior. One of the fundamental issues related to the collective dynamics of motor proteins is the question if they function at stationary-state conditions. To investigate this problem, we analyze a relaxation to the stationary state for the system of interacting molecular motors. Our approach utilizes a recently developed theoretical framework, which views the collective dynamics of motor proteins as a totally asymmetric simple exclusion process of interacting particles, where interactions are taken into account via a thermodynamically consistent approach. The dynamics of relaxation to the stationary state is analyzed using a domain-wall method that relies on a mean-field description, which takes into account some correlations. It is found that the system quickly relaxes for repulsive interactions, while attractive interactions always slow down reaching the stationary state. It is also predicted that for some range of parameters the fastest relaxation might be achieved for a weak repulsive interaction. Our theoretical predictions are tested with Monte Carlo computer simulations. The implications of our findings for biological systems are briefly discussed.

  17. Identification of lipopolysaccharide-interacting plasma membrane-type proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vilakazi, Cornelius S; Dubery, Ian A; Piater, Lizelle A

    2017-02-01

    Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is an amphiphatic bacterial glycoconjugate found on the external membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. This endotoxin is considered as a microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) molecule and has been shown to elicit defense responses in plants. Here, LPS-interacting proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana plasma membrane (PM)-type fractions were captured and identified in order to investigate those involved in LPS perception and linked to triggering of innate immune responses. A novel proteomics-based affinity-capture strategy coupled to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was employed for the enrichment and identification of LPS-interacting proteins. As such, LPS isolated from Burkholderia cepacia (LPS B.cep. ) was immobilized on three independent and distinct affinity-based matrices to serve as bait for interacting proteins from A. thaliana leaf and callus tissue. These were resolved by 1D electrophoresis and identified by mass spectrometry. Proteins specifically bound to LPS B.cep. have been implicated in membrane structure (e.g. COBRA-like and tubulin proteins), membrane trafficking and/or transport (e.g. soluble NSF attachment protein receptor (SNARE) proteins, patellin, aquaporin, PM instrinsic proteins (PIP) and H + -ATPase), signal transduction (receptor-like kinases and calcium-dependent protein kinases) as well as defense/stress responses (e.g. hypersensitive-induced response (HIR) proteins, jacalin-like lectin domain-containing protein and myrosinase-binding proteins). The novel affinity-capture strategy for the enrichment of LPS-interacting proteins proved to be effective, especially in the binding of proteins involved in plant defense responses, and can thus be used to elucidate LPS-mediated molecular recognition and disease mechanism(s). Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  18. A Force Balanced Fragmentation Method for ab Initio Molecular Dynamic Simulation of Protein

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mingyuan Xu

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available A force balanced generalized molecular fractionation with conjugate caps (FB-GMFCC method is proposed for ab initio molecular dynamic simulation of proteins. In this approach, the energy of the protein is computed by a linear combination of the QM energies of individual residues and molecular fragments that account for the two-body interaction of hydrogen bond between backbone peptides. The atomic forces on the caped H atoms were corrected to conserve the total force of the protein. Using this approach, ab initio molecular dynamic simulation of an Ace-(ALA9-NME linear peptide showed the conservation of the total energy of the system throughout the simulation. Further a more robust 110 ps ab initio molecular dynamic simulation was performed for a protein with 56 residues and 862 atoms in explicit water. Compared with the classical force field, the ab initio molecular dynamic simulations gave better description of the geometry of peptide bonds. Although further development is still needed, the current approach is highly efficient, trivially parallel, and can be applied to ab initio molecular dynamic simulation study of large proteins.

  19. Detecting mutually exclusive interactions in protein-protein interaction maps.

    KAUST Repository

    Sánchez Claros, Carmen

    2012-06-08

    Comprehensive protein interaction maps can complement genetic and biochemical experiments and allow the formulation of new hypotheses to be tested in the system of interest. The computational analysis of the maps may help to focus on interesting cases and thereby to appropriately prioritize the validation experiments. We show here that, by automatically comparing and analyzing structurally similar regions of proteins of known structure interacting with a common partner, it is possible to identify mutually exclusive interactions present in the maps with a sensitivity of 70% and a specificity higher than 85% and that, in about three fourth of the correctly identified complexes, we also correctly recognize at least one residue (five on average) belonging to the interaction interface. Given the present and continuously increasing number of proteins of known structure, the requirement of the knowledge of the structure of the interacting proteins does not substantially impact on the coverage of our strategy that can be estimated to be around 25%. We also introduce here the Estrella server that embodies this strategy, is designed for users interested in validating specific hypotheses about the functional role of a protein-protein interaction and it also allows access to pre-computed data for seven organisms.

  20. Detecting mutually exclusive interactions in protein-protein interaction maps.

    KAUST Repository

    Sá nchez Claros, Carmen; Tramontano, Anna

    2012-01-01

    Comprehensive protein interaction maps can complement genetic and biochemical experiments and allow the formulation of new hypotheses to be tested in the system of interest. The computational analysis of the maps may help to focus on interesting cases and thereby to appropriately prioritize the validation experiments. We show here that, by automatically comparing and analyzing structurally similar regions of proteins of known structure interacting with a common partner, it is possible to identify mutually exclusive interactions present in the maps with a sensitivity of 70% and a specificity higher than 85% and that, in about three fourth of the correctly identified complexes, we also correctly recognize at least one residue (five on average) belonging to the interaction interface. Given the present and continuously increasing number of proteins of known structure, the requirement of the knowledge of the structure of the interacting proteins does not substantially impact on the coverage of our strategy that can be estimated to be around 25%. We also introduce here the Estrella server that embodies this strategy, is designed for users interested in validating specific hypotheses about the functional role of a protein-protein interaction and it also allows access to pre-computed data for seven organisms.

  1. The interaction properties of the human Rab GTPase family--comparative analysis reveals determinants of molecular binding selectivity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthias Stein

    Full Text Available Rab GTPases constitute the largest subfamily of the Ras protein superfamily. Rab proteins regulate organelle biogenesis and transport, and display distinct binding preferences for effector and activator proteins, many of which have not been elucidated yet. The underlying molecular recognition motifs, binding partner preferences and selectivities are not well understood.Comparative analysis of the amino acid sequences and the three-dimensional electrostatic and hydrophobic molecular interaction fields of 62 human Rab proteins revealed a wide range of binding properties with large differences between some Rab proteins. This analysis assists the functional annotation of Rab proteins 12, 14, 26, 37 and 41 and provided an explanation for the shared function of Rab3 and 27. Rab7a and 7b have very different electrostatic potentials, indicating that they may bind to different effector proteins and thus, exert different functions. The subfamily V Rab GTPases which are associated with endosome differ subtly in the interaction properties of their switch regions, and this may explain exchange factor specificity and exchange kinetics.We have analysed conservation of sequence and of molecular interaction fields to cluster and annotate the human Rab proteins. The analysis of three dimensional molecular interaction fields provides detailed insight that is not available from a sequence-based approach alone. Based on our results, we predict novel functions for some Rab proteins and provide insights into their divergent functions and the determinants of their binding partner selectivity.

  2. Interaction between Wine Phenolic Acids and Salivary Proteins by Saturation-Transfer Difference Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (STD-NMR) and Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrer-Gallego, Raúl; Hernández-Hierro, José Miguel; Brás, Natércia F; Vale, Nuno; Gomes, Paula; Mateus, Nuno; de Freitas, Victor; Heredia, Francisco J; Escribano-Bailón, María Teresa

    2017-08-09

    The interaction between phenolic compounds and salivary proteins is highly related to the astringency perception. Recently, it has been proven the existence of synergisms on the perceived astringency when phenolic acids were tested as mixtures in comparison to individual compounds, maintaining constant the total amount of the stimulus. The interactions between wine phenolic acids and the peptide fragment IB7 12 have been studied by saturation-transfer difference (STD) NMR spectroscopy. This technique provided the dissociation constants and the percentage of interaction between both individual and mixtures of hydroxybenzoic and hydroxycinnamic acids and the model peptide. It is noteworthy that hydroxybenzoic acids showed higher affinity for the peptide than hydroxycinnamic acids. To obtain further insights into the mechanisms of interaction, molecular dynamics simulations have been performed. Results obtained not only showed the ability of these compounds to interact with salivary proteins but also may justify the synergistic effect observed in previous sensory studies.

  3. Interaction of a non-histone chromatin protein (high-mobility group protein 2) with DNA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Goodwin, G.H.; Shooter, K.V.; Johns, E.W.

    1975-01-01

    The interaction with DNA of the calf thymus chromatin non-histone protein termed the high-mobility group protein 2 has been studied by sedimentation analysis in the ultracentrifuge and by measuring the binding of the 125 I-labelled protein to DNA. The results have been compared with those obtained previously by us [Eur. J. Biochem. (1974) 47, 263-270] for the interaction of high-mobility group protein 1 with DNA. Although the binding parameters are similar for these two proteins, high-mobility group protein 2 differs from high-mobility group protein 1 in that the former appears to change the shape of the DNA to a more compact form. The molecular weight of high-mobility group protein 2 has been determined by equilibrium sedimentation and a mean value of 26,000 was obtained. A low level of nuclease activity detected in one preparation of high-mobility group protein 2 has been investigated. (orig.) [de

  4. Integration and visualization of non-coding RNA and protein interaction networks

    OpenAIRE

    Junge, Alexander; Refsgaard, Jan Christian; Garde, Christian; Pan, Xiaoyong; Santos Delgado, Alberto; Anthon, Christian; Alkan, Ferhat; von Mering, Christian; Workman, Christopher; Jensen, Lars Juhl; Gorodkin, Jan

    2015-01-01

    Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) fulfill a diverse set of biological functions relying on interactions with other molecular entities. The advent of new experimental and computational approaches makes it possible to study ncRNAs and their associations on an unprecedented scale. We present RAIN (RNA Association and Interaction Networks) - a database that combines ncRNA-ncRNA, ncRNA-mRNA and ncRNA-protein interactions with large-scale protein association networks available in the STRING database. By int...

  5. Protein recognition by a pattern-generating fluorescent molecular probe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pode, Zohar; Peri-Naor, Ronny; Georgeson, Joseph M.; Ilani, Tal; Kiss, Vladimir; Unger, Tamar; Markus, Barak; Barr, Haim M.; Motiei, Leila; Margulies, David

    2017-12-01

    Fluorescent molecular probes have become valuable tools in protein research; however, the current methods for using these probes are less suitable for analysing specific populations of proteins in their native environment. In this study, we address this gap by developing a unimolecular fluorescent probe that combines the properties of small-molecule-based probes and cross-reactive sensor arrays (the so-called chemical 'noses/tongues'). On the one hand, the probe can detect different proteins by generating unique identification (ID) patterns, akin to cross-reactive arrays. On the other hand, its unimolecular scaffold and selective binding enable this ID-generating probe to identify combinations of specific protein families within complex mixtures and to discriminate among isoforms in living cells, where macroscopic arrays cannot access. The ability to recycle the molecular device and use it to track several binding interactions simultaneously further demonstrates how this approach could expand the fluorescent toolbox currently used to detect and image proteins.

  6. Energy landscape of all-atom protein-protein interactions revealed by multiscale enhanced sampling.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kei Moritsugu

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Protein-protein interactions are regulated by a subtle balance of complicated atomic interactions and solvation at the interface. To understand such an elusive phenomenon, it is necessary to thoroughly survey the large configurational space from the stable complex structure to the dissociated states using the all-atom model in explicit solvent and to delineate the energy landscape of protein-protein interactions. In this study, we carried out a multiscale enhanced sampling (MSES simulation of the formation of a barnase-barstar complex, which is a protein complex characterized by an extraordinary tight and fast binding, to determine the energy landscape of atomistic protein-protein interactions. The MSES adopts a multicopy and multiscale scheme to enable for the enhanced sampling of the all-atom model of large proteins including explicit solvent. During the 100-ns MSES simulation of the barnase-barstar system, we observed the association-dissociation processes of the atomistic protein complex in solution several times, which contained not only the native complex structure but also fully non-native configurations. The sampled distributions suggest that a large variety of non-native states went downhill to the stable complex structure, like a fast folding on a funnel-like potential. This funnel landscape is attributed to dominant configurations in the early stage of the association process characterized by near-native orientations, which will accelerate the native inter-molecular interactions. These configurations are guided mostly by the shape complementarity between barnase and barstar, and lead to the fast formation of the final complex structure along the downhill energy landscape.

  7. Molecular Effects of Concentrated Solutes on Protein Hydration, Dynamics, and Electrostatics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abriata, Luciano A; Spiga, Enrico; Peraro, Matteo Dal

    2016-08-23

    Most studies of protein structure and function are performed in dilute conditions, but proteins typically experience high solute concentrations in their physiological scenarios and biotechnological applications. High solute concentrations have well-known effects on coarse protein traits like stability, diffusion, and shape, but likely also perturb other traits through finer effects pertinent at the residue and atomic levels. Here, NMR and molecular dynamics investigations on ubiquitin disclose variable interactions with concentrated solutes that lead to localized perturbations of the protein's surface, hydration, electrostatics, and dynamics, all dependent on solute size and chemical properties. Most strikingly, small polar uncharged molecules are sticky on the protein surface, whereas charged small molecules are not, but the latter still perturb the internal protein electrostatics as they diffuse nearby. Meanwhile, interactions with macromolecular crowders are favored mainly through hydrophobic, but not through polar, surface patches. All the tested small solutes strongly slow down water exchange at the protein surface, whereas macromolecular crowders do not exert such strong perturbation. Finally, molecular dynamics simulations predict that unspecific interactions slow down microsecond- to millisecond-timescale protein dynamics despite having only mild effects on pico- to nanosecond fluctuations as corroborated by NMR. We discuss our results in the light of recent advances in understanding proteins inside living cells, focusing on the physical chemistry of quinary structure and cellular organization, and we reinforce the idea that proteins should be studied in native-like media to achieve a faithful description of their function. Copyright © 2016 Biophysical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Molecular architecture of protein-RNA recognition sites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barik, Amita; C, Nithin; Pilla, Smita P; Bahadur, Ranjit Prasad

    2015-01-01

    The molecular architecture of protein-RNA interfaces are analyzed using a non-redundant dataset of 152 protein-RNA complexes. We find that an average protein-RNA interface is smaller than an average protein-DNA interface but larger than an average protein-protein interface. Among the different classes of protein-RNA complexes, interfaces with tRNA are the largest, while the interfaces with the single-stranded RNA are the smallest. Significantly, RNA contributes more to the interface area than its partner protein. Moreover, unlike protein-protein interfaces where the side chain contributes less to the interface area compared to the main chain, the main chain and side chain contributions flipped in protein-RNA interfaces. We find that the protein surface in contact with the RNA in protein-RNA complexes is better packed than that in contact with the DNA in protein-DNA complexes, but loosely packed than that in contact with the protein in protein-protein complexes. Shape complementarity and electrostatic potential are the two major factors that determine the specificity of the protein-RNA interaction. We find that the H-bond density at the protein-RNA interfaces is similar with that of protein-DNA interfaces but higher than the protein-protein interfaces. Unlike protein-DNA interfaces where the deoxyribose has little role in intermolecular H-bonds, due to the presence of an oxygen atom at the 2' position, the ribose in RNA plays significant role in protein-RNA H-bonds. We find that besides H-bonds, salt bridges and stacking interactions also play significant role in stabilizing protein-nucleic acids interfaces; however, their contribution at the protein-protein interfaces is insignificant.

  9. Using protein design algorithms to understand the molecular basis of disease caused by protein-DNA interactions: the Pax6 example

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Alibes, A.; Nadra, A.; De Masi, Federico

    2010-01-01

    diseases such as aniridia. The validity of FoldX to deal with protein-DNA interactions was demonstrated by showing that high levels of accuracy can be achieved for mutations affecting these interactions. Also we showed that protein-design algorithms can accurately reproduce experimental DNA-binding logos......Quite often a single or a combination of protein mutations is linked to specific diseases. However, distinguishing from sequence information which mutations have real effects in the protein's function is not trivial. Protein design tools are commonly used to explain mutations that affect protein...... stability, or protein-protein interaction, but not for mutations that could affect protein-DNA binding. Here, we used the protein design algorithm FoldX to model all known missense mutations in the paired box domain of Pax6, a highly conserved transcription factor involved in eye development and in several...

  10. Aquaporin Protein-Protein Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennifer Virginia Roche

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Aquaporins are tetrameric membrane-bound channels that facilitate transport of water and other small solutes across cell membranes. In eukaryotes, they are frequently regulated by gating or trafficking, allowing for the cell to control membrane permeability in a specific manner. Protein–protein interactions play crucial roles in both regulatory processes and also mediate alternative functions such as cell adhesion. In this review, we summarize recent knowledge about aquaporin protein–protein interactions; dividing the interactions into three types: (1 interactions between aquaporin tetramers; (2 interactions between aquaporin monomers within a tetramer (hetero-tetramerization; and (3 transient interactions with regulatory proteins. We particularly focus on the structural aspects of the interactions, discussing the small differences within a conserved overall fold that allow for aquaporins to be differentially regulated in an organism-, tissue- and trigger-specific manner. A deep knowledge about these differences is needed to fully understand aquaporin function and regulation in many physiological processes, and may enable design of compounds targeting specific aquaporins for treatment of human disease.

  11. Notable Aspects of Glycan-Protein Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miriam Cohen

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available This mini review highlights several interesting aspects of glycan-mediated interactions that are common between cells, bacteria, and viruses. Glycans are ubiquitously found on all living cells, and in the extracellular milieu of multicellular organisms. They are known to mediate initial binding and recognition events of both immune cells and pathogens with their target cells or tissues. The host target tissues are hidden under a layer of secreted glycosylated decoy targets. In addition, pathogens can utilize and display host glycans to prevent identification as foreign by the host’s immune system (molecular mimicry. Both the host and pathogens continually evolve. The host evolves to prevent infection and the pathogens evolve to evade host defenses. Many pathogens express both glycan-binding proteins and glycosidases. Interestingly, these proteins are often located at the tip of elongated protrusions in bacteria, or in the leading edge of the cell. Glycan-protein interactions have low affinity and, as a result, multivalent interactions are often required to achieve biologically relevant binding. These enable dynamic forms of adhesion mechanisms, reviewed here, and include rolling (cells, stick and roll (bacteria or surfacing (viruses.

  12. How cholesterol interacts with proteins and lipids during its intracellular transport

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wüstner, Daniel; Solanko, Katarzyna

    2015-01-01

    as well as by non-vesicular sterol exchange between organelles. In this article, we will review recent progress in elucidating sterol-lipid and sterol-protein interactions contributing to proper sterol transport in living cells. We outline recent biophysical models of cholesterol distribution and dynamics...... for characterization of sterol-protein interactions and for monitoring intracellular sterol transport. Finally, we review recent work on the molecular mechanisms underlying lipoprotein-mediated cholesterol import into mammalian cells and describe the process of cellular cholesterol efflux. Overall, we emphasize how......Sterols, as cholesterol in mammalian cells and ergosterol in fungi, are indispensable molecules for proper functioning and nanoscale organization of the plasma membrane. Synthesis, uptake and efflux of cholesterol are regulated by a variety of protein-lipid and protein-protein interactions...

  13. Our interests in protein-protein interactions

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    protein interactions. Evolution of P-P partnerships. Evolution of P-P structures. Evolutionary dynamics of P-P interactions. Dynamics of P-P interaction network. Host-pathogen interactions. CryoEM mapping of gigantic protein assemblies.

  14. Identification of a novel receptor-like protein kinase that interacts with a geminivirus nuclear shuttle protein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mariano, Andrea C.; Andrade, Maxuel O.; Santos, Anesia A.; Carolino, Sonia M.B.; Oliveira, Marli L.; Baracat-Pereira, Maria Cristina; Brommonshenkel, Sergio H.; Fontes, Elizabeth P.B.

    2004-01-01

    Despite extensive studies in plant virus-host interactions, the molecular mechanisms of geminivirus movement and interactions with host components remain largely unknown. A tomato kinase protein and its soybean homolog were found to interact specifically with the nuclear shuttle protein (NSP) of Tomato golden mosaic virus (TGMV) and Tomato crinkle leaf yellows virus (TCrLYV) through yeast two-hybrid screening and in vitro protein binding assays. These proteins, designated LeNIK (Lycopersicon esculentum NSP-Interacting Kinase) and GmNIK (Glycine max NIK), belong to the LRR-RLK (leucine rich-repeat receptor-like kinase) family that is involved in plant developmental processes and/or resistance response. As such, NIK is structurally organized into characteristic domains, including a serine/threonine kinase domain with a nucleotide binding site at the C-terminal region, an internal transmembrane segment and leucine-rich repeats (LRR) at the N-terminal portion. The potential significance of the NSP-NIK interaction is discussed

  15. Evolution of protein-protein interactions

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Evolution of protein-protein interactions · Our interests in protein-protein interactions · Slide 3 · Slide 4 · Slide 5 · Slide 6 · Slide 7 · Slide 8 · Slide 9 · Slide 10 · Slide 11 · Slide 12 · Slide 13 · Slide 14 · Slide 15 · Slide 16 · Slide 17 · Slide 18 · Slide 19 · Slide 20.

  16. Interaction between holo transferrin and HSA-PPIX complex in the presence of lomefloxacin: An evaluation of PPIX aggregation in protein-protein interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sattar, Zohreh; Iranfar, Hediye; Asoodeh, Ahmad; Saberi, Mohammad Reza; Mazhari, Mahboobeh; Chamani, Jamshidkhan

    2012-11-01

    Human serum albumin (HSA) and holo transferrin (TF) are two serum carrier proteins that are able to interact with each other, thereby altering their binding behavior toward their ligands. During the course of this study, the interaction between HSA-PPIX and TF, in the presence and absence of lomefloxacin (LMF), was for the first time investigated using different spectroscopic and molecular modeling techniques. Fluorescence spectroscopy experiments were performed in order to study conformational changes of proteins. The RLS technique was utilized to investigate the effect of LMF on J-aggregation of PPIX, which is the first report of its kind. Our findings present clear-cut evidence for the alteration of interactions between HSA and TF in the presence of PPIX and changes in drug-binding to HSA and HSA-PPIX complex upon interaction with TF. Moreover, molecular modeling studies suggested that the binding site for LMF became switched in the presence of PPIX, and that LMF bound to the site IIA of HSA. The obtained results should give new insight into research in this field and may cast some light on the dynamics of drugs in biological systems.

  17. Proteins interacting with cloning scars: a source of false positive protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banks, Charles A S; Boanca, Gina; Lee, Zachary T; Florens, Laurence; Washburn, Michael P

    2015-02-23

    A common approach for exploring the interactome, the network of protein-protein interactions in cells, uses a commercially available ORF library to express affinity tagged bait proteins; these can be expressed in cells and endogenous cellular proteins that copurify with the bait can be identified as putative interacting proteins using mass spectrometry. Control experiments can be used to limit false-positive results, but in many cases, there are still a surprising number of prey proteins that appear to copurify specifically with the bait. Here, we have identified one source of false-positive interactions in such studies. We have found that a combination of: 1) the variable sequence of the C-terminus of the bait with 2) a C-terminal valine "cloning scar" present in a commercially available ORF library, can in some cases create a peptide motif that results in the aberrant co-purification of endogenous cellular proteins. Control experiments may not identify false positives resulting from such artificial motifs, as aberrant binding depends on sequences that vary from one bait to another. It is possible that such cryptic protein binding might occur in other systems using affinity tagged proteins; this study highlights the importance of conducting careful follow-up studies where novel protein-protein interactions are suspected.

  18. Non-interacting surface solvation and dynamics in protein-protein interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Visscher, Koen M.; Kastritis, Panagiotis L.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/315886668; Bonvin, Alexandre M J J|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/113691238

    2015-01-01

    Protein-protein interactions control a plethora of cellular processes, including cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and signal transduction. Understanding how and why proteins interact will inevitably lead to novel structure-based drug design methods, as well as design of de novo

  19. Inferring domain-domain interactions from protein-protein interactions with formal concept analysis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Susan Khor

    Full Text Available Identifying reliable domain-domain interactions will increase our ability to predict novel protein-protein interactions, to unravel interactions in protein complexes, and thus gain more information about the function and behavior of genes. One of the challenges of identifying reliable domain-domain interactions is domain promiscuity. Promiscuous domains are domains that can occur in many domain architectures and are therefore found in many proteins. This becomes a problem for a method where the score of a domain-pair is the ratio between observed and expected frequencies because the protein-protein interaction network is sparse. As such, many protein-pairs will be non-interacting and domain-pairs with promiscuous domains will be penalized. This domain promiscuity challenge to the problem of inferring reliable domain-domain interactions from protein-protein interactions has been recognized, and a number of work-arounds have been proposed. This paper reports on an application of Formal Concept Analysis to this problem. It is found that the relationship between formal concepts provides a natural way for rare domains to elevate the rank of promiscuous domain-pairs and enrich highly ranked domain-pairs with reliable domain-domain interactions. This piggybacking of promiscuous domain-pairs onto less promiscuous domain-pairs is possible only with concept lattices whose attribute-labels are not reduced and is enhanced by the presence of proteins that comprise both promiscuous and rare domains.

  20. Inferring Domain-Domain Interactions from Protein-Protein Interactions with Formal Concept Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khor, Susan

    2014-01-01

    Identifying reliable domain-domain interactions will increase our ability to predict novel protein-protein interactions, to unravel interactions in protein complexes, and thus gain more information about the function and behavior of genes. One of the challenges of identifying reliable domain-domain interactions is domain promiscuity. Promiscuous domains are domains that can occur in many domain architectures and are therefore found in many proteins. This becomes a problem for a method where the score of a domain-pair is the ratio between observed and expected frequencies because the protein-protein interaction network is sparse. As such, many protein-pairs will be non-interacting and domain-pairs with promiscuous domains will be penalized. This domain promiscuity challenge to the problem of inferring reliable domain-domain interactions from protein-protein interactions has been recognized, and a number of work-arounds have been proposed. This paper reports on an application of Formal Concept Analysis to this problem. It is found that the relationship between formal concepts provides a natural way for rare domains to elevate the rank of promiscuous domain-pairs and enrich highly ranked domain-pairs with reliable domain-domain interactions. This piggybacking of promiscuous domain-pairs onto less promiscuous domain-pairs is possible only with concept lattices whose attribute-labels are not reduced and is enhanced by the presence of proteins that comprise both promiscuous and rare domains. PMID:24586450

  1. Protein-lipid interactions at interfaces

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wilde, P.

    2000-04-01

    Full Text Available Foams and emulsions are both types of multiphase foods and are a dispersion of one immiscible phase (e.g. air or oil in another (e.g. water. Amphiphilic molecules (either proteins or chemical compounds are able to stabilise the interface between these phases and are termed emulsifiers. The ability of protein emulsifiers to bind lipid is reviewed, and the mechanisms underlying the behaviour of these and low molecular weight surfactants (LMWS at the interface are summarised. New research, exploiting atomic force microscopy, has given fresh insights into the mechanisms by which proteins and LMWS interact when both are present at the interface, compromising the stability of foams and emulsions stabilised by these mixtures. The understanding of component interactions at the interfacial level is essential if advances are to be made in the control and manipulation of multiphase foods during production and storage.Las espumas y las emulsiones son dispersiones de una fase inmiscible (ejemplo aire o aceite en otra (ejemplo agua. Las moléculas anfifílicas (bien proteínas o compuestos químicos pueden estabilizar la interfase y se denominan emulsionantes. En este artículo se revisa la habilidad de los emulsionantes proteínicos para enlazar lípidos y los mecanismos que subyacen en el comportamiento de estas moléculas así como de los tensioactivos de bajo peso molecular en la interfase. Recientes investigaciones que usan la microscopía han ofrecido visiones nuevas de los mecanismos mediante los cuales las proteínas y los tensioactivos de bajo peso molecular interaccionan cuando ambos están presentes en la interfase, comprometiendo la estabilidad de espumas y emulsiones estabilizadas por estas mezclas. El entendimiento de las interacciones entre componentes a nivel interfacial es esencial para lograr avances en el control y manipulación de alimentos multifases durante la producción y el almacenamiento.

  2. Analysis and Ranking of Protein-Protein Docking Models Using Inter-Residue Contacts and Inter-Molecular Contact Maps

    KAUST Repository

    Oliva, Romina; Chermak, Edrisse; Cavallo, Luigi

    2015-01-01

    In view of the increasing interest both in inhibitors of protein-protein interactions and in protein drugs themselves, analysis of the three-dimensional structure of protein-protein complexes is assuming greater relevance in drug design. In the many cases where an experimental structure is not available, protein-protein docking becomes the method of choice for predicting the arrangement of the complex. However, reliably scoring protein-protein docking poses is still an unsolved problem. As a consequence, the screening of many docking models is usually required in the analysis step, to possibly single out the correct ones. Here, making use of exemplary cases, we review our recently introduced methods for the analysis of protein complex structures and for the scoring of protein docking poses, based on the use of inter-residue contacts and their visualization in inter-molecular contact maps. We also show that the ensemble of tools we developed can be used in the context of rational drug design targeting protein-protein interactions.

  3. Analysis and Ranking of Protein-Protein Docking Models Using Inter-Residue Contacts and Inter-Molecular Contact Maps

    KAUST Repository

    Oliva, Romina

    2015-07-01

    In view of the increasing interest both in inhibitors of protein-protein interactions and in protein drugs themselves, analysis of the three-dimensional structure of protein-protein complexes is assuming greater relevance in drug design. In the many cases where an experimental structure is not available, protein-protein docking becomes the method of choice for predicting the arrangement of the complex. However, reliably scoring protein-protein docking poses is still an unsolved problem. As a consequence, the screening of many docking models is usually required in the analysis step, to possibly single out the correct ones. Here, making use of exemplary cases, we review our recently introduced methods for the analysis of protein complex structures and for the scoring of protein docking poses, based on the use of inter-residue contacts and their visualization in inter-molecular contact maps. We also show that the ensemble of tools we developed can be used in the context of rational drug design targeting protein-protein interactions.

  4. Interaction between -Synuclein and Other Proteins in Neurodegenerative Disorders

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kurt A. Jellinger

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Protein aggregation is a common characteristic of many neurodegenerative disorders, and the interaction between pathological/toxic proteins to cause neurodegeneration is a hot topic of current neuroscience research. Despite clinical, genetic, and experimental differences, evidence increasingly indicates considerable overlap between synucleinopathies and tauopathies or other protein-misfolding diseases. Inclusions, characteristics of these disorders, also occurring in other neurodegenerative diseases, suggest interactions of pathological proteins engaging common downstream pathways. Novel findings that have shifted our understanding in the role of pathologic proteins in the pathogenesis of Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases have confirmed correlations/overlaps between these and other neurodegenerative disorders. The synergistic effects of α-synuclein, hyperphosphorylated tau, amyloid-β, and other pathologic proteins, and the underlying molecular pathogenic mechanisms, including induction and spread of protein aggregates, are critically reviewed, suggesting a dualism or triad of neurodegeneration in protein-misfolding disorders, although the etiology of most of these processes is still mysterious.

  5. Broadening the horizon – level 2.5 of the HUPO-PSI format for molecular interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cusick Michael E

    2007-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Molecular interaction Information is a key resource in modern biomedical research. Publicly available data have previously been provided in a broad array of diverse formats, making access to this very difficult. The publication and wide implementation of the Human Proteome Organisation Proteomics Standards Initiative Molecular Interactions (HUPO PSI-MI format in 2004 was a major step towards the establishment of a single, unified format by which molecular interactions should be presented, but focused purely on protein-protein interactions. Results The HUPO-PSI has further developed the PSI-MI XML schema to enable the description of interactions between a wider range of molecular types, for example nucleic acids, chemical entities, and molecular complexes. Extensive details about each supported molecular interaction can now be captured, including the biological role of each molecule within that interaction, detailed description of interacting domains, and the kinetic parameters of the interaction. The format is supported by data management and analysis tools and has been adopted by major interaction data providers. Additionally, a simpler, tab-delimited format MITAB2.5 has been developed for the benefit of users who require only minimal information in an easy to access configuration. Conclusion The PSI-MI XML2.5 and MITAB2.5 formats have been jointly developed by interaction data producers and providers from both the academic and commercial sector, and are already widely implemented and well supported by an active development community. PSI-MI XML2.5 enables the description of highly detailed molecular interaction data and facilitates data exchange between databases and users without loss of information. MITAB2.5 is a simpler format appropriate for fast Perl parsing or loading into Microsoft Excel.

  6. Structure-wise discrimination of cytosine, thymine, and uracil by proteins in terms of their nonbonded interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Usha, S; Selvaraj, S

    2014-01-01

    The molecular recognition and discrimination of very similar ligand moieties by proteins are important subjects in protein-ligand interaction studies. Specificity in the recognition of molecules is determined by the arrangement of protein and ligand atoms in space. The three pyrimidine bases, viz. cytosine, thymine, and uracil, are structurally similar, but the proteins that bind to them are able to discriminate them and form interactions. Since nonbonded interactions are responsible for molecular recognition processes in biological systems, our work attempts to understand some of the underlying principles of such recognition of pyrimidine molecular structures by proteins. The preferences of the amino acid residues to contact the pyrimidine bases in terms of nonbonded interactions; amino acid residue-ligand atom preferences; main chain and side chain atom contributions of amino acid residues; and solvent-accessible surface area of ligand atoms when forming complexes are analyzed. Our analysis shows that the amino acid residues, tyrosine and phenyl alanine, are highly involved in the pyrimidine interactions. Arginine prefers contacts with the cytosine base. The similarities and differences that exist between the interactions of the amino acid residues with each of the three pyrimidine base atoms in our analysis provide insights that can be exploited in designing specific inhibitors competitive to the ligands.

  7. Molecular signaling involving intrinsically disordered proteins in prostate cancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Russo

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Investigations on cellular protein interaction networks (PINs reveal that proteins that constitute hubs in a PIN are notably enriched in Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs compared to proteins that constitute edges, highlighting the role of IDPs in signaling pathways. Most IDPs rapidly undergo disorder-to-order transitions upon binding to their biological targets to perform their function. Conformational dynamics enables IDPs to be versatile and to interact with a broad range of interactors under normal physiological conditions where their expression is tightly modulated. IDPs are involved in many cellular processes such as cellular signaling, transcriptional regulation, and splicing; thus, their high-specificity/low-affinity interactions play crucial roles in many human diseases including cancer. Prostate cancer (PCa is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality in men worldwide. Therefore, identifying molecular mechanisms of the oncogenic signaling pathways that are involved in prostate carcinogenesis is crucial. In this review, we focus on the aspects of cellular pathways leading to PCa in which IDPs exert a primary role.

  8. Brain transcriptome-wide screen for HIV-1 Nef protein interaction partners reveals various membrane-associated proteins.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ellen C Kammula

    Full Text Available HIV-1 Nef protein contributes essentially to the pathology of AIDS by a variety of protein-protein-interactions within the host cell. The versatile functionality of Nef is partially attributed to different conformational states and posttranslational modifications, such as myristoylation. Up to now, many interaction partners of Nef have been identified using classical yeast two-hybrid screens. Such screens rely on transcriptional activation of reporter genes in the nucleus to detect interactions. Thus, the identification of Nef interaction partners that are integral membrane proteins, membrane-associated proteins or other proteins that do not translocate into the nucleus is hampered. In the present study, a split-ubiquitin based yeast two-hybrid screen was used to identify novel membrane-localized interaction partners of Nef. More than 80% of the hereby identified interaction partners of Nef are transmembrane proteins. The identified hits are GPM6B, GPM6A, BAP31, TSPAN7, CYB5B, CD320/TCblR, VSIG4, PMEPA1, OCIAD1, ITGB1, CHN1, PH4, CLDN10, HSPA9, APR-3, PEBP1 and B3GNT, which are involved in diverse cellular processes like signaling, apoptosis, neurogenesis, cell adhesion and protein trafficking or quality control. For a subfraction of the hereby identified proteins we present data supporting their direct interaction with HIV-1 Nef. We discuss the results with respect to many phenotypes observed in HIV infected cells and patients. The identified Nef interaction partners may help to further elucidate the molecular basis of HIV-related diseases.

  9. Bayesian network model for identification of pathways by integrating protein interaction with genetic interaction data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fu, Changhe; Deng, Su; Jin, Guangxu; Wang, Xinxin; Yu, Zu-Guo

    2017-09-21

    Molecular interaction data at proteomic and genetic levels provide physical and functional insights into a molecular biosystem and are helpful for the construction of pathway structures complementarily. Despite advances in inferring biological pathways using genetic interaction data, there still exists weakness in developed models, such as, activity pathway networks (APN), when integrating the data from proteomic and genetic levels. It is necessary to develop new methods to infer pathway structure by both of interaction data. We utilized probabilistic graphical model to develop a new method that integrates genetic interaction and protein interaction data and infers exquisitely detailed pathway structure. We modeled the pathway network as Bayesian network and applied this model to infer pathways for the coherent subsets of the global genetic interaction profiles, and the available data set of endoplasmic reticulum genes. The protein interaction data were derived from the BioGRID database. Our method can accurately reconstruct known cellular pathway structures, including SWR complex, ER-Associated Degradation (ERAD) pathway, N-Glycan biosynthesis pathway, Elongator complex, Retromer complex, and Urmylation pathway. By comparing N-Glycan biosynthesis pathway and Urmylation pathway identified from our approach with that from APN, we found that our method is able to overcome its weakness (certain edges are inexplicable). According to underlying protein interaction network, we defined a simple scoring function that only adopts genetic interaction information to avoid the balance difficulty in the APN. Using the effective stochastic simulation algorithm, the performance of our proposed method is significantly high. We developed a new method based on Bayesian network to infer detailed pathway structures from interaction data at proteomic and genetic levels. The results indicate that the developed method performs better in predicting signaling pathways than previously

  10. Cyrus Levinthal, the Kluge and the origins of interactive molecular graphics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Francoeur, Eric

    2002-12-01

    In the mid-1960s, a group of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led by Cyrus Levinthal, took hold of one of the early interactive graphics terminals and used it to visualize, study and model the structure of proteins and nucleic acids. From this encounter between cutting-edge computer technology and molecular biology emerged the crucial elements for the development of a research-technology field known today as interactive molecular graphics. The following account is not only about how computer graphics technology has literally changed the way scientists view the molecular realm, but also a look at how an epistemic and institutional space was created to integrate this technology into scientific research.

  11. Characterization of interactions between inclusion membrane proteins from Chlamydia trachomatis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emilie eGauliard

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular pathogens of eukaryotes. The bacteria grow in an intracellular vesicle called an inclusion, the membrane of which is heavily modified by chlamydial proteins called Incs (Inclusion membrane proteins. Incs represent 7-10% of the genomes of Chlamydia and, given their localization at the interface between the host and the pathogen, likely play a key role in the development and pathogenesis of the bacterium. However, their functions remain largely unknown. Here, we characterized the interaction properties between various Inc proteins of C. trachomatis, using a bacterial two-hybrid (BACTH method suitable for detecting interactions between integral membrane proteins. To validate this approach, we first examined the oligomerization properties of the well-characterized IncA protein and showed that both the cytoplasmic domain and the transmembrane region independently contribute to IncA oligomerization. We then analyzed a set of Inc proteins and identified novel interactions between these components. Two small Incs, IncF and Ct222, were found here to interact with many other Inc proteins and may thus represent interaction nodes within the inclusion membrane. Our data suggest that the Inc proteins may assemble in the membrane of the inclusion to form specific multi-molecular complexes in an hierarchical and temporal manner. These studies will help to better define the putative functions of the Inc proteins in the infectious process of Chlamydia.

  12. Influenza A Virus-Host Protein Interactions Control Viral Pathogenesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Mengmeng; Wang, Lingyan; Li, Shitao

    2017-08-01

    The influenza A virus (IAV), a member of the Orthomyxoviridae family, is a highly transmissible respiratory pathogen and represents a continued threat to global health with considerable economic and social impact. IAV is a zoonotic virus that comprises a plethora of strains with different pathogenic profiles. The different outcomes of viral pathogenesis are dependent on the engagement between the virus and the host cellular protein interaction network. The interactions may facilitate virus hijacking of host molecular machinery to fulfill the viral life cycle or trigger host immune defense to eliminate the virus. In recent years, much effort has been made to discover the virus-host protein interactions and understand the underlying mechanisms. In this paper, we review the recent advances in our understanding of IAV-host interactions and how these interactions contribute to host defense and viral pathogenesis.

  13. Roles of water in protein structure and function studied by molecular liquid theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Imai, Takashi

    2009-01-01

    The roles of water in the structure and function of proteins have not been completely elucidated. Although molecular simulation has been widely used for the investigation of protein structure and function, it is not always useful for elucidating the roles of water because the effect of water ranges from atomic to thermodynamic level. The three-dimensional reference interaction site model (3D-RISM) theory, which is a statistical-mechanical theory of molecular liquids, can yield the solvation structure at the atomic level and calculate the thermodynamic quantities from the intermolecular potentials. In the last few years, the author and coworkers have succeeded in applying the 3D-RISM theory to protein aqueous solution systems and demonstrated that the theory is useful for investigating the roles of water. This article reviews some of the recent applications and findings, which are concerned with molecular recognition by protein, protein folding, and the partial molar volume of protein which is related to the pressure effect on protein.

  14. VirHostNet 2.0: surfing on the web of virus/host molecular interactions data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guirimand, Thibaut; Delmotte, Stéphane; Navratil, Vincent

    2015-01-01

    VirHostNet release 2.0 (http://virhostnet.prabi.fr) is a knowledgebase dedicated to the network-based exploration of virus-host protein-protein interactions. Since the previous VirhostNet release (2009), a second run of manual curation was performed to annotate the new torrent of high-throughput protein-protein interactions data from the literature. This resource is shared publicly, in PSI-MI TAB 2.5 format, using a PSICQUIC web service. The new interface of VirHostNet 2.0 is based on Cytoscape web library and provides a user-friendly access to the most complete and accurate resource of virus-virus and virus-host protein-protein interactions as well as their projection onto their corresponding host cell protein interaction networks. We hope that the VirHostNet 2.0 system will facilitate systems biology and gene-centered analysis of infectious diseases and will help to identify new molecular targets for antiviral drugs design. This resource will also continue to help worldwide scientists to improve our knowledge on molecular mechanisms involved in the antiviral response mediated by the cell and in the viral strategies selected by viruses to hijack the host immune system. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  15. Molecular basis of interactions between mitochondrial proteins and hydroxyapatite in the presence of Triton X-100, as revealed by proteomic and recombinant techniques.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamoto, Takenori; Tamaki, Haruna; Katsuda, Chie; Nakatani, Kiwami; Terauchi, Satsuki; Terada, Hiroshi; Shinohara, Yasuo

    2013-08-02

    Hydroxyapatite chromatography is a very important step in the purification of voltage-dependent anion channels (VDACs) and several members of solute carrier family 25 (Slc25) from isolated mitochondria. In the presence of Triton X-100, VDACs and Slc25 members present a peculiar property, i.e., a lack of interaction with hydroxyapatite, resulting in their presence in the flow-through fraction of hydroxyapatite chromatography. This property has allowed selective isolation of VDACs and Slc25 members from a mixture of total mitochondrial proteins. However, the reason why only these few proteins are selectively obtained in the presence of Triton X-100 from the flow-though fraction of hydroxyapatite chromatography has not yet been adequately understood. In this study, when we examined the protein species in the flow-through fractions by proteomic analysis, VDAC isoforms, Slc25 members, and some other membrane proteins were identified. All the mitochondrial proteins had in common high hydrophobicity over their entire protein sequences. When the proteins were fused to soluble proteins, the fused proteins showed affinity for hydroxyapatite even in the presence of Triton X-100. Based on these results, we discussed the molecular basis of the interactions between proteins and hydroxyapatite in the presence of Triton X-100. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Molecular analysis of the interaction between the hematopoietic master transcription factors GATA-1 and PU.1

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Liew, Chu Wai; Rand, Kasper Dyrberg; Simpson, Raina J Y

    2006-01-01

    GATA-1 and PU.1 are transcription factors that control erythroid and myeloid development, respectively. The two proteins have been shown to function in an antagonistic fashion, with GATA-1 repressing PU.1 activity during erythropoiesis and PU.1 repressing GATA-1 function during myelopoiesis. It has...... also become clear that this functional antagonism involves direct interactions between the two proteins. However, the molecular basis for these interactions is not known, and a number of inconsistencies exist in the literature. We have used a range of biophysical methods to define the molecular details...... of the GATA-1-PU.1 interaction. A combination of NMR titration data and extensive mutagenesis revealed that the PU.1-Ets domain and the GATA-1 C-terminal zinc finger (CF) form a low affinity interaction in which specific regions of each protein are implicated. Surprisingly, the interaction cannot be disrupted...

  17. Theoretical investigation of interaction of sorbitol molecules with alcohol dehydrogenase in aqueous solution using molecular dynamics simulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bahrami, Homayoon; Zahedi, Mansour; Moosavi-Movahedi, Ali Akbar; Azizian, Homa; Amanlou, Massoud

    2011-03-01

    The nature of protein-sorbitol-water interaction in solution at the molecular level, has been investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. In order to do this task, two molecular dynamics simulations of the protein ADH in solution at room temperature have been carried out, one in the presence (about 0.9 M) and another in the absence of sorbitol. The results show that the sorbitol molecules cluster and move toward the protein, and form hydrogen bonds with protein. Also, coating by sorbitol reduces the conformational fluctuations of the protein compared to the sorbitol-free system. Thus, it is concluded that at moderate concentration of sorbitol solution, sorbitol molecules interact with ADH via many H-bonds that prevent the protein folding. In fact, at more concentrated sorbitol solution, water and sorbitol molecules accumulate around the protein surface and form a continuous space-filling network to reduce the protein flexibility. Namely, in such solution, sorbitol molecules can stabilize a misfolded state of ADH, and prevent the protein from folding to its native structure.

  18. Comparative Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase-Activated Protein Kinase 5

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Inger Lindin

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available The mitogen-activated protein kinase-activated protein kinase MK5 is a substrate of the mitogen-activated protein kinases p38, ERK3 and ERK4. Cell culture and animal studies have demonstrated that MK5 is involved in tumour suppression and promotion, embryogenesis, anxiety, cell motility and cell cycle regulation. In the present study, homology models of MK5 were used for molecular dynamics (MD simulations of: (1 MK5 alone; (2 MK5 in complex with an inhibitor; and (3 MK5 in complex with the interaction partner p38α. The calculations showed that the inhibitor occupied the active site and disrupted the intramolecular network of amino acids. However, intramolecular interactions consistent with an inactive protein kinase fold were not formed. MD with p38α showed that not only the p38 docking region, but also amino acids in the activation segment, αH helix, P-loop, regulatory phosphorylation region and the C-terminal of MK5 may be involved in forming a very stable MK5-p38α complex, and that p38α binding decreases the residual fluctuation of the MK5 model. Electrostatic Potential Surface (EPS calculations of MK5 and p38α showed that electrostatic interactions are important for recognition and binding.

  19. Protein-protein interaction site predictions with three-dimensional probability distributions of interacting atoms on protein surfaces.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ching-Tai Chen

    Full Text Available Protein-protein interactions are key to many biological processes. Computational methodologies devised to predict protein-protein interaction (PPI sites on protein surfaces are important tools in providing insights into the biological functions of proteins and in developing therapeutics targeting the protein-protein interaction sites. One of the general features of PPI sites is that the core regions from the two interacting protein surfaces are complementary to each other, similar to the interior of proteins in packing density and in the physicochemical nature of the amino acid composition. In this work, we simulated the physicochemical complementarities by constructing three-dimensional probability density maps of non-covalent interacting atoms on the protein surfaces. The interacting probabilities were derived from the interior of known structures. Machine learning algorithms were applied to learn the characteristic patterns of the probability density maps specific to the PPI sites. The trained predictors for PPI sites were cross-validated with the training cases (consisting of 432 proteins and were tested on an independent dataset (consisting of 142 proteins. The residue-based Matthews correlation coefficient for the independent test set was 0.423; the accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity were 0.753, 0.519, 0.677, and 0.779 respectively. The benchmark results indicate that the optimized machine learning models are among the best predictors in identifying PPI sites on protein surfaces. In particular, the PPI site prediction accuracy increases with increasing size of the PPI site and with increasing hydrophobicity in amino acid composition of the PPI interface; the core interface regions are more likely to be recognized with high prediction confidence. The results indicate that the physicochemical complementarity patterns on protein surfaces are important determinants in PPIs, and a substantial portion of the PPI sites can be predicted

  20. Protein-Protein Interaction Site Predictions with Three-Dimensional Probability Distributions of Interacting Atoms on Protein Surfaces

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ching-Tai; Peng, Hung-Pin; Jian, Jhih-Wei; Tsai, Keng-Chang; Chang, Jeng-Yih; Yang, Ei-Wen; Chen, Jun-Bo; Ho, Shinn-Ying; Hsu, Wen-Lian; Yang, An-Suei

    2012-01-01

    Protein-protein interactions are key to many biological processes. Computational methodologies devised to predict protein-protein interaction (PPI) sites on protein surfaces are important tools in providing insights into the biological functions of proteins and in developing therapeutics targeting the protein-protein interaction sites. One of the general features of PPI sites is that the core regions from the two interacting protein surfaces are complementary to each other, similar to the interior of proteins in packing density and in the physicochemical nature of the amino acid composition. In this work, we simulated the physicochemical complementarities by constructing three-dimensional probability density maps of non-covalent interacting atoms on the protein surfaces. The interacting probabilities were derived from the interior of known structures. Machine learning algorithms were applied to learn the characteristic patterns of the probability density maps specific to the PPI sites. The trained predictors for PPI sites were cross-validated with the training cases (consisting of 432 proteins) and were tested on an independent dataset (consisting of 142 proteins). The residue-based Matthews correlation coefficient for the independent test set was 0.423; the accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity were 0.753, 0.519, 0.677, and 0.779 respectively. The benchmark results indicate that the optimized machine learning models are among the best predictors in identifying PPI sites on protein surfaces. In particular, the PPI site prediction accuracy increases with increasing size of the PPI site and with increasing hydrophobicity in amino acid composition of the PPI interface; the core interface regions are more likely to be recognized with high prediction confidence. The results indicate that the physicochemical complementarity patterns on protein surfaces are important determinants in PPIs, and a substantial portion of the PPI sites can be predicted correctly with

  1. iPfam: a database of protein family and domain interactions found in the Protein Data Bank.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Finn, Robert D; Miller, Benjamin L; Clements, Jody; Bateman, Alex

    2014-01-01

    The database iPfam, available at http://ipfam.org, catalogues Pfam domain interactions based on known 3D structures that are found in the Protein Data Bank, providing interaction data at the molecular level. Previously, the iPfam domain-domain interaction data was integrated within the Pfam database and website, but it has now been migrated to a separate database. This allows for independent development, improving data access and giving clearer separation between the protein family and interactions datasets. In addition to domain-domain interactions, iPfam has been expanded to include interaction data for domain bound small molecule ligands. Functional annotations are provided from source databases, supplemented by the incorporation of Wikipedia articles where available. iPfam (version 1.0) contains >9500 domain-domain and 15 500 domain-ligand interactions. The new website provides access to this data in a variety of ways, including interactive visualizations of the interaction data.

  2. AFD: an application for bi-molecular interaction using axial frequency distribution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raza, Saad; Azam, Syed Sikander

    2018-03-06

    Conformational flexibility and generalized structural features are responsible for specific phenomena existing in biological pathways. With advancements in computational chemistry, novel approaches and new methods are required to compare the dynamic nature of biomolecules, which are crucial not only to address dynamic functional relationships but also to gain detailed insights into the disturbance and positional fluctuation responsible for functional shifts. Keeping this in mind, axial frequency distribution (AFD) has been developed, designed, and implemented. AFD can profoundly represent distribution and density of ligand atom around a particular atom or set of atoms. It enabled us to obtain an explanation of local movements and rotations, which are not significantly highlighted by any other structural and dynamical parameters. AFD can be implemented on biological models representing ligand and protein interactions. It shows a comprehensive view of the binding pattern of ligand by exploring the distribution of atoms relative to the x-y plane of the system. By taking a relative centroid on protein or ligand, molecular interactions like hydrogen bonds, van der Waals, polar or ionic interaction can be analyzed to cater the ligand movement, stabilization or flexibility with respect to the protein. The AFD graph resulted in the residual depiction of bi-molecular interaction in gradient form which can yield specific information depending upon the system of interest.

  3. Design principles for cancer therapy guided by changes in complexity of protein-protein interaction networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benzekry, Sebastian; Tuszynski, Jack A; Rietman, Edward A; Lakka Klement, Giannoula

    2015-05-28

    The ever-increasing expanse of online bioinformatics data is enabling new ways to, not only explore the visualization of these data, but also to apply novel mathematical methods to extract meaningful information for clinically relevant analysis of pathways and treatment decisions. One of the methods used for computing topological characteristics of a space at different spatial resolutions is persistent homology. This concept can also be applied to network theory, and more specifically to protein-protein interaction networks, where the number of rings in an individual cancer network represents a measure of complexity. We observed a linear correlation of R = -0.55 between persistent homology and 5-year survival of patients with a variety of cancers. This relationship was used to predict the proteins within a protein-protein interaction network with the most impact on cancer progression. By re-computing the persistent homology after computationally removing an individual node (protein) from the protein-protein interaction network, we were able to evaluate whether such an inhibition would lead to improvement in patient survival. The power of this approach lied in its ability to identify the effects of inhibition of multiple proteins and in the ability to expose whether the effect of a single inhibition may be amplified by inhibition of other proteins. More importantly, we illustrate specific examples of persistent homology calculations, which correctly predict the survival benefit observed effects in clinical trials using inhibitors of the identified molecular target. We propose that computational approaches such as persistent homology may be used in the future for selection of molecular therapies in clinic. The technique uses a mathematical algorithm to evaluate the node (protein) whose inhibition has the highest potential to reduce network complexity. The greater the drop in persistent homology, the greater reduction in network complexity, and thus a larger

  4. Interaction between a plasma membrane-localized ankyrin-repeat protein ITN1 and a nuclear protein RTV1

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sakamoto, Hikaru [Department of Bioproduction, Faculty of Bioindustry, Tokyo University of Agriculture, 196 Yasaka, Abashiri-shi, Hokkaido 093-2422 (Japan); Sakata, Keiko; Kusumi, Kensuke [Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581 (Japan); Kojima, Mikiko; Sakakibara, Hitoshi [RIKEN Plant Science Center, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama 230-0045 (Japan); Iba, Koh, E-mail: koibascb@kyushu-u.org [Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581 (Japan)

    2012-06-29

    Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer ITN1, a plasma membrane ankyrin protein, interacts with a nuclear DNA-binding protein RTV1. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer The nuclear transport of RTV1 is partially inhibited by interaction with ITN1. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer RTV1 can promote the nuclear localization of ITN1. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Both overexpression of RTV1 and the lack of ITN1 increase salicylic acids sensitivity in plants. -- Abstract: The increased tolerance to NaCl 1 (ITN1) protein is a plasma membrane (PM)-localized protein involved in responses to NaCl stress in Arabidopsis. The predicted structure of ITN1 is composed of multiple transmembrane regions and an ankyrin-repeat domain that is known to mediate protein-protein interactions. To elucidate the molecular functions of ITN1, we searched for interacting partners using a yeast two-hybrid assay, and a nuclear-localized DNA-binding protein, RTV1, was identified as a candidate. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation analysis revealed that RTV1 interacted with ITN1 at the PM and nuclei in vivo. RTV1 tagged with red fluorescent protein localized to nuclei and ITN1 tagged with green fluorescent protein localized to PM; however, both proteins localized to both nuclei and the PM when co-expressed. These findings suggest that RTV1 and ITN1 regulate the subcellular localization of each other.

  5. An attempt to understand glioma stem cell biology through centrality analysis of a protein interaction network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mallik, Mrinmay Kumar

    2018-02-07

    Biological networks can be analyzed using "Centrality Analysis" to identify the more influential nodes and interactions in the network. This study was undertaken to create and visualize a biological network comprising of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) amongst proteins which are preferentially over-expressed in glioma cancer stem cell component (GCSC) of glioblastomas as compared to the glioma non-stem cancer cell (GNSC) component and then to analyze this network through centrality analyses (CA) in order to identify the essential proteins in this network and their interactions. In addition, this study proposes a new centrality analysis method pertaining exclusively to transcription factors (TFs) and interactions amongst them. Moreover the relevant molecular functions, biological processes and biochemical pathways amongst these proteins were sought through enrichment analysis. A protein interaction network was created using a list of proteins which have been shown to be preferentially expressed or over-expressed in GCSCs isolated from glioblastomas as compared to the GNSCs. This list comprising of 38 proteins, created using manual literature mining, was submitted to the Reactome FIViz tool, a web based application integrated into Cytoscape, an open source software platform for visualizing and analyzing molecular interaction networks and biological pathways to produce the network. This network was subjected to centrality analyses utilizing ranked lists of six centrality measures using the FIViz application and (for the first time) a dedicated centrality analysis plug-in ; CytoNCA. The interactions exclusively amongst the transcription factors were nalyzed through a newly proposed centrality analysis method called "Gene Expression Associated Degree Centrality Analysis (GEADCA)". Enrichment analysis was performed using the "network function analysis" tool on Reactome. The CA was able to identify a small set of proteins with consistently high centrality ranks that

  6. Specificity and affinity quantification of protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Zhiqiang; Guo, Liyong; Hu, Liang; Wang, Jin

    2013-05-01

    Most biological processes are mediated by the protein-protein interactions. Determination of the protein-protein structures and insight into their interactions are vital to understand the mechanisms of protein functions. Currently, compared with the isolated protein structures, only a small fraction of protein-protein structures are experimentally solved. Therefore, the computational docking methods play an increasing role in predicting the structures and interactions of protein-protein complexes. The scoring function of protein-protein interactions is the key responsible for the accuracy of the computational docking. Previous scoring functions were mostly developed by optimizing the binding affinity which determines the stability of the protein-protein complex, but they are often lack of the consideration of specificity which determines the discrimination of native protein-protein complex against competitive ones. We developed a scoring function (named as SPA-PP, specificity and affinity of the protein-protein interactions) by incorporating both the specificity and affinity into the optimization strategy. The testing results and comparisons with other scoring functions show that SPA-PP performs remarkably on both predictions of binding pose and binding affinity. Thus, SPA-PP is a promising quantification of protein-protein interactions, which can be implemented into the protein docking tools and applied for the predictions of protein-protein structure and affinity. The algorithm is implemented in C language, and the code can be downloaded from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1865642/Optimization.cpp.

  7. Physico-Pathologic Mechanisms Involved in Neurodegeneration: Misfolded Protein-Plasma Membrane Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shrivastava, Amulya Nidhi; Aperia, Anita; Melki, Ronald; Triller, Antoine

    2017-07-05

    Several neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, are characterized by prominent loss of synapses and neurons associated with the presence of abnormally structured or misfolded protein assemblies. Cell-to-cell transfer of misfolded proteins has been proposed for the intra-cerebral propagation of these diseases. When released, misfolded proteins diffuse in the 3D extracellular space before binding to the plasma membrane of neighboring cells, where they diffuse on a 2D plane. This reduction in diffusion dimension and the cell surface molecular crowding promote deleterious interactions with native membrane proteins, favoring clustering and further aggregation of misfolded protein assemblies. These processes open up new avenues for therapeutics development targeting the initial interactions of deleterious proteins with the plasma membrane or the subsequent pathological signaling. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Positive Selection and Centrality in the Yeast and Fly Protein-Protein Interaction Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sandip Chakraborty

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Proteins within a molecular network are expected to be subject to different selective pressures depending on their relative hierarchical positions. However, it is not obvious what genes within a network should be more likely to evolve under positive selection. On one hand, only mutations at genes with a relatively high degree of control over adaptive phenotypes (such as those encoding highly connected proteins are expected to be “seen” by natural selection. On the other hand, a high degree of pleiotropy at these genes is expected to hinder adaptation. Previous analyses of the human protein-protein interaction network have shown that genes under long-term, recurrent positive selection (as inferred from interspecific comparisons tend to act at the periphery of the network. It is unknown, however, whether these trends apply to other organisms. Here, we show that long-term positive selection has preferentially targeted the periphery of the yeast interactome. Conversely, in flies, genes under positive selection encode significantly more connected and central proteins. These observations are not due to covariation of genes’ adaptability and centrality with confounding factors. Therefore, the distribution of proteins encoded by genes under recurrent positive selection across protein-protein interaction networks varies from one species to another.

  9. Mapping Hydrophobicity on the Protein Molecular Surface at Atom-Level Resolution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nicolau Jr., Dan V.; Paszek, Ewa; Fulga, Florin; Nicolau, Dan V.

    2014-01-01

    A precise representation of the spatial distribution of hydrophobicity, hydrophilicity and charges on the molecular surface of proteins is critical for the understanding of the interaction with small molecules and larger systems. The representation of hydrophobicity is rarely done at atom-level, as this property is generally assigned to residues. A new methodology for the derivation of atomic hydrophobicity from any amino acid-based hydrophobicity scale was used to derive 8 sets of atomic hydrophobicities, one of which was used to generate the molecular surfaces for 35 proteins with convex structures, 5 of which, i.e., lysozyme, ribonuclease, hemoglobin, albumin and IgG, have been analyzed in more detail. Sets of the molecular surfaces of the model proteins have been constructed using spherical probes with increasingly large radii, from 1.4 to 20 Å, followed by the quantification of (i) the surface hydrophobicity; (ii) their respective molecular surface areas, i.e., total, hydrophilic and hydrophobic area; and (iii) their relative densities, i.e., divided by the total molecular area; or specific densities, i.e., divided by property-specific area. Compared with the amino acid-based formalism, the atom-level description reveals molecular surfaces which (i) present an approximately two times more hydrophilic areas; with (ii) less extended, but between 2 to 5 times more intense hydrophilic patches; and (iii) 3 to 20 times more extended hydrophobic areas. The hydrophobic areas are also approximately 2 times more hydrophobicity-intense. This, more pronounced “leopard skin”-like, design of the protein molecular surface has been confirmed by comparing the results for a restricted set of homologous proteins, i.e., hemoglobins diverging by only one residue (Trp37). These results suggest that the representation of hydrophobicity on the protein molecular surfaces at atom-level resolution, coupled with the probing of the molecular surface at different geometric resolutions

  10. Revealing molecular mechanisms by integrating high-dimensional functional screens with protein interaction data.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Angela Simeone

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Functional genomics screens using multi-parametric assays are powerful approaches for identifying genes involved in particular cellular processes. However, they suffer from problems like noise, and often provide little insight into molecular mechanisms. A bottleneck for addressing these issues is the lack of computational methods for the systematic integration of multi-parametric phenotypic datasets with molecular interactions. Here, we present Integrative Multi Profile Analysis of Cellular Traits (IMPACT. The main goal of IMPACT is to identify the most consistent phenotypic profile among interacting genes. This approach utilizes two types of external information: sets of related genes (IMPACT-sets and network information (IMPACT-modules. Based on the notion that interacting genes are more likely to be involved in similar functions than non-interacting genes, this data is used as a prior to inform the filtering of phenotypic profiles that are similar among interacting genes. IMPACT-sets selects the most frequent profile among a set of related genes. IMPACT-modules identifies sub-networks containing genes with similar phenotype profiles. The statistical significance of these selections is subsequently quantified via permutations of the data. IMPACT (1 handles multiple profiles per gene, (2 rescues genes with weak phenotypes and (3 accounts for multiple biases e.g. caused by the network topology. Application to a genome-wide RNAi screen on endocytosis showed that IMPACT improved the recovery of known endocytosis-related genes, decreased off-target effects, and detected consistent phenotypes. Those findings were confirmed by rescreening 468 genes. Additionally we validated an unexpected influence of the IGF-receptor on EGF-endocytosis. IMPACT facilitates the selection of high-quality phenotypic profiles using different types of independent information, thereby supporting the molecular interpretation of functional screens.

  11. Protein-protein interactions as a strategy towards protein-specific drug design: the example of ataxin-1.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cesira de Chiara

    Full Text Available A main challenge for structural biologists is to understand the mechanisms that discriminate between molecular interactions and determine function. Here, we show how partner recognition of the AXH domain of the transcriptional co-regulator ataxin-1 is fine-tuned by a subtle balance between self- and hetero-associations. Ataxin-1 is the protein responsible for the hereditary spinocerebellar ataxia type 1, a disease linked to protein aggregation and transcriptional dysregulation. Expansion of a polyglutamine tract is essential for ataxin-1 aggregation, but the sequence-wise distant AXH domain plays an important aggravating role in the process. The AXH domain is also a key element for non-aberrant function as it intervenes in interactions with multiple protein partners. Previous data have shown that AXH is dimeric in solution and forms a dimer of dimers when crystallized. By solving the structure of a complex of AXH with a peptide from the interacting transcriptional repressor CIC, we show that the dimer interface of AXH is displaced by the new interaction and that, when blocked by the CIC peptide AXH aggregation and misfolding are impaired. This is a unique example in which palindromic self- and hetero-interactions within a sequence with chameleon properties discriminate the partner. We propose a drug design strategy for the treatment of SCA1 that is based on the information gained from the AXH/CIC complex.

  12. Protein change in plant evolution: tracing one thread connecting molecular and phenotypic diversity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Madelaine eBartlett

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Proteins change over the course of evolutionary time. New protein-coding genes and gene families emerge and diversify, ultimately affecting an organism’s phenotype and interactions with its environment. Here we survey the range of structural protein change observed in plants and review the role these changes have had in the evolution of plant form and function. Verified examples tying evolutionary change in protein structure to phenotypic change remain scarce. We will review the existing examples, as well as draw from investigations into domestication, and quantitative trait locus (QTL cloning studies searching for the molecular underpinnings of natural variation. The evolutionary significance of many cloned QTL has not been assessed, but all the examples identified so far have begun to reveal the extent of protein structural diversity tolerated in natural systems. This molecular (and phenotypic diversity could come to represent part of natural selection’s source material in the adaptive evolution of novel traits. Protein structure and function can change in many distinct ways, but the changes we identified in studies of natural diversity and protein evolution were predicted to fall primarily into one of six categories: altered active and binding sites; hypomorphic and hypermorphic alleles; altered protein-protein interactions; altered domain content; altered protein stability; and altered activity as an activator or repressor. Variability was also observed in the evolutionary scale at which particular changes were observed. Some changes were detected at both micro- and macroevolutionary timescales, while others were observed primarily at deep or shallow phylogenetic levels. This variation might be used to determine the trajectory of future investigations in structural molecular evolution.

  13. Protein Molecular Structures, Protein SubFractions, and Protein Availability Affected by Heat Processing: A Review

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yu, P.

    2007-01-01

    The utilization and availability of protein depended on the types of protein and their specific susceptibility to enzymatic hydrolysis (inhibitory activities) in the gastrointestine and was highly associated with protein molecular structures. Studying internal protein structure and protein subfraction profiles leaded to an understanding of the components that make up a whole protein. An understanding of the molecular structure of the whole protein was often vital to understanding its digestive behavior and nutritive value in animals. In this review, recently obtained information on protein molecular structural effects of heat processing was reviewed, in relation to protein characteristics affecting digestive behavior and nutrient utilization and availability. The emphasis of this review was on (1) using the newly advanced synchrotron technology (S-FTIR) as a novel approach to reveal protein molecular chemistry affected by heat processing within intact plant tissues; (2) revealing the effects of heat processing on the profile changes of protein subfractions associated with digestive behaviors and kinetics manipulated by heat processing; (3) prediction of the changes of protein availability and supply after heat processing, using the advanced DVE/OEB and NRC-2001 models, and (4) obtaining information on optimal processing conditions of protein as intestinal protein source to achieve target values for potential high net absorbable protein in the small intestine. The information described in this article may give better insight in the mechanisms involved and the intrinsic protein molecular structural changes occurring upon processing.

  14. Evolutionary reprograming of protein-protein interaction specificity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akiva, Eyal; Babbitt, Patricia C

    2015-10-22

    Using mutation libraries and deep sequencing, Aakre et al. study the evolution of protein-protein interactions using a toxin-antitoxin model. The results indicate probable trajectories via "intermediate" proteins that are promiscuous, thus avoiding transitions via non-interactions. These results extend observations about other biological interactions and enzyme evolution, suggesting broadly general principles. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Interaction between Na-K-ATPase and Bcl-2 proteins BclXL and Bak.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lauf, Peter K; Alqahtani, Tariq; Flues, Karin; Meller, Jaroslaw; Adragna, Norma C

    2015-01-01

    In silico analysis predicts interaction between Na-K-ATPase (NKA) and Bcl-2 protein canonical BH3- and BH1-like motifs, consistent with NKA inhibition by the benzo-phenanthridine alkaloid chelerythrine, a BH3 mimetic, in fetal human lens epithelial cells (FHLCs) (Lauf PK, Heiny J, Meller J, Lepera MA, Koikov L, Alter GM, Brown TL, Adragna NC. Cell Physiol Biochem 31: 257-276, 2013). This report establishes proof of concept: coimmunoprecipitation and immunocolocalization showed unequivocal and direct physical interaction between NKA and Bcl-2 proteins. Specifically, NKA antibodies (ABs) coimmunoprecipitated BclXL (B-cell lymphoma extra large) and BAK (Bcl-2 antagonist killer) proteins in FHLCs and A549 lung cancer cells. In contrast, both anti-Bcl-2 ABs failed to pull down NKA. Notably, the molecular mass of BAK1 proteins pulled down by NKA and BclXL ABs appeared to be some 4-kDa larger than found in input monomers. In silico analysis predicts these higher molecular mass BAK1 proteins as alternative splicing variants, encoding 42 amino acid (aa) larger proteins than the known 211-aa long canonical BAK1 protein. These BAK1 variants may constitute a pool separate from that forming mitochondrial pores by specifically interacting with NKA and BclXL proteins. We propose a NKA-Bcl-2 protein ternary complex supporting our hypothesis for a special sensor role of NKA in Bcl-2 protein control of cell survival and apoptosis. Copyright © 2015 the American Physiological Society.

  16. Bactericidal Permeability-Increasing Proteins Shape Host-Microbe Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fangmin Chen

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available We characterized bactericidal permeability-increasing proteins (BPIs of the squid Euprymna scolopes, EsBPI2 and EsBPI4. They have molecular characteristics typical of other animal BPIs, are closely related to one another, and nest phylogenetically among invertebrate BPIs. Purified EsBPIs had antimicrobial activity against the squid’s symbiont, Vibrio fischeri, which colonizes light organ crypt epithelia. Activity of both proteins was abrogated by heat treatment and coincubation with specific antibodies. Pretreatment under acidic conditions similar to those during symbiosis initiation rendered V. fischeri more resistant to the antimicrobial activity of the proteins. Immunocytochemistry localized EsBPIs to the symbiotic organ and other epithelial surfaces interacting with ambient seawater. The proteins differed in intracellular distribution. Further, whereas EsBPI4 was restricted to epithelia, EsBPI2 also occurred in blood and in a transient juvenile organ that mediates hatching. The data provide evidence that these BPIs play different defensive roles early in the life of E. scolopes, modulating interactions with the symbiont.

  17. Mapping Protein-Protein Interactions by Quantitative Proteomics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dengjel, Joern; Kratchmarova, Irina; Blagoev, Blagoy

    2010-01-01

    spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics in combination with affinity purification protocols has become the method of choice to map and track the dynamic changes in protein-protein interactions, including the ones occurring during cellular signaling events. Different quantitative MS strategies have been used...... to characterize protein interaction networks. In this chapter we describe in detail the use of stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) for the quantitative analysis of stimulus-dependent dynamic protein interactions.......Proteins exert their function inside a cell generally in multiprotein complexes. These complexes are highly dynamic structures changing their composition over time and cell state. The same protein may thereby fulfill different functions depending on its binding partners. Quantitative mass...

  18. Cytoprophet: a Cytoscape plug-in for protein and domain interaction networks inference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morcos, Faruck; Lamanna, Charles; Sikora, Marcin; Izaguirre, Jesús

    2008-10-01

    Cytoprophet is a software tool that allows prediction and visualization of protein and domain interaction networks. It is implemented as a plug-in of Cytoscape, an open source software framework for analysis and visualization of molecular networks. Cytoprophet implements three algorithms that predict new potential physical interactions using the domain composition of proteins and experimental assays. The algorithms for protein and domain interaction inference include maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) using expectation maximization (EM); the set cover approach maximum specificity set cover (MSSC) and the sum-product algorithm (SPA). After accepting an input set of proteins with Uniprot ID/Accession numbers and a selected prediction algorithm, Cytoprophet draws a network of potential interactions with probability scores and GO distances as edge attributes. A network of domain interactions between the domains of the initial protein list can also be generated. Cytoprophet was designed to take advantage of the visual capabilities of Cytoscape and be simple to use. An example of inference in a signaling network of myxobacterium Myxococcus xanthus is presented and available at Cytoprophet's website. http://cytoprophet.cse.nd.edu.

  19. Protein- protein interaction detection system using fluorescent protein microdomains

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waldo, Geoffrey S.; Cabantous, Stephanie

    2010-02-23

    The invention provides a protein labeling and interaction detection system based on engineered fragments of fluorescent and chromophoric proteins that require fused interacting polypeptides to drive the association of the fragments, and further are soluble and stable, and do not change the solubility of polypeptides to which they are fused. In one embodiment, a test protein X is fused to a sixteen amino acid fragment of GFP (.beta.-strand 10, amino acids 198-214), engineered to not perturb fusion protein solubility. A second test protein Y is fused to a sixteen amino acid fragment of GFP (.beta.-strand 11, amino acids 215-230), engineered to not perturb fusion protein solubility. When X and Y interact, they bring the GFP strands into proximity, and are detected by complementation with a third GFP fragment consisting of GFP amino acids 1-198 (strands 1-9). When GFP strands 10 and 11 are held together by interaction of protein X and Y, they spontaneous association with GFP strands 1-9, resulting in structural complementation, folding, and concomitant GFP fluorescence.

  20. Interaction Entropy: A New Paradigm for Highly Efficient and Reliable Computation of Protein-Ligand Binding Free Energy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duan, Lili; Liu, Xiao; Zhang, John Z H

    2016-05-04

    Efficient and reliable calculation of protein-ligand binding free energy is a grand challenge in computational biology and is of critical importance in drug design and many other molecular recognition problems. The main challenge lies in the calculation of entropic contribution to protein-ligand binding or interaction systems. In this report, we present a new interaction entropy method which is theoretically rigorous, computationally efficient, and numerically reliable for calculating entropic contribution to free energy in protein-ligand binding and other interaction processes. Drastically different from the widely employed but extremely expensive normal mode method for calculating entropy change in protein-ligand binding, the new method calculates the entropic component (interaction entropy or -TΔS) of the binding free energy directly from molecular dynamics simulation without any extra computational cost. Extensive study of over a dozen randomly selected protein-ligand binding systems demonstrated that this interaction entropy method is both computationally efficient and numerically reliable and is vastly superior to the standard normal mode approach. This interaction entropy paradigm introduces a novel and intuitive conceptual understanding of the entropic effect in protein-ligand binding and other general interaction systems as well as a practical method for highly efficient calculation of this effect.

  1. Computational Approaches for Prediction of Pathogen-Host Protein-Protein Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Esmaeil eNourani

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Infectious diseases are still among the major and prevalent health problems, mostly because of the drug resistance of novel variants of pathogens. Molecular interactions between pathogens and their hosts are the key part of the infection mechanisms. Novel antimicrobial therapeutics to fight drug resistance is only possible in case of a thorough understanding of pathogen-host interaction (PHI systems. Existing databases, which contain experimentally verified PHI data, suffer from scarcity of reported interactions due to the technically challenging and time consuming process of experiments. This has motivated many researchers to address the problem by proposing computational approaches for analysis and prediction of PHIs. The computational methods primarily utilize sequence information, protein structure and known interactions. Classic machine learning techniques are used when there are sufficient known interactions to be used as training data. On the opposite case, transfer and multi task learning methods are preferred. Here, we present an overview of these computational approaches for PHI prediction, discussing their weakness and abilities, with future directions.

  2. Population reversal driven by unrestrained interactions in molecular dynamics simulations: A dialanine model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Filippo Pullara

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Standard Molecular Dynamics simulations (MD are usually performed under periodic boundary conditions using the well-established “Ewald summation”. This implies that the distance among each element in a given lattice cell and its corresponding element in another cell, as well as their relative orientations, are constant. Consequently, protein-protein interactions between proteins in different cells—important in many biological activities, such as protein cooperativity and physiological/pathological aggregation—are severely restricted, and features driven by protein-protein interactions are lost. The consequences of these restrictions, although conceptually understood and mentioned in the literature, have not been quantitatively studied before. The effect of protein-protein interactions on the free energy landscape of a model system, dialanine, is presented. This simple system features a free energy diagram with well-separated minima. It is found that, in the case of absence of peptide-peptide (p-p interactions, the ψ = 150° dihedral angle determines the most energetically favored conformation (global free-energy minimum. When strong p-p interactions are induced, the global minimum switches to the ψ = 0° conformation. This shows that the free-energy landscape of an individual molecule is dramatically affected by the presence of other freely interacting molecules of its same type. Results of the study suggest how taking into account p-p interactions in MD allows having a more realistic picture of system activity and functional conformations.

  3. Oligomeric protein structure networks: insights into protein-protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brinda KV

    2005-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Protein-protein association is essential for a variety of cellular processes and hence a large number of investigations are being carried out to understand the principles of protein-protein interactions. In this study, oligomeric protein structures are viewed from a network perspective to obtain new insights into protein association. Structure graphs of proteins have been constructed from a non-redundant set of protein oligomer crystal structures by considering amino acid residues as nodes and the edges are based on the strength of the non-covalent interactions between the residues. The analysis of such networks has been carried out in terms of amino acid clusters and hubs (highly connected residues with special emphasis to protein interfaces. Results A variety of interactions such as hydrogen bond, salt bridges, aromatic and hydrophobic interactions, which occur at the interfaces are identified in a consolidated manner as amino acid clusters at the interface, from this study. Moreover, the characterization of the highly connected hub-forming residues at the interfaces and their comparison with the hubs from the non-interface regions and the non-hubs in the interface regions show that there is a predominance of charged interactions at the interfaces. Further, strong and weak interfaces are identified on the basis of the interaction strength between amino acid residues and the sizes of the interface clusters, which also show that many protein interfaces are stronger than their monomeric protein cores. The interface strengths evaluated based on the interface clusters and hubs also correlate well with experimentally determined dissociation constants for known complexes. Finally, the interface hubs identified using the present method correlate very well with experimentally determined hotspots in the interfaces of protein complexes obtained from the Alanine Scanning Energetics database (ASEdb. A few predictions of interface hot

  4. Human cancer protein-protein interaction network: a structural perspective.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gozde Kar

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available Protein-protein interaction networks provide a global picture of cellular function and biological processes. Some proteins act as hub proteins, highly connected to others, whereas some others have few interactions. The dysfunction of some interactions causes many diseases, including cancer. Proteins interact through their interfaces. Therefore, studying the interface properties of cancer-related proteins will help explain their role in the interaction networks. Similar or overlapping binding sites should be used repeatedly in single interface hub proteins, making them promiscuous. Alternatively, multi-interface hub proteins make use of several distinct binding sites to bind to different partners. We propose a methodology to integrate protein interfaces into cancer interaction networks (ciSPIN, cancer structural protein interface network. The interactions in the human protein interaction network are replaced by interfaces, coming from either known or predicted complexes. We provide a detailed analysis of cancer related human protein-protein interfaces and the topological properties of the cancer network. The results reveal that cancer-related proteins have smaller, more planar, more charged and less hydrophobic binding sites than non-cancer proteins, which may indicate low affinity and high specificity of the cancer-related interactions. We also classified the genes in ciSPIN according to phenotypes. Within phenotypes, for breast cancer, colorectal cancer and leukemia, interface properties were found to be discriminating from non-cancer interfaces with an accuracy of 71%, 67%, 61%, respectively. In addition, cancer-related proteins tend to interact with their partners through distinct interfaces, corresponding mostly to multi-interface hubs, which comprise 56% of cancer-related proteins, and constituting the nodes with higher essentiality in the network (76%. We illustrate the interface related affinity properties of two cancer-related hub

  5. Characterization of MRP RNA-protein interactions within the perinucleolar compartment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pollock, Callie; Daily, Kelly; Nguyen, Van Trung; Wang, Chen; Lewandowska, Marzena Anna; Bensaude, Olivier; Huang, Sui

    2011-03-15

    The perinucleolar compartment (PNC) forms in cancer cells and is highly enriched with a subset of polymerase III RNAs and RNA-binding proteins. Here we report that PNC components mitochondrial RNA-processing (MRP) RNA, pyrimidine tract-binding protein (PTB), and CUG-binding protein (CUGBP) interact in vivo, as demonstrated by coimmunoprecipitation and RNA pull-down experiments. Glycerol gradient analyses show that this complex is large and sediments at a different fraction from known MRP RNA-containing complexes, the MRP ribonucleoprotein ribozyme and human telomerase reverse transcriptase. Tethering PNC components to a LacO locus recruits other PNC components, further confirming the in vivo interactions. These interactions are present both in PNC-containing and -lacking cells. High-resolution localization analyses demonstrate that MRP RNA, CUGBP, and PTB colocalize at the PNC as a reticulated network, intertwining with newly synthesized RNA. Furthermore, green fluorescent protein (GFP)-PTB and GFP-CUGBP show a slower rate of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching at the PNC than in the nucleoplasm, illustrating the different molecular interaction of the complexes associated with the PNC. These findings support a working model in which the MRP RNA-protein complex becomes nucleated at the PNC in cancer cells and may play a role in gene expression regulation at the DNA locus that associates with the PNC.

  6. Molecular and functional interactions of cat APOBEC3 and feline foamy and immunodeficiency virus proteins: different ways to counteract host-encoded restriction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chareza, Sarah; Slavkovic Lukic, Dragana; Liu, Yang; Räthe, Ann-Mareen; Münk, Carsten; Zabogli, Elisa; Pistello, Mauro; Löchelt, Martin

    2012-03-15

    Defined host-encoded feline APOBEC3 (feA3) cytidine deaminases efficiently restrict the replication and spread of exogenous retroviruses like Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) and Feline Foamy Virus (FFV) which developed different feA3 counter-acting strategies. Here we characterize the molecular interaction of FFV proteins with the diverse feA3 proteins. The FFV accessory protein Bet is the virus-encoded defense factor which is shown here to bind all feA3 proteins independent of whether they restrict FFV, a feature shared with FIV Vif that induces degradation of all feA3s including those that do not inactivate FIV. In contrast, only some feA3 proteins bind to FFV Gag, a pattern that in part reflects the restriction pattern detected. Additionally, one-domain feA3 proteins can homo- and hetero-dimerize in vitro, but a trans-dominant phenotype of any of the low-activity feA3 forms on FFV restriction by one of the highly-active feA3Z2 proteins was not detectable. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Protein-protein interactions: an application of Tus-Ter mediated protein microarray system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sitaraman, Kalavathy; Chatterjee, Deb K

    2011-01-01

    In this chapter, we present a novel, cost-effective microarray strategy that utilizes expression-ready plasmid DNAs to generate protein arrays on-demand and its use to validate protein-protein interactions. These expression plasmids were constructed in such a way so as to serve a dual purpose of synthesizing the protein of interest as well as capturing the synthesized protein. The microarray system is based on the high affinity binding of Escherichia coli "Tus" protein to "Ter," a 20 bp DNA sequence involved in the regulation of DNA replication. The protein expression is carried out in a cell-free protein synthesis system, with rabbit reticulocyte lysates, and the target proteins are detected either by labeled incorporated tag specific or by gene-specific antibodies. This microarray system has been successfully used for the detection of protein-protein interaction because both the target protein and the query protein can be transcribed and translated simultaneously in the microarray slides. The utility of this system for detecting protein-protein interaction is demonstrated by a few well-known examples: Jun/Fos, FRB/FKBP12, p53/MDM2, and CDK4/p16. In all these cases, the presence of protein complexes resulted in the localization of fluorophores at the specific sites of the immobilized target plasmids. Interestingly, during our interactions studies we also detected a previously unknown interaction between CDK2 and p16. Thus, this Tus-Ter based system of protein microarray can be used for the validation of known protein interactions as well as for identifying new protein-protein interactions. In addition, it can be used to examine and identify targets of nucleic acid-protein, ligand-receptor, enzyme-substrate, and drug-protein interactions.

  8. PIPE: a protein-protein interaction prediction engine based on the re-occurring short polypeptide sequences between known interacting protein pairs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Greenblatt Jack

    2006-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Identification of protein interaction networks has received considerable attention in the post-genomic era. The currently available biochemical approaches used to detect protein-protein interactions are all time and labour intensive. Consequently there is a growing need for the development of computational tools that are capable of effectively identifying such interactions. Results Here we explain the development and implementation of a novel Protein-Protein Interaction Prediction Engine termed PIPE. This tool is capable of predicting protein-protein interactions for any target pair of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae proteins from their primary structure and without the need for any additional information or predictions about the proteins. PIPE showed a sensitivity of 61% for detecting any yeast protein interaction with 89% specificity and an overall accuracy of 75%. This rate of success is comparable to those associated with the most commonly used biochemical techniques. Using PIPE, we identified a novel interaction between YGL227W (vid30 and YMR135C (gid8 yeast proteins. This lead us to the identification of a novel yeast complex that here we term vid30 complex (vid30c. The observed interaction was confirmed by tandem affinity purification (TAP tag, verifying the ability of PIPE to predict novel protein-protein interactions. We then used PIPE analysis to investigate the internal architecture of vid30c. It appeared from PIPE analysis that vid30c may consist of a core and a secondary component. Generation of yeast gene deletion strains combined with TAP tagging analysis indicated that the deletion of a member of the core component interfered with the formation of vid30c, however, deletion of a member of the secondary component had little effect (if any on the formation of vid30c. Also, PIPE can be used to analyse yeast proteins for which TAP tagging fails, thereby allowing us to predict protein interactions that are not

  9. Topology and weights in a protein domain interaction network--a novel way to predict protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wuchty, Stefan

    2006-05-23

    While the analysis of unweighted biological webs as diverse as genetic, protein and metabolic networks allowed spectacular insights in the inner workings of a cell, biological networks are not only determined by their static grid of links. In fact, we expect that the heterogeneity in the utilization of connections has a major impact on the organization of cellular activities as well. We consider a web of interactions between protein domains of the Protein Family database (PFAM), which are weighted by a probability score. We apply metrics that combine the static layout and the weights of the underlying interactions. We observe that unweighted measures as well as their weighted counterparts largely share the same trends in the underlying domain interaction network. However, we only find weak signals that weights and the static grid of interactions are connected entities. Therefore assuming that a protein interaction is governed by a single domain interaction, we observe strong and significant correlations of the highest scoring domain interaction and the confidence of protein interactions in the underlying interactions of yeast and fly. Modeling an interaction between proteins if we find a high scoring protein domain interaction we obtain 1, 428 protein interactions among 361 proteins in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Assessing their quality by a logistic regression method we observe that increasing confidence of predicted interactions is accompanied by high scoring domain interactions and elevated levels of functional similarity and evolutionary conservation. Our results indicate that probability scores are randomly distributed, allowing to treat static grid and weights of domain interactions as separate entities. In particular, these finding confirms earlier observations that a protein interaction is a matter of a single interaction event on domain level. As an immediate application, we show a simple way to predict potential protein interactions

  10. An ontology-based search engine for protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Byungkyu; Han, Kyungsook

    2010-01-18

    Keyword matching or ID matching is the most common searching method in a large database of protein-protein interactions. They are purely syntactic methods, and retrieve the records in the database that contain a keyword or ID specified in a query. Such syntactic search methods often retrieve too few search results or no results despite many potential matches present in the database. We have developed a new method for representing protein-protein interactions and the Gene Ontology (GO) using modified Gödel numbers. This representation is hidden from users but enables a search engine using the representation to efficiently search protein-protein interactions in a biologically meaningful way. Given a query protein with optional search conditions expressed in one or more GO terms, the search engine finds all the interaction partners of the query protein by unique prime factorization of the modified Gödel numbers representing the query protein and the search conditions. Representing the biological relations of proteins and their GO annotations by modified Gödel numbers makes a search engine efficiently find all protein-protein interactions by prime factorization of the numbers. Keyword matching or ID matching search methods often miss the interactions involving a protein that has no explicit annotations matching the search condition, but our search engine retrieves such interactions as well if they satisfy the search condition with a more specific term in the ontology.

  11. Identification of Inhibitors of Biological Interactions Involving Intrinsically Disordered Proteins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniela Marasco

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Protein–protein interactions involving disordered partners have unique features and represent prominent targets in drug discovery processes. Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs are involved in cellular regulation, signaling and control: they bind to multiple partners and these high-specificity/low-affinity interactions play crucial roles in many human diseases. Disordered regions, terminal tails and flexible linkers are particularly abundant in DNA-binding proteins and play crucial roles in the affinity and specificity of DNA recognizing processes. Protein complexes involving IDPs are short-lived and typically involve short amino acid stretches bearing few “hot spots”, thus the identification of molecules able to modulate them can produce important lead compounds: in this scenario peptides and/or peptidomimetics, deriving from structure-based, combinatorial or protein dissection approaches, can play a key role as hit compounds. Here, we propose a panoramic review of the structural features of IDPs and how they regulate molecular recognition mechanisms focusing attention on recently reported drug-design strategies in the field of IDPs.

  12. Unraveling the molecular mechanism of interactions of the Rho GTPases Cdc42 and Rac1 with the scaffolding protein IQGAP2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozdemir, E Sila; Jang, Hyunbum; Gursoy, Attila; Keskin, Ozlem; Li, Zhigang; Sacks, David B; Nussinov, Ruth

    2018-03-09

    IQ motif-containing GTPase-activating proteins (IQGAPs) are scaffolding proteins playing central roles in cell-cell adhesion, polarity, and motility. The Rho GTPases Cdc42 and Rac1, in their GTP-bound active forms, interact with all three human IQGAPs. The IQGAP-Cdc42 interaction promotes metastasis by enhancing actin polymerization. However, despite their high sequence identity, Cdc42 and Rac1 differ in their interactions with IQGAP. Two Cdc42 molecules can bind to the Ex-domain and the RasGAP site of the GTPase-activating protein (GAP)-related domain (GRD) of IQGAP and promote IQGAP dimerization. Only one Rac1 molecule might bind to the RasGAP site of GRD and may not facilitate the dimerization, and the exact mechanism of Cdc42 and Rac1 binding to IQGAP is unclear. Using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, site-directed mutagenesis, and Western blotting, we unraveled the detailed mechanisms of Cdc42 and Rac1 interactions with IQGAP2. We observed that Cdc42 binding to the Ex-domain of GRD of IQGAP2 (GRD2) releases the Ex-domain at the C-terminal region of GRD2, facilitating IQGAP2 dimerization. Cdc42 binding to the Ex-domain promoted allosteric changes in the RasGAP site, providing a binding site for the second Cdc42 in the RasGAP site. Of note, the Cdc42 "insert loop" was important for the interaction of the first Cdc42 with the Ex-domain. By contrast, differences in Rac1 insert-loop sequence and structure precluded its interaction with the Ex-domain. Rac1 could bind only to the RasGAP site of apo-GRD2 and could not facilitate IQGAP2 dimerization. Our detailed mechanistic insights help decipher how Cdc42 can stimulate actin polymerization in metastasis.

  13. Topological, functional, and dynamic properties of the protein interaction networks rewired by benzo(a)pyrene

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ba, Qian; Li, Junyang; Huang, Chao; Li, Jingquan; Chu, Ruiai; Wu, Yongning; Wang, Hui

    2015-01-01

    Benzo(a)pyrene is a common environmental and foodborne pollutant that has been identified as a human carcinogen. Although the carcinogenicity of benzo(a)pyrene has been extensively reported, its precise molecular mechanisms and the influence on system-level protein networks are not well understood. To investigate the system-level influence of benzo(a)pyrene on protein interactions and regulatory networks, a benzo(a)pyrene-rewired protein interaction network was constructed based on 769 key proteins derived from more than 500 literature reports. The protein interaction network rewired by benzo(a)pyrene was a scale-free, highly-connected biological system. Ten modules were identified, and 25 signaling pathways were enriched, most of which belong to the human diseases category, especially cancer and infectious disease. In addition, two lung-specific and two liver-specific pathways were identified. Three pathways were specific in short and medium-term networks (< 48 h), and five pathways were enriched only in the medium-term network (6 h–48 h). Finally, the expression of linker genes in the network was validated by Western blotting. These findings establish the overall, tissue- and time-specific benzo(a)pyrene-rewired protein interaction networks and provide insights into the biological effects and molecular mechanisms of action of benzo(a)pyrene. - Highlights: • Benzo(a)pyrene induced scale-free, highly-connected protein interaction networks. • 25 signaling pathways were enriched through modular analysis. • Tissue- and time-specific pathways were identified

  14. Topological, functional, and dynamic properties of the protein interaction networks rewired by benzo(a)pyrene

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ba, Qian [Key Laboratory of Food Safety Research, Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai (China); Key Laboratory of Food Safety Risk Assessment, Ministry of Health, Beijing (China); Li, Junyang; Huang, Chao [Key Laboratory of Food Safety Research, Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai (China); Li, Jingquan; Chu, Ruiai [Key Laboratory of Food Safety Research, Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai (China); Key Laboratory of Food Safety Risk Assessment, Ministry of Health, Beijing (China); Wu, Yongning, E-mail: wuyongning@cfsa.net.cn [Key Laboratory of Food Safety Risk Assessment, Ministry of Health, Beijing (China); Wang, Hui, E-mail: huiwang@sibs.ac.cn [Key Laboratory of Food Safety Research, Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai (China); Key Laboratory of Food Safety Risk Assessment, Ministry of Health, Beijing (China); School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai (China)

    2015-03-01

    Benzo(a)pyrene is a common environmental and foodborne pollutant that has been identified as a human carcinogen. Although the carcinogenicity of benzo(a)pyrene has been extensively reported, its precise molecular mechanisms and the influence on system-level protein networks are not well understood. To investigate the system-level influence of benzo(a)pyrene on protein interactions and regulatory networks, a benzo(a)pyrene-rewired protein interaction network was constructed based on 769 key proteins derived from more than 500 literature reports. The protein interaction network rewired by benzo(a)pyrene was a scale-free, highly-connected biological system. Ten modules were identified, and 25 signaling pathways were enriched, most of which belong to the human diseases category, especially cancer and infectious disease. In addition, two lung-specific and two liver-specific pathways were identified. Three pathways were specific in short and medium-term networks (< 48 h), and five pathways were enriched only in the medium-term network (6 h–48 h). Finally, the expression of linker genes in the network was validated by Western blotting. These findings establish the overall, tissue- and time-specific benzo(a)pyrene-rewired protein interaction networks and provide insights into the biological effects and molecular mechanisms of action of benzo(a)pyrene. - Highlights: • Benzo(a)pyrene induced scale-free, highly-connected protein interaction networks. • 25 signaling pathways were enriched through modular analysis. • Tissue- and time-specific pathways were identified.

  15. iview: an interactive WebGL visualizer for protein-ligand complex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Hongjian; Leung, Kwong-Sak; Nakane, Takanori; Wong, Man-Hon

    2014-02-25

    Visualization of protein-ligand complex plays an important role in elaborating protein-ligand interactions and aiding novel drug design. Most existing web visualizers either rely on slow software rendering, or lack virtual reality support. The vital feature of macromolecular surface construction is also unavailable. We have developed iview, an easy-to-use interactive WebGL visualizer of protein-ligand complex. It exploits hardware acceleration rather than software rendering. It features three special effects in virtual reality settings, namely anaglyph, parallax barrier and oculus rift, resulting in visually appealing identification of intermolecular interactions. It supports four surface representations including Van der Waals surface, solvent excluded surface, solvent accessible surface and molecular surface. Moreover, based on the feature-rich version of iview, we have also developed a neat and tailor-made version specifically for our istar web platform for protein-ligand docking purpose. This demonstrates the excellent portability of iview. Using innovative 3D techniques, we provide a user friendly visualizer that is not intended to compete with professional visualizers, but to enable easy accessibility and platform independence.

  16. A force-based, parallel assay for the quantification of protein-DNA interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Limmer, Katja; Pippig, Diana A; Aschenbrenner, Daniela; Gaub, Hermann E

    2014-01-01

    Analysis of transcription factor binding to DNA sequences is of utmost importance to understand the intricate regulatory mechanisms that underlie gene expression. Several techniques exist that quantify DNA-protein affinity, but they are either very time-consuming or suffer from possible misinterpretation due to complicated algorithms or approximations like many high-throughput techniques. We present a more direct method to quantify DNA-protein interaction in a force-based assay. In contrast to single-molecule force spectroscopy, our technique, the Molecular Force Assay (MFA), parallelizes force measurements so that it can test one or multiple proteins against several DNA sequences in a single experiment. The interaction strength is quantified by comparison to the well-defined rupture stability of different DNA duplexes. As a proof-of-principle, we measured the interaction of the zinc finger construct Zif268/NRE against six different DNA constructs. We could show the specificity of our approach and quantify the strength of the protein-DNA interaction.

  17. A force-based, parallel assay for the quantification of protein-DNA interactions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katja Limmer

    Full Text Available Analysis of transcription factor binding to DNA sequences is of utmost importance to understand the intricate regulatory mechanisms that underlie gene expression. Several techniques exist that quantify DNA-protein affinity, but they are either very time-consuming or suffer from possible misinterpretation due to complicated algorithms or approximations like many high-throughput techniques. We present a more direct method to quantify DNA-protein interaction in a force-based assay. In contrast to single-molecule force spectroscopy, our technique, the Molecular Force Assay (MFA, parallelizes force measurements so that it can test one or multiple proteins against several DNA sequences in a single experiment. The interaction strength is quantified by comparison to the well-defined rupture stability of different DNA duplexes. As a proof-of-principle, we measured the interaction of the zinc finger construct Zif268/NRE against six different DNA constructs. We could show the specificity of our approach and quantify the strength of the protein-DNA interaction.

  18. Structural and energetic study of cation-π-cation interactions in proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pinheiro, Silvana; Soteras, Ignacio; Gelpí, Josep Lluis; Dehez, François; Chipot, Christophe; Luque, F Javier; Curutchet, Carles

    2017-04-12

    Cation-π interactions of aromatic rings and positively charged groups are among the most important interactions in structural biology. The role and energetic characteristics of these interactions are well established. However, the occurrence of cation-π-cation interactions is an unexpected motif, which raises intriguing questions about its functional role in proteins. We present a statistical analysis of the occurrence, composition and geometrical preferences of cation-π-cation interactions identified in a set of non-redundant protein structures taken from the Protein Data Bank. Our results demonstrate that this structural motif is observed at a small, albeit non-negligible frequency in proteins, and suggest a preference to establish cation-π-cation motifs with Trp, followed by Tyr and Phe. Furthermore, we have found that cation-π-cation interactions tend to be highly conserved, which supports their structural or functional role. Finally, we have performed an energetic analysis of a representative subset of cation-π-cation complexes combining quantum-chemical and continuum solvation calculations. Our results point out that the protein environment can strongly screen the cation-cation repulsion, leading to an attractive interaction in 64% of the complexes analyzed. Together with the high degree of conservation observed, these results suggest a potential stabilizing role in the protein fold, as demonstrated recently for a miniature protein (Craven et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 1543). From a computational point of view, the significant contribution of non-additive three-body terms challenges the suitability of standard additive force fields for describing cation-π-cation motifs in molecular simulations.

  19. Simple and efficient machine learning frameworks for identifying protein-protein interaction relevant articles and experimental methods used to study the interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agarwal, Shashank; Liu, Feifan; Yu, Hong

    2011-10-03

    Protein-protein interaction (PPI) is an important biomedical phenomenon. Automatically detecting PPI-relevant articles and identifying methods that are used to study PPI are important text mining tasks. In this study, we have explored domain independent features to develop two open source machine learning frameworks. One performs binary classification to determine whether the given article is PPI relevant or not, named "Simple Classifier", and the other one maps the PPI relevant articles with corresponding interaction method nodes in a standardized PSI-MI (Proteomics Standards Initiative-Molecular Interactions) ontology, named "OntoNorm". We evaluated our system in the context of BioCreative challenge competition using the standardized data set. Our systems are amongst the top systems reported by the organizers, attaining 60.8% F1-score for identifying relevant documents, and 52.3% F1-score for mapping articles to interaction method ontology. Our results show that domain-independent machine learning frameworks can perform competitively well at the tasks of detecting PPI relevant articles and identifying the methods that were used to study the interaction in such articles. Simple Classifier is available at http://sourceforge.net/p/simpleclassify/home/ and OntoNorm at http://sourceforge.net/p/ontonorm/home/.

  20. A systems biology strategy to identify molecular mechanisms of action and protein indicators of traumatic brain injury.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Chenggang; Boutté, Angela; Yu, Xueping; Dutta, Bhaskar; Feala, Jacob D; Schmid, Kara; Dave, Jitendra; Tawa, Gregory J; Wallqvist, Anders; Reifman, Jaques

    2015-02-01

    The multifactorial nature of traumatic brain injury (TBI), especially the complex secondary tissue injury involving intertwined networks of molecular pathways that mediate cellular behavior, has confounded attempts to elucidate the pathology underlying the progression of TBI. Here, systems biology strategies are exploited to identify novel molecular mechanisms and protein indicators of brain injury. To this end, we performed a meta-analysis of four distinct high-throughput gene expression studies involving different animal models of TBI. By using canonical pathways and a large human protein-interaction network as a scaffold, we separately overlaid the gene expression data from each study to identify molecular signatures that were conserved across the different studies. At 24 hr after injury, the significantly activated molecular signatures were nonspecific to TBI, whereas the significantly suppressed molecular signatures were specific to the nervous system. In particular, we identified a suppressed subnetwork consisting of 58 highly interacting, coregulated proteins associated with synaptic function. We selected three proteins from this subnetwork, postsynaptic density protein 95, nitric oxide synthase 1, and disrupted in schizophrenia 1, and hypothesized that their abundance would be significantly reduced after TBI. In a penetrating ballistic-like brain injury rat model of severe TBI, Western blot analysis confirmed our hypothesis. In addition, our analysis recovered 12 previously identified protein biomarkers of TBI. The results suggest that systems biology may provide an efficient, high-yield approach to generate testable hypotheses that can be experimentally validated to identify novel mechanisms of action and molecular indicators of TBI. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Neuroscience Research Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. Can infrared spectroscopy provide information on protein-protein interactions?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haris, Parvez I

    2010-08-01

    For most biophysical techniques, characterization of protein-protein interactions is challenging; this is especially true with methods that rely on a physical phenomenon that is common to both of the interacting proteins. Thus, for example, in IR spectroscopy, the carbonyl vibration (1600-1700 cm(-1)) associated with the amide bonds from both of the interacting proteins will overlap extensively, making the interpretation of spectral changes very complicated. Isotope-edited infrared spectroscopy, where one of the interacting proteins is uniformly labelled with (13)C or (13)C,(15)N has been introduced as a solution to this problem, enabling the study of protein-protein interactions using IR spectroscopy. The large shift of the amide I band (approx. 45 cm(-1) towards lower frequency) upon (13)C labelling of one of the proteins reveals the amide I band of the unlabelled protein, enabling it to be used as a probe for monitoring conformational changes. With site-specific isotopic labelling, structural resolution at the level of individual amino acid residues can be achieved. Furthermore, the ability to record IR spectra of proteins in diverse environments means that isotope-edited IR spectroscopy can be used to structurally characterize difficult systems such as protein-protein complexes bound to membranes or large insoluble peptide/protein aggregates. In the present article, examples of application of isotope-edited IR spectroscopy for studying protein-protein interactions are provided.

  2. Connecting Protein Structure to Intermolecular Interactions: A Computer Modeling Laboratory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abualia, Mohammed; Schroeder, Lianne; Garcia, Megan; Daubenmire, Patrick L.; Wink, Donald J.; Clark, Ginevra A.

    2016-01-01

    An understanding of protein folding relies on a solid foundation of a number of critical chemical concepts, such as molecular structure, intra-/intermolecular interactions, and relating structure to function. Recent reports show that students struggle on all levels to achieve these understandings and use them in meaningful ways. Further, several…

  3. The role of wine polysaccharides on salivary protein-tannin interaction: A molecular approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brandão, Elsa; Silva, Mafalda Santos; García-Estévez, Ignacio; Williams, Pascale; Mateus, Nuno; Doco, Thierry; de Freitas, Victor; Soares, Susana

    2017-12-01

    Polysaccharides are described to inhibit aggregation between food polyphenols and salivary proteins (SP) and may hence lead to astringency modulation. In this work, the effect of two wine polysaccharides (arabinogalactan proteins-AGPs and rhamnogalacturonan II- RGII) on SP-polyphenol interaction was evaluated. In general, both polysaccharides were effective to inhibit or reduce SP-polyphenol interaction and aggregation. They can act by two different mechanisms (ternary or competitive) depending on the SP-tannin pair. In the case of salivary P-B peptide, AGPs and RGII seem to act by a ternary mechanism, in which they surround this complex, enhancing its solubility. Concerning acidic proline-rich proteins (aPRPs), it was possible to observe both mechanisms, depending on the tannin and the polysaccharide involved. Overall, this work point out for a specific property of wine polysaccharides important to modulate this and other beverages and food astringency perception. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. N-way FRET microscopy of multiple protein-protein interactions in live cells.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adam D Hoppe

    Full Text Available Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET microscopy has emerged as a powerful tool to visualize nanoscale protein-protein interactions while capturing their microscale organization and millisecond dynamics. Recently, FRET microscopy was extended to imaging of multiple donor-acceptor pairs, thereby enabling visualization of multiple biochemical events within a single living cell. These methods require numerous equations that must be defined on a case-by-case basis. Here, we present a universal multispectral microscopy method (N-Way FRET to enable quantitative imaging for any number of interacting and non-interacting FRET pairs. This approach redefines linear unmixing to incorporate the excitation and emission couplings created by FRET, which cannot be accounted for in conventional linear unmixing. Experiments on a three-fluorophore system using blue, yellow and red fluorescent proteins validate the method in living cells. In addition, we propose a simple linear algebra scheme for error propagation from input data to estimate the uncertainty in the computed FRET images. We demonstrate the strength of this approach by monitoring the oligomerization of three FP-tagged HIV Gag proteins whose tight association in the viral capsid is readily observed. Replacement of one FP-Gag molecule with a lipid raft-targeted FP allowed direct observation of Gag oligomerization with no association between FP-Gag and raft-targeted FP. The N-Way FRET method provides a new toolbox for capturing multiple molecular processes with high spatial and temporal resolution in living cells.

  5. Human-Chromatin-Related Protein Interactions Identify a Demethylase Complex Required for Chromosome Segregation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edyta Marcon

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Chromatin regulation is driven by multicomponent protein complexes, which form functional modules. Deciphering the components of these modules and their interactions is central to understanding the molecular pathways these proteins are regulating, their functions, and their relation to both normal development and disease. We describe the use of affinity purifications of tagged human proteins coupled with mass spectrometry to generate a protein-protein interaction map encompassing known and predicted chromatin-related proteins. On the basis of 1,394 successful purifications of 293 proteins, we report a high-confidence (85% precision network involving 11,464 protein-protein interactions among 1,738 different human proteins, grouped into 164 often overlapping protein complexes with a particular focus on the family of JmjC-containing lysine demethylases, their partners, and their roles in chromatin remodeling. We show that RCCD1 is a partner of histone H3K36 demethylase KDM8 and demonstrate that both are important for cell-cycle-regulated transcriptional repression in centromeric regions and accurate mitotic division.

  6. Molecular properties of mammalian proteins that interact with cGMP: protein kinases, cation channels, phosphodiesterases, and multi-drug anion transporters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Francis, Sharron H; Blount, Mitsi A; Zoraghi, Roya; Corbin, Jackie D

    2005-09-01

    Cyclic GMP is a critical second messenger signaling molecule in many mammalian cell types. It is synthesized by a family of guanylyl cyclases that is activated in response to stimuli from hormones such as natriuretic peptides, members of the guanylin family, and chemical stimuli including nitric oxide and carbon monoxide. The resulting elevation of cGMP modulates myriad physiological processes. Three major groups of cellular proteins bind cGMP specifically at allosteric sites; interaction of cGMP with these sites modulates the activities and functions of other domains within these protein groups to bring about physiological effects. These proteins include the cyclic nucleotide (cN)-dependent protein kinases, cN-gated cation channels, and cGMP-binding phosphodiesterases (PDE). Cyclic GMP also interacts with the catalytic sites of many cN PDEs and with some members of the multi-drug anion transporter family (MRPs) which can extrude nucleotides from cells. The allosteric cN-binding sites in the kinases and the cN-gated channels are evolutionarily and biochemically related, whereas the allosteric cGMP-binding sites in PDEs (also known as GAF domains), the catalytic sites of PDEs , and the ligand-binding sites in the MRPs are evolutionarily and biochemically distinct from each other and from those in the kinase and channel families. The sites that interact with cGMP within each of these groups of proteins have unique properties that provide for cGMP binding. Within a given cell, cGMP can potentially interact with members of all these groups of proteins if they are present. The relative abundance and affinities of these various cGMP-binding sites in conjunction with their subcellular compartmentation, proximity to cyclases and PDEs, and post-translational modification contribute importantly in determining the impact of these respective proteins to cGMP signaling within a particular cell.

  7. Environmentally sensitive probes for monitoring protein-membrane interactions at nanomolar concentrations

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Shvadchak, Volodymyr V.; Kucherak, Oleksandr; Afitska, Kseniia; Dziuba, D.; Yushchenko, Dmytro A.

    2017-01-01

    Roč. 1859, č. 5 (2017), s. 852-859 ISSN 0005-2736 Institutional support: RVO:61388963 Keywords : solvatochromic probes * fluorescence * protein-membrane interaction * affinity * binding stoichiometry * alpha-synuclein Subject RIV: CE - Biochemistry OBOR OECD: Biochemistry and molecular biology Impact factor: 3.498, year: 2016

  8. Effect of Astringent Stimuli on Salivary Protein Interactions Elucidated by Complementary Proteomics Approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Delius, Judith; Médard, Guillaume; Kuster, Bernhard; Hofmann, Thomas

    2017-03-15

    The interaction of astringent substances with salivary proteins, which results in protein precipitation, is considered a key event in the molecular mechanism underlying the oral sensation of puckering astringency. As the chemical nature of orally active astringents is diverse and the knowledge of their interactions with salivary proteins rather fragmentary, human whole saliva samples were incubated with suprathreshold and isointensity solutions of the astringent polyphenol (-)-epigallocatechin gallate, the multivalent metal salt iron(III) sulfate, the amino-functionalized polysaccharide chitosan, and the basic protein lysozyme. After separation of the precipitated proteins, the proteins affected by the astringents were identified and relatively quantified for the first time by complementary bottom-up and top-down mass spectrometry-based proteomics approaches. Major salivary target proteins, which may be involved in astringency perception, are reported here for each astringent stimulus.

  9. Evaluation of clustering algorithms for protein-protein interaction networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    van Helden Jacques

    2006-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Protein interactions are crucial components of all cellular processes. Recently, high-throughput methods have been developed to obtain a global description of the interactome (the whole network of protein interactions for a given organism. In 2002, the yeast interactome was estimated to contain up to 80,000 potential interactions. This estimate is based on the integration of data sets obtained by various methods (mass spectrometry, two-hybrid methods, genetic studies. High-throughput methods are known, however, to yield a non-negligible rate of false positives, and to miss a fraction of existing interactions. The interactome can be represented as a graph where nodes correspond with proteins and edges with pairwise interactions. In recent years clustering methods have been developed and applied in order to extract relevant modules from such graphs. These algorithms require the specification of parameters that may drastically affect the results. In this paper we present a comparative assessment of four algorithms: Markov Clustering (MCL, Restricted Neighborhood Search Clustering (RNSC, Super Paramagnetic Clustering (SPC, and Molecular Complex Detection (MCODE. Results A test graph was built on the basis of 220 complexes annotated in the MIPS database. To evaluate the robustness to false positives and false negatives, we derived 41 altered graphs by randomly removing edges from or adding edges to the test graph in various proportions. Each clustering algorithm was applied to these graphs with various parameter settings, and the clusters were compared with the annotated complexes. We analyzed the sensitivity of the algorithms to the parameters and determined their optimal parameter values. We also evaluated their robustness to alterations of the test graph. We then applied the four algorithms to six graphs obtained from high-throughput experiments and compared the resulting clusters with the annotated complexes. Conclusion This

  10. Biospecific protein immobilization for rapid analysis of weak protein interactions using self-interaction nanoparticle spectroscopy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bengali, Aditya N; Tessier, Peter M

    2009-10-01

    "Reversible" protein interactions govern diverse biological behavior ranging from intracellular transport and toxic protein aggregation to protein crystallization and inactivation of protein therapeutics. Much less is known about weak protein interactions than their stronger counterparts since they are difficult to characterize, especially in a parallel format (in contrast to a sequential format) necessary for high-throughput screening. We have recently introduced a highly efficient approach of characterizing protein self-association, namely self-interaction nanoparticle spectroscopy (SINS; Tessier et al., 2008; J Am Chem Soc 130:3106-3112). This approach exploits the separation-dependent optical properties of gold nanoparticles to detect weak self-interactions between proteins immobilized on nanoparticles. A limitation of our previous work is that differences in the sequence and structure of proteins can lead to significant differences in their affinity to adsorb to nanoparticle surfaces, which complicates analysis of the corresponding protein self-association behavior. In this work we demonstrate a highly specific approach for coating nanoparticles with proteins using biotin-avidin interactions to generate protein-nanoparticle conjugates that report protein self-interactions through changes in their optical properties. Using lysozyme as a model protein that is refractory to characterization by conventional SINS, we demonstrate that surface Plasmon wavelengths for gold-avidin-lysozyme conjugates over a range of solution conditions (i.e., pH and ionic strength) are well correlated with lysozyme osmotic second virial coefficient measurements. Since SINS requires orders of magnitude less protein and time than conventional methods (e.g., static light scattering), we envision this approach will find application in large screens of protein self-association aimed at either preventing (e.g., protein aggregation) or promoting (e.g., protein crystallization) these

  11. Selection of peptides interfering with protein-protein interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaida, Annette; Hagemann, Urs B; Mattay, Dinah; Räuber, Christina; Müller, Kristian M; Arndt, Katja M

    2009-01-01

    Cell physiology depends on a fine-tuned network of protein-protein interactions, and misguided interactions are often associated with various diseases. Consequently, peptides, which are able to specifically interfere with such adventitious interactions, are of high interest for analytical as well as medical purposes. One of the most abundant protein interaction domains is the coiled-coil motif, and thus provides a premier target. Coiled coils, which consist of two or more alpha-helices wrapped around each other, have one of the simplest interaction interfaces, yet they are able to confer highly specific homo- and heterotypic interactions involved in virtually any cellular process. While there are several ways to generate interfering peptides, the combination of library design with a powerful selection system seems to be one of the most effective and promising approaches. This chapter guides through all steps of such a process, starting with library options and cloning, detailing suitable selection techniques and ending with purification for further down-stream characterization. Such generated peptides will function as versatile tools to interfere with the natural function of their targets thereby illuminating their down-stream signaling and, in general, promoting understanding of factors leading to specificity and stability in protein-protein interactions. Furthermore, peptides interfering with medically relevant proteins might become important diagnostics and therapeutics.

  12. Membrane re-modelling by BAR domain superfamily proteins via molecular and non-molecular factors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishimura, Tamako; Morone, Nobuhiro; Suetsugu, Shiro

    2018-04-17

    Lipid membranes are structural components of cell surfaces and intracellular organelles. Alterations in lipid membrane shape are accompanied by numerous cellular functions, including endocytosis, intracellular transport, and cell migration. Proteins containing Bin-Amphiphysin-Rvs (BAR) domains (BAR proteins) are unique, because their structures correspond to the membrane curvature, that is, the shape of the lipid membrane. BAR proteins present at high concentration determine the shape of the membrane, because BAR domain oligomers function as scaffolds that mould the membrane. BAR proteins co-operate with various molecular and non-molecular factors. The molecular factors include cytoskeletal proteins such as the regulators of actin filaments and the membrane scission protein dynamin. Lipid composition, including saturated or unsaturated fatty acid tails of phospholipids, also affects the ability of BAR proteins to mould the membrane. Non-molecular factors include the external physical forces applied to the membrane, such as tension and friction. In this mini-review, we will discuss how the BAR proteins orchestrate membrane dynamics together with various molecular and non-molecular factors. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society.

  13. Kinase Substrate Sensor (KISS), a mammalian in situ protein interaction sensor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lievens, Sam; Gerlo, Sarah; Lemmens, Irma; De Clercq, Dries J H; Risseeuw, Martijn D P; Vanderroost, Nele; De Smet, Anne-Sophie; Ruyssinck, Elien; Chevet, Eric; Van Calenbergh, Serge; Tavernier, Jan

    2014-12-01

    Probably every cellular process is governed by protein-protein interaction (PPIs), which are often highly dynamic in nature being modulated by in- or external stimuli. Here we present KISS, for KInase Substrate Sensor, a mammalian two-hybrid approach designed to map intracellular PPIs and some of the dynamic features they exhibit. Benchmarking experiments indicate that in terms of sensitivity and specificity KISS is on par with other binary protein interaction technologies while being complementary with regard to the subset of PPIs it is able to detect. We used KISS to evaluate interactions between different types of proteins, including transmembrane proteins, expressed at their native subcellular location. In situ analysis of endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced clustering of the endoplasmic reticulum stress sensor ERN1 and ligand-dependent β-arrestin recruitment to GPCRs illustrated the method's potential to study functional PPI modulation in complex cellular processes. Exploring its use as a tool for in cell evaluation of pharmacological interference with PPIs, we showed that reported effects of known GPCR antagonists and PPI inhibitors are properly recapitulated. In a three-hybrid setup, KISS was able to map interactions between small molecules and proteins. Taken together, we established KISS as a sensitive approach for in situ analysis of protein interactions and their modulation in a changing cellular context or in response to pharmacological challenges. © 2014 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  14. Optimization of proximity ligation assay (PLA) for detection of protein interactions and fusion proteins in non-adherent cells: application to pre-B lymphocytes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Debaize, Lydie; Jakobczyk, Hélène; Rio, Anne-Gaëlle; Gandemer, Virginie; Troadec, Marie-Bérengère

    2017-01-01

    Genetic abnormalities, including chromosomal translocations, are described for many hematological malignancies. From the clinical perspective, detection of chromosomal abnormalities is relevant not only for diagnostic and treatment purposes but also for prognostic risk assessment. From the translational research perspective, the identification of fusion proteins and protein interactions has allowed crucial breakthroughs in understanding the pathogenesis of malignancies and consequently major achievements in targeted therapy. We describe the optimization of the Proximity Ligation Assay (PLA) to ascertain the presence of fusion proteins, and protein interactions in non-adherent pre-B cells. PLA is an innovative method of protein-protein colocalization detection by molecular biology that combines the advantages of microscopy with the advantages of molecular biology precision, enabling detection of protein proximity theoretically ranging from 0 to 40 nm. We propose an optimized PLA procedure. We overcome the issue of maintaining non-adherent hematological cells by traditional cytocentrifugation and optimized buffers, by changing incubation times, and modifying washing steps. Further, we provide convincing negative and positive controls, and demonstrate that optimized PLA procedure is sensitive to total protein level. The optimized PLA procedure allows the detection of fusion proteins and protein interactions on non-adherent cells. The optimized PLA procedure described here can be readily applied to various non-adherent hematological cells, from cell lines to patients' cells. The optimized PLA protocol enables detection of fusion proteins and their subcellular expression, and protein interactions in non-adherent cells. Therefore, the optimized PLA protocol provides a new tool that can be adopted in a wide range of applications in the biological field.

  15. On the importance of polar interactions for complexes containing intrinsically disordered proteins.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eric T C Wong

    Full Text Available There is a growing recognition for the importance of proteins with large intrinsically disordered (ID segments in cell signaling and regulation. ID segments in these proteins often harbor regions that mediate molecular recognition. Coupled folding and binding of the recognition regions has been proposed to confer high specificity to interactions involving ID segments. However, researchers recently questioned the origin of the interaction specificity of ID proteins because of the overrepresentation of hydrophobic residues in their interaction interfaces. Here, we focused on the role of polar and charged residues in interactions mediated by ID segments. Making use of the extended nature of most ID segments when in complex with globular proteins, we first identified large numbers of complexes between globular proteins and ID segments by using radius-of-gyration-based selection criteria. Consistent with previous studies, we found the interfaces of these complexes to be enriched in hydrophobic residues, and that these residues contribute significantly to the stability of the interaction interface. However, our analyses also show that polar interactions play a larger role in these complexes than in structured protein complexes. Computational alanine scanning and salt-bridge analysis indicate that interfaces in ID complexes are highly complementary with respect to electrostatics, more so than interfaces of globular proteins. Follow-up calculations of the electrostatic contributions to the free energy of binding uncovered significantly stronger Coulombic interactions in complexes harbouring ID segments than in structured protein complexes. However, they are counter-balanced by even higher polar-desolvation penalties. We propose that polar interactions are a key contributing factor to the observed high specificity of ID segment-mediated interactions.

  16. Electrostatics promotes molecular crowding and selects the aggregation pathway in fibril-forming protein solutions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Raccosta, S.; Martorana, V.; Manno, M.; Blanco, M.; Roberts, C.J.

    2016-01-01

    The role of intermolecular interaction in fibril-forming protein solutions and its relation with molecular conformation are crucial aspects for the control and inhibition of amyloid structures. Here, we study the fibril formation and the protein-protein interactions for two proteins at acidic ph, lysozyme and α-chymotrypsinogen. By using light scattering experiments and the Kirkwood-Buff integral approach, we show how concentration fluctuations are damped even at moderate protein concentrations by the dominant long-ranged electrostatic repulsion, which determines an effective crowded environment. In denaturing conditions, electrostatic repulsion keeps the monomeric solution in a thermodynamically metastable state, which is escaped through kinetically populated conformational sub-states. This explains how electrostatics acts as a gatekeeper in selecting a specific aggregation pathway.

  17. Integrated structural biology to unravel molecular mechanisms of protein-RNA recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlundt, Andreas; Tants, Jan-Niklas; Sattler, Michael

    2017-04-15

    Recent advances in RNA sequencing technologies have greatly expanded our knowledge of the RNA landscape in cells, often with spatiotemporal resolution. These techniques identified many new (often non-coding) RNA molecules. Large-scale studies have also discovered novel RNA binding proteins (RBPs), which exhibit single or multiple RNA binding domains (RBDs) for recognition of specific sequence or structured motifs in RNA. Starting from these large-scale approaches it is crucial to unravel the molecular principles of protein-RNA recognition in ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) to understand the underlying mechanisms of gene regulation. Structural biology and biophysical studies at highest possible resolution are key to elucidate molecular mechanisms of RNA recognition by RBPs and how conformational dynamics, weak interactions and cooperative binding contribute to the formation of specific, context-dependent RNPs. While large compact RNPs can be well studied by X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM, analysis of dynamics and weak interaction necessitates the use of solution methods to capture these properties. Here, we illustrate methods to study the structure and conformational dynamics of protein-RNA complexes in solution starting from the identification of interaction partners in a given RNP. Biophysical and biochemical techniques support the characterization of a protein-RNA complex and identify regions relevant in structural analysis. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a powerful tool to gain information on folding, stability and dynamics of RNAs and characterize RNPs in solution. It provides crucial information that is complementary to the static pictures derived from other techniques. NMR can be readily combined with other solution techniques, such as small angle X-ray and/or neutron scattering (SAXS/SANS), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), which provide information about overall shapes, internal domain

  18. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YLR447C, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available xpression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Sp...; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; act

  19. Topology and weights in a protein domain interaction network – a novel way to predict protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wuchty Stefan

    2006-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background While the analysis of unweighted biological webs as diverse as genetic, protein and metabolic networks allowed spectacular insights in the inner workings of a cell, biological networks are not only determined by their static grid of links. In fact, we expect that the heterogeneity in the utilization of connections has a major impact on the organization of cellular activities as well. Results We consider a web of interactions between protein domains of the Protein Family database (PFAM, which are weighted by a probability score. We apply metrics that combine the static layout and the weights of the underlying interactions. We observe that unweighted measures as well as their weighted counterparts largely share the same trends in the underlying domain interaction network. However, we only find weak signals that weights and the static grid of interactions are connected entities. Therefore assuming that a protein interaction is governed by a single domain interaction, we observe strong and significant correlations of the highest scoring domain interaction and the confidence of protein interactions in the underlying interactions of yeast and fly. Modeling an interaction between proteins if we find a high scoring protein domain interaction we obtain 1, 428 protein interactions among 361 proteins in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Assessing their quality by a logistic regression method we observe that increasing confidence of predicted interactions is accompanied by high scoring domain interactions and elevated levels of functional similarity and evolutionary conservation. Conclusion Our results indicate that probability scores are randomly distributed, allowing to treat static grid and weights of domain interactions as separate entities. In particular, these finding confirms earlier observations that a protein interaction is a matter of a single interaction event on domain level. As an immediate application, we

  20. Characterization of MRP RNA–protein interactions within the perinucleolar compartment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pollock, Callie; Daily, Kelly; Nguyen, Van Trung; Wang, Chen; Lewandowska, Marzena Anna; Bensaude, Olivier; Huang, Sui

    2011-01-01

    The perinucleolar compartment (PNC) forms in cancer cells and is highly enriched with a subset of polymerase III RNAs and RNA-binding proteins. Here we report that PNC components mitochondrial RNA–processing (MRP) RNA, pyrimidine tract–binding protein (PTB), and CUG-binding protein (CUGBP) interact in vivo, as demonstrated by coimmunoprecipitation and RNA pull-down experiments. Glycerol gradient analyses show that this complex is large and sediments at a different fraction from known MRP RNA–containing complexes, the MRP ribonucleoprotein ribozyme and human telomerase reverse transcriptase. Tethering PNC components to a LacO locus recruits other PNC components, further confirming the in vivo interactions. These interactions are present both in PNC-containing and -lacking cells. High-resolution localization analyses demonstrate that MRP RNA, CUGBP, and PTB colocalize at the PNC as a reticulated network, intertwining with newly synthesized RNA. Furthermore, green fluorescent protein (GFP)–PTB and GFP-CUGBP show a slower rate of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching at the PNC than in the nucleoplasm, illustrating the different molecular interaction of the complexes associated with the PNC. These findings support a working model in which the MRP RNA–protein complex becomes nucleated at the PNC in cancer cells and may play a role in gene expression regulation at the DNA locus that associates with the PNC. PMID:21233287

  1. Molecular recognition of malachite green by hemoglobin and their specific interactions: insights from in silico docking and molecular spectroscopy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Wei; Ding, Fei; Peng, Yu-Kui; Sun, Ying

    2014-01-01

    Malachite green is an organic compound that can be widely used as a dyestuff for various materials; it has also emerged as a controversial agent in aquaculture. Since malachite green is proven to be carcinogenic and mutagenic, it may become a hazard to public health. For this reason, it is urgently required to analyze this controversial dye in more detail. In our current research, the interaction between malachite green and hemoglobin under physiological conditions was investigated by the methods of molecular modeling, fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism (CD) as well as hydrophobic ANS displacement experiments. From the molecular docking, the central cavity of hemoglobin was assigned to possess high-affinity for malachite green, this result was corroborated by time-resolved fluorescence and hydrophobic ANS probe results. The recognition mechanism was found to be of static type, or rather the hemoglobin-malachite green complex formation occurred via noncovalent interactions such as π-π interactions, hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions with an association constant of 10(4) M(-1). Moreover, the results also show that the spatial structure of the biopolymer was changed in the presence of malachite green with a decrease of the α-helix and increase of the β-sheet, turn and random coil suggesting protein damage, as derived from far-UV CD and three-dimensional fluorescence. Results of this work will help to further comprehend the molecular recognition of malachite green by the receptor protein and the possible toxicological profiles of other compounds, which are the metabolites and ramifications of malachite green.

  2. Coevolution study of mitochondria respiratory chain proteins: toward the understanding of protein--protein interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Ming; Ge, Yan; Wu, Jiayan; Xiao, Jingfa; Yu, Jun

    2011-05-20

    Coevolution can be seen as the interdependency between evolutionary histories. In the context of protein evolution, functional correlation proteins are ever-present coordinated evolutionary characters without disruption of organismal integrity. As to complex system, there are two forms of protein--protein interactions in vivo, which refer to inter-complex interaction and intra-complex interaction. In this paper, we studied the difference of coevolution characters between inter-complex interaction and intra-complex interaction using "Mirror tree" method on the respiratory chain (RC) proteins. We divided the correlation coefficients of every pairwise RC proteins into two groups corresponding to the binary protein--protein interaction in intra-complex and the binary protein--protein interaction in inter-complex, respectively. A dramatical discrepancy is detected between the coevolution characters of the two sets of protein interactions (Wilcoxon test, p-value = 4.4 × 10(-6)). Our finding reveals some critical information on coevolutionary study and assists the mechanical investigation of protein--protein interaction. Furthermore, the results also provide some unique clue for supramolecular organization of protein complexes in the mitochondrial inner membrane. More detailed binding sites map and genome information of nuclear encoded RC proteins will be extraordinary valuable for the further mitochondria dynamics study. Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  3. Cooperative DNA Recognition Modulated by an Interplay between Protein-Protein Interactions and DNA-Mediated Allostery.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felipe Merino

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Highly specific transcriptional regulation depends on the cooperative association of transcription factors into enhanceosomes. Usually, their DNA-binding cooperativity originates from either direct interactions or DNA-mediated allostery. Here, we performed unbiased molecular simulations followed by simulations of protein-DNA unbinding and free energy profiling to study the cooperative DNA recognition by OCT4 and SOX2, key components of enhanceosomes in pluripotent cells. We found that SOX2 influences the orientation and dynamics of the DNA-bound configuration of OCT4. In addition SOX2 modifies the unbinding free energy profiles of both DNA-binding domains of OCT4, the POU specific and POU homeodomain, despite interacting directly only with the first. Thus, we demonstrate that the OCT4-SOX2 cooperativity is modulated by an interplay between protein-protein interactions and DNA-mediated allostery. Further, we estimated the change in OCT4-DNA binding free energy due to the cooperativity with SOX2, observed a good agreement with experimental measurements, and found that SOX2 affects the relative DNA-binding strength of the two OCT4 domains. Based on these findings, we propose that available interaction partners in different biological contexts modulate the DNA exploration routes of multi-domain transcription factors such as OCT4. We consider the OCT4-SOX2 cooperativity as a paradigm of how specificity of transcriptional regulation is achieved through concerted modulation of protein-DNA recognition by different types of interactions.

  4. [Interaction of protein with charged colloidal particles].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Durdenko, E V; Kuznetsova, S M; Basova, L V; Tikhonenko, S A; Saburova, E A

    2011-01-01

    The functional state of three proteins of different molecular weight (urease, lactate dehydrogenase, and hemoglobin) in the presence of the linear polyelectrolytes poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAA) and sodium poly(styrenesulfonate) (PSS) in the dissolved state and of the same polyelectrolytes bound to the surface of microspheres has been investigated. Microspheres were prepared by consecutive absorption of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes so that the outer layer of the shell was PAA for the acidic protein urease, and PSS for the alkaline proteins LDH and hemoglobin. It was shown that the dissolved polyelectrolyte completely inactivates all three proteins within one minute with a slight difference in the time constant. (By Hb inactivation are conventionally meant changes in the heme environment observed from the spectrum in the Soret band.) In the presence of microspheres, the proteins were adsorbed on their surface; in this case, more than 95% of the activity was retained within two hours. The proportion of the protein adsorbed on microspheres accounted for about 98% for urease, 72% for Hb, and 35% for LDH, as determined from the tryptophan fluorescence data. The interaction of hemoglobin with another type of charged colloidal particles, phospholipid vesicles, leads to the destruction of the tertiary structure of the protein, which made itself evident in the optical absorption spectra in the Soret band, as well as the spectra of tryptophan fluorescence and circular dichroism. In this case, according to circular dichroism, the percentage of alpha-helical structure of Hb was maintained. The differences in the physical and chemical mechanisms of interaction of proteins with these two types of charged colloidal particles that leads to differences in the degree of denaturing effects are discussed.

  5. Imaging protein-protein interactions in living cells

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hink, M.A.; Bisseling, T.; Visser, A.J.W.G.

    2002-01-01

    The complex organization of plant cells makes it likely that the molecular behaviour of proteins in the test tube and the cell is different. For this reason, it is essential though a challenge to study proteins in their natural environment. Several innovative microspectroscopic approaches provide

  6. A conserved mammalian protein interaction network.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Åsa Pérez-Bercoff

    Full Text Available Physical interactions between proteins mediate a variety of biological functions, including signal transduction, physical structuring of the cell and regulation. While extensive catalogs of such interactions are known from model organisms, their evolutionary histories are difficult to study given the lack of interaction data from phylogenetic outgroups. Using phylogenomic approaches, we infer a upper bound on the time of origin for a large set of human protein-protein interactions, showing that most such interactions appear relatively ancient, dating no later than the radiation of placental mammals. By analyzing paired alignments of orthologous and putatively interacting protein-coding genes from eight mammals, we find evidence for weak but significant co-evolution, as measured by relative selective constraint, between pairs of genes with interacting proteins. However, we find no strong evidence for shared instances of directional selection within an interacting pair. Finally, we use a network approach to show that the distribution of selective constraint across the protein interaction network is non-random, with a clear tendency for interacting proteins to share similar selective constraints. Collectively, the results suggest that, on the whole, protein interactions in mammals are under selective constraint, presumably due to their functional roles.

  7. Interactive protein manipulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2003-01-01

    We describe an interactive visualization and modeling program for the creation of protein structures ''from scratch''. The input to our program is an amino acid sequence -decoded from a gene- and a sequence of predicted secondary structure types for each amino acid-provided by external structure prediction programs. Our program can be used in the set-up phase of a protein structure prediction process; the structures created with it serve as input for a subsequent global internal energy minimization, or another method of protein structure prediction. Our program supports basic visualization methods for protein structures, interactive manipulation based on inverse kinematics, and visualization guides to aid a user in creating ''good'' initial structures

  8. The Role of Hexon Protein as a Molecular Mold in Patterning the Protein IX Organization in Human Adenoviruses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reddy, Vijay S

    2017-09-01

    Adenoviruses are respiratory, ocular and enteric pathogens that form complex capsids, which are assembled from seven different structural proteins and composed of several core proteins that closely interact with the packaged dsDNA genome. The recent near-atomic resolution structures revealed that the interlacing continuous hexagonal network formed by the protein IX molecules is conserved among different human adenoviruses (HAdVs), but not in non-HAdVs. In this report, we propose a distinct role for the hexon protein as a "molecular mold" in enabling the formation of such hexagonal protein IX network that has been shown to preserve the stability and infectivity of HAdVs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Optimizing scoring function of protein-nucleic acid interactions with both affinity and specificity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhiqiang Yan

    Full Text Available Protein-nucleic acid (protein-DNA and protein-RNA recognition is fundamental to the regulation of gene expression. Determination of the structures of the protein-nucleic acid recognition and insight into their interactions at molecular level are vital to understanding the regulation function. Recently, quantitative computational approach has been becoming an alternative of experimental technique for predicting the structures and interactions of biomolecular recognition. However, the progress of protein-nucleic acid structure prediction, especially protein-RNA, is far behind that of the protein-ligand and protein-protein structure predictions due to the lack of reliable and accurate scoring function for quantifying the protein-nucleic acid interactions. In this work, we developed an accurate scoring function (named as SPA-PN, SPecificity and Affinity of the Protein-Nucleic acid interactions for protein-nucleic acid interactions by incorporating both the specificity and affinity into the optimization strategy. Specificity and affinity are two requirements of highly efficient and specific biomolecular recognition. Previous quantitative descriptions of the biomolecular interactions considered the affinity, but often ignored the specificity owing to the challenge of specificity quantification. We applied our concept of intrinsic specificity to connect the conventional specificity, which circumvents the challenge of specificity quantification. In addition to the affinity optimization, we incorporated the quantified intrinsic specificity into the optimization strategy of SPA-PN. The testing results and comparisons with other scoring functions validated that SPA-PN performs well on both the prediction of binding affinity and identification of native conformation. In terms of its performance, SPA-PN can be widely used to predict the protein-nucleic acid structures and quantify their interactions.

  10. Screening of cellular proteins that interact with the classical swine ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    In the current study, aiming to find more clues in understanding the molecular mechanisms of CSFV NS5A's function, the yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) system was adopted to screen for CSFV NS5A interactive proteins in the cDNA library of the swine umbilical vein endothelial cell (SUVEC). Alignment with the NCBI database ...

  11. Molecular interactions between the olive and the fruit fly Bactrocera oleae

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Corrado Giandomenico

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The fruit fly Bactrocera oleae is the primary biotic stressor of cultivated olives, causing direct and indirect damages that significantly reduce both the yield and the quality of olive oil. To study the olive-B. oleae interaction, we conducted transcriptomic and proteomic investigations of the molecular response of the drupe. The identifications of genes and proteins involved in the fruit response were performed using a Suppression Subtractive Hybridisation technique and a combined bi-dimensional electrophoresis/nanoLC-ESI-LIT-MS/MS approach, respectively. Results We identified 196 ESTs and 26 protein spots as differentially expressed in olives with larval feeding tunnels. A bioinformatic analysis of the identified non-redundant EST and protein collection indicated that different molecular processes were affected, such as stress response, phytohormone signalling, transcriptional control and primary metabolism, and that a considerable proportion of the ESTs could not be classified. The altered expression of 20 transcripts was also analysed by real-time PCR, and the most striking differences were further confirmed in the fruit of a different olive variety. We also cloned the full-length coding sequences of two genes, Oe-chitinase I and Oe-PR27, and showed that these are wound-inducible genes and activated by B. oleae punctures. Conclusions This study represents the first report that reveals the molecular players and signalling pathways involved in the interaction between the olive fruit and its most damaging biotic stressor. Drupe response is complex, involving genes and proteins involved in photosynthesis as well as in the production of ROS, the activation of different stress response pathways and the production of compounds involved in direct defence against phytophagous larvae. Among the latter, trypsin inhibitors should play a major role in drupe resistance reaction.

  12. Interactions of glycine betaine with proteins: insights from volume and compressibility measurements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shek, Yuen Lai; Chalikian, Tigran V

    2013-01-29

    We report the first application of volume and compressibility measurements to characterization of interactions between cosolvents (osmolytes) and globular proteins. Specifically, we measure the partial molar volumes and adiabatic compressibilities of cytochrome c, ribonuclease A, lysozyme, and ovalbumin in aqueous solutions of the stabilizing osmolyte glycine betaine (GB) at concentrations between 0 and 4 M. The fact that globular proteins do not undergo any conformational transitions in the presence of GB provides an opportunity to study the interactions of GB with proteins in their native states within the entire range of experimentally accessible GB concentrations. We analyze our resulting volumetric data within the framework of a statistical thermodynamic model in which each instance of GB interaction with a protein is viewed as a binding reaction that is accompanied by release of four water molecules. From this analysis, we calculate the association constants, k, as well as changes in volume, ΔV(0), and adiabatic compressibility, ΔK(S0), accompanying each GB-protein association event in an ideal solution. By comparing these parameters with similar characteristics determined for low-molecular weight analogues of proteins, we conclude that there are no significant cooperative effects involved in interactions of GB with any of the proteins studied in this work. We also evaluate the free energies of direct GB-protein interactions. The energetic properties of GB-protein association appear to scale with the size of the protein. For all proteins, the highly favorable change in free energy associated with direct protein-cosolvent interactions is nearly compensated by an unfavorable free energy of cavity formation (excluded volume effect), yielding a modestly unfavorable free energy for the transfer of a protein from water to a GB/water mixture.

  13. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YGR013W, YKL012W [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available tion U1 snRNP protein involved in splicing, interacts with the branchpoint-binding protein during the formation of the second commitm... PRP40 U1 snRNP protein involved in splicing, interacts with the branchpoint-binding protein during the form...ation of the second commitment complex Rows with this prey as prey (1) Rows with

  14. Impact of Hydrolyzed Whey Protein on the Molecular Interactions and Cross-Linking Density in Whey Protein Isolate-Based Films

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Markus Schmid

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The effect of the amount of hydrolyzed WPI (h-WPI in WPI-based films on the technofunctional properties and structure of the films has not hitherto been systematically researched. The main objective of this study was therefore to explore the quantitative and qualitative molecular interactions and structures of these films. Different buffer systems were used for the solubility studies to obtain information about the qualitative molecular interactions. Swelling studies were performed to provide qualitative statements about the WPI network. In addition, the cross-linking density (CLD of the WPI-based films was derived from the swelling tests. The measurements showed that increasing the h-WPI content decreases the CLD significantly. The CLD values of films with 0% and 50% h-WPI content were 1.61·10-4 mol·cm−3 and 0.25·10-4 mol·cm−3. The study indicates that noncovalent interactions have more influence on barrier properties than the cross-linking density through disulphide bonds. In general, the results of the swelling tests correlated with the solubility studies.

  15. A credit-card library approach for disrupting protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Yang; Shi, Jin; Yamamoto, Noboru; Moss, Jason A; Vogt, Peter K; Janda, Kim D

    2006-04-15

    Protein-protein interfaces are prominent in many therapeutically important targets. Using small organic molecules to disrupt protein-protein interactions is a current challenge in chemical biology. An important example of protein-protein interactions is provided by the Myc protein, which is frequently deregulated in human cancers. Myc belongs to the family of basic helix-loop-helix leucine zipper (bHLH-ZIP) transcription factors. It is biologically active only as heterodimer with the bHLH-ZIP protein Max. Herein, we report a new strategy for the disruption of protein-protein interactions that has been corroborated through the design and synthesis of a small parallel library composed of 'credit-card' compounds. These compounds are derived from a planar, aromatic scaffold and functionalized with four points of diversity. From a 285 membered library, several hits were obtained that disrupted the c-Myc-Max interaction and cellular functions of c-Myc. The IC50 values determined for this small focused library for the disruption of Myc-Max dimerization are quite potent, especially since small molecule antagonists of protein-protein interactions are notoriously difficult to find. Furthermore, several of the compounds were active at the cellular level as shown by their biological effects on Myc action in chicken embryo fibroblast assays. In light of our findings, this approach is considered a valuable addition to the armamentarium of new molecules being developed to interact with protein-protein interfaces. Finally, this strategy for disrupting protein-protein interactions should prove applicable to other families of proteins.

  16. Electrostatic similarities between protein and small molecule ligands facilitate the design of protein-protein interaction inhibitors.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arnout Voet

    Full Text Available One of the underlying principles in drug discovery is that a biologically active compound is complimentary in shape and molecular recognition features to its receptor. This principle infers that molecules binding to the same receptor may share some common features. Here, we have investigated whether the electrostatic similarity can be used for the discovery of small molecule protein-protein interaction inhibitors (SMPPIIs. We have developed a method that can be used to evaluate the similarity of electrostatic potentials between small molecules and known protein ligands. This method was implemented in a software called EleKit. Analyses of all available (at the time of research SMPPII structures indicate that SMPPIIs bear some similarities of electrostatic potential with the ligand proteins of the same receptor. This is especially true for the more polar SMPPIIs. Retrospective analysis of several successful SMPPIIs has shown the applicability of EleKit in the design of new SMPPIIs.

  17. Coarse-grain modelling of protein-protein interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Baaden, Marc; Marrink, Siewert J.

    2013-01-01

    Here, we review recent advances towards the modelling of protein-protein interactions (PPI) at the coarse-grained (CG) level, a technique that is now widely used to understand protein affinity, aggregation and self-assembly behaviour. PPI models of soluble proteins and membrane proteins are

  18. Interactive protein manipulation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    SNCrivelli@lbl.gov

    2003-07-01

    We describe an interactive visualization and modeling program for the creation of protein structures ''from scratch''. The input to our program is an amino acid sequence -decoded from a gene- and a sequence of predicted secondary structure types for each amino acid-provided by external structure prediction programs. Our program can be used in the set-up phase of a protein structure prediction process; the structures created with it serve as input for a subsequent global internal energy minimization, or another method of protein structure prediction. Our program supports basic visualization methods for protein structures, interactive manipulation based on inverse kinematics, and visualization guides to aid a user in creating ''good'' initial structures.

  19. Setting up a Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer high throughput screening assay to search for protein/protein interaction inhibitors in mammalian cells.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cyril eCouturier

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Each step of the cell life and its response or adaptation to its environment are mediated by a network of protein/protein interactions termed interactome. Our knowledge of this network keeps growing due to the development of sensitive techniques devoted to study these interactions. The bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET technique was primarily developed to allow the dynamic monitoring of protein-protein interactions in living cells, and has widely been used to study receptor activation by intra- or extra-molecular conformational changes within receptors and activated complexes in mammal cells. Some interactions are described as crucial in human pathological processes, and a new class of drugs targeting them has recently emerged. The BRET method is well suited to identify inhibitors of protein-protein interactions and here is described why and how to set up and optimize a High Throughput Screening assay based on BRET to search for such inhibitory compounds. The different parameters to take into account when developing such BRET assays in mammal cells are reviewed to give general guidelines: considerations on the targeted interaction, choice of BRET version, inducibility of the interaction, kinetic of the monitored interaction, and of the BRET reading, influence substrate concentration, number of cells and medium composition used on the Z’ factor, and expected interferences for colored or fluorescent compounds.

  20. Probing hydrogen bonding interactions and proton transfer in proteins

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nie, Beining

    Scope and method of study. Hydrogen bonding is a fundamental element in protein structure and function. Breaking a single hydrogen bond may impair the stability of a protein. It is therefore important to probe dynamic changes in hydrogen bonding interactions during protein folding and function. Time-resolved Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy is highly sensitive to hydrogen bonding interactions. However, it lacks quantitative correlation between the vibrational frequencies and the number, type, and strength of hydrogen bonding interactions of ionizable and polar residues. We employ quantum physics theory based ab initio calculations to study the effects of hydrogen bonding interactions on vibrational frequencies of Asp, Glu, and Tyr residues and to develop vibrational spectral markers for probing hydrogen bonding interactions using infrared spectroscopy. In addition, proton transfer process plays a crucial role in a wide range of energy transduction, signal transduction, and enzymatic reactions. We study the structural basis for proton transfer using photoactive yellow protein as an excellent model system. Molecular dynamics simulation is employed to investigate the structures of early intermediate states. Quantum theory based ab initio calculations are used to study the impact of hydrogen bond interactions on proton affinity and proton transfer. Findings and conclusions. Our extensive density function theory based calculations provide rich structural, spectral, and energetic information on hydrogen bonding properties of protonated side chain groups of Asp/Glu and Tyr. We developed vibrational spectral markers and 2D FTIR spectroscopy for structural characterization on the number and the type of hydrogen bonding interactions of the COOH group of Asp/Glu and neutral phenolic group of Tyr. These developments greatly enhance the power of time-resolved FTIR spectroscopy as a major experimental tool for structural characterization of functionally important

  1. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YGL237C, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available ene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding prote... expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein

  2. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YKL002W, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available ene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding prote...xpression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Sp

  3. Gene Prioritization by Integrated Analysis of Protein Structural and Network Topological Properties for the Protein-Protein Interaction Network of Neurological Disorders

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yashna Paul

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Neurological disorders are known to show similar phenotypic manifestations like anxiety, depression, and cognitive impairment. There is a need to identify shared genetic markers and molecular pathways in these diseases, which lead to such comorbid conditions. Our study aims to prioritize novel genetic markers that might increase the susceptibility of patients affected with one neurological disorder to other diseases with similar manifestations. Identification of pathways involving common candidate markers will help in the development of improved diagnosis and treatments strategies for patients affected with neurological disorders. This systems biology study for the first time integratively uses 3D-structural protein interface descriptors and network topological properties that characterize proteins in a neurological protein interaction network, to aid the identification of genes that are previously not known to be shared between these diseases. Results of protein prioritization by machine learning have identified known as well as new genetic markers which might have direct or indirect involvement in several neurological disorders. Important gene hubs have also been identified that provide an evidence for shared molecular pathways in the neurological disease network.

  4. Analysis of protein interactions at native chloroplast membranes by ellipsometry.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Verena Kriechbaumer

    Full Text Available Membrane bound receptors play vital roles in cell signaling, and are the target for many drugs, yet their interactions with ligands are difficult to study by conventional techniques due to the technical difficulty of monitoring these interactions in lipid environments. In particular, the ability to analyse the behaviour of membrane proteins in their native membrane environment is limited. Here, we have developed a quantitative approach to detect specific interactions between low-abundance chaperone receptors within native chloroplast membranes and their soluble chaperone partners. Langmuir-Schaefer film deposition was used to deposit native chloroplasts onto gold-coated glass slides, and interactions between the molecular chaperones Hsp70 and Hsp90 and their receptors in the chloroplast membranes were detected and quantified by total internal reflection ellipsometry (TIRE. We show that native chloroplast membranes deposited on gold-coated glass slides using Langmuir-Schaefer films retain functional receptors capable of binding chaperones with high specificity and affinity. Taking into account the low chaperone receptor abundance in native membranes, these binding properties are consistent with data generated using soluble forms of the chloroplast chaperone receptors, OEP61 and Toc64. Therefore, we conclude that chloroplasts have the capacity to selectively bind chaperones, consistent with the notion that chaperones play an important role in protein targeting to chloroplasts. Importantly, this method of monitoring by TIRE does not require any protein labelling. This novel combination of techniques should be applicable to a wide variety of membranes and membrane protein receptors, thus presenting the opportunity to quantify protein interactions involved in fundamental cellular processes, and to screen for drugs that target membrane proteins.

  5. Tailored protein encapsulation into a DNA host using geometrically organized supramolecular interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sprengel, Andreas; Lill, Pascal; Stegemann, Pierre; Bravo-Rodriguez, Kenny; Schöneweiß, Elisa-C.; Merdanovic, Melisa; Gudnason, Daniel; Aznauryan, Mikayel; Gamrad, Lisa; Barcikowski, Stephan; Sanchez-Garcia, Elsa; Birkedal, Victoria; Gatsogiannis, Christos; Ehrmann, Michael; Saccà, Barbara

    2017-02-01

    The self-organizational properties of DNA have been used to realize synthetic hosts for protein encapsulation. However, current strategies of DNA-protein conjugation still limit true emulation of natural host-guest systems, whose formation relies on non-covalent bonds between geometrically matching interfaces. Here we report one of the largest DNA-protein complexes of semisynthetic origin held in place exclusively by spatially defined supramolecular interactions. Our approach is based on the decoration of the inner surface of a DNA origami hollow structure with multiple ligands converging to their corresponding binding sites on the protein surface with programmable symmetry and range-of-action. Our results demonstrate specific host-guest recognition in a 1:1 stoichiometry and selectivity for the guest whose size guarantees sufficient molecular diffusion preserving short intermolecular distances. DNA nanocontainers can be thus rationally designed to trap single guest molecules in their native form, mimicking natural strategies of molecular recognition and anticipating a new method of protein caging.

  6. Identification of NAD interacting residues in proteins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raghava Gajendra PS

    2010-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Small molecular cofactors or ligands play a crucial role in the proper functioning of cells. Accurate annotation of their target proteins and binding sites is required for the complete understanding of reaction mechanisms. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+ or NAD is one of the most commonly used organic cofactors in living cells, which plays a critical role in cellular metabolism, storage and regulatory processes. In the past, several NAD binding proteins (NADBP have been reported in the literature, which are responsible for a wide-range of activities in the cell. Attempts have been made to derive a rule for the binding of NAD+ to its target proteins. However, so far an efficient model could not be derived due to the time consuming process of structure determination, and limitations of similarity based approaches. Thus a sequence and non-similarity based method is needed to characterize the NAD binding sites to help in the annotation. In this study attempts have been made to predict NAD binding proteins and their interacting residues (NIRs from amino acid sequence using bioinformatics tools. Results We extracted 1556 proteins chains from 555 NAD binding proteins whose structure is available in Protein Data Bank. Then we removed all redundant protein chains and finally obtained 195 non-redundant NAD binding protein chains, where no two chains have more than 40% sequence identity. In this study all models were developed and evaluated using five-fold cross validation technique on the above dataset of 195 NAD binding proteins. While certain type of residues are preferred (e.g. Gly, Tyr, Thr, His in NAD interaction, residues like Ala, Glu, Leu, Lys are not preferred. A support vector machine (SVM based method has been developed using various window lengths of amino acid sequence for predicting NAD interacting residues and obtained maximum Matthew's correlation coefficient (MCC 0.47 with accuracy 74.13% at window length 17

  7. A scored human protein-protein interaction network to catalyze genomic interpretation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Li, Taibo; Wernersson, Rasmus; Hansen, Rasmus B

    2017-01-01

    Genome-scale human protein-protein interaction networks are critical to understanding cell biology and interpreting genomic data, but challenging to produce experimentally. Through data integration and quality control, we provide a scored human protein-protein interaction network (InWeb_InBioMap,......Genome-scale human protein-protein interaction networks are critical to understanding cell biology and interpreting genomic data, but challenging to produce experimentally. Through data integration and quality control, we provide a scored human protein-protein interaction network (In...

  8. Interaction of lysozyme with a tear film lipid layer model: A molecular dynamics simulation study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wizert, Alicja; Iskander, D Robert; Cwiklik, Lukasz

    2017-12-01

    The tear film is a thin multilayered structure covering the cornea. Its outermost layer is a lipid film underneath of which resides on an aqueous layer. This tear film lipid layer (TFLL) is itself a complex structure, formed by both polar and nonpolar lipids. It was recently suggested that due to tear film dynamics, TFLL contains inhomogeneities in the form of polar lipid aggregates. The aqueous phase of tear film contains lachrymal-origin proteins, whereby lysozyme is the most abundant. These proteins can alter TFLL properties, mainly by reducing its surface tension. However, a detailed nature of protein-lipid interactions in tear film is not known. We investigate the interactions of lysozyme with TFLL in molecular details by employing coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. We demonstrate that lysozyme, due to lateral restructuring of TFLL, is able to penetrate the tear lipid film embedded in inverse micellar aggregates. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Protein function prediction using neighbor relativity in protein-protein interaction network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moosavi, Sobhan; Rahgozar, Masoud; Rahimi, Amir

    2013-04-01

    There is a large gap between the number of discovered proteins and the number of functionally annotated ones. Due to the high cost of determining protein function by wet-lab research, function prediction has become a major task for computational biology and bioinformatics. Some researches utilize the proteins interaction information to predict function for un-annotated proteins. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called "Neighbor Relativity Coefficient" (NRC) based on interaction network topology which estimates the functional similarity between two proteins. NRC is calculated for each pair of proteins based on their graph-based features including distance, common neighbors and the number of paths between them. In order to ascribe function to an un-annotated protein, NRC estimates a weight for each neighbor to transfer its annotation to the unknown protein. Finally, the unknown protein will be annotated by the top score transferred functions. We also investigate the effect of using different coefficients for various types of functions. The proposed method has been evaluated on Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Homo sapiens interaction networks. The performance analysis demonstrates that NRC yields better results in comparison with previous protein function prediction approaches that utilize interaction network. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. The antituberculosis antibiotic capreomycin inhibits protein synthesis by disrupting interaction between ribosomal proteins L12 and L10.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Yuan; Li, Yan; Zhu, Ningyu; Han, Yanxing; Jiang, Wei; Wang, Yanchang; Si, Shuyi; Jiang, Jiandong

    2014-01-01

    Capreomycin is a second-line drug for multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). However, with increased use in clinics, the therapeutic efficiency of capreomycin is decreasing. To better understand TB resistance to capreomycin, we have done research to identify the molecular target of capreomycin. Mycobacterium tuberculosis ribosomal proteins L12 and L10 interact with each other and constitute the stalk of the 50S ribosomal subunit, which recruits initiation and elongation factors during translation. Hence, the L12-L10 interaction is considered to be essential for ribosomal function and protein synthesis. Here we provide evidence showing that capreomycin inhibits the L12-L10 interaction by using an established L12-L10 interaction assay. Overexpression of L12 and/or L10 in M. smegmatis, a species close to M. tuberculosis, increases the MIC of capreomycin. Moreover, both elongation factor G-dependent GTPase activity and ribosome-mediated protein synthesis are inhibited by capreomycin. When protein synthesis was blocked with thiostrepton, however, the bactericidal activity of capreomycin was restrained. All of these results suggest that capreomycin seems to inhibit TB by interrupting the L12-L10 interaction. This finding might provide novel clues for anti-TB drug discovery.

  11. A feature-based approach to modeling protein-protein interaction hot spots.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, Kyu-il; Kim, Dongsup; Lee, Doheon

    2009-05-01

    Identifying features that effectively represent the energetic contribution of an individual interface residue to the interactions between proteins remains problematic. Here, we present several new features and show that they are more effective than conventional features. By combining the proposed features with conventional features, we develop a predictive model for interaction hot spots. Initially, 54 multifaceted features, composed of different levels of information including structure, sequence and molecular interaction information, are quantified. Then, to identify the best subset of features for predicting hot spots, feature selection is performed using a decision tree. Based on the selected features, a predictive model for hot spots is created using support vector machine (SVM) and tested on an independent test set. Our model shows better overall predictive accuracy than previous methods such as the alanine scanning methods Robetta and FOLDEF, and the knowledge-based method KFC. Subsequent analysis yields several findings about hot spots. As expected, hot spots have a larger relative surface area burial and are more hydrophobic than other residues. Unexpectedly, however, residue conservation displays a rather complicated tendency depending on the types of protein complexes, indicating that this feature is not good for identifying hot spots. Of the selected features, the weighted atomic packing density, relative surface area burial and weighted hydrophobicity are the top 3, with the weighted atomic packing density proving to be the most effective feature for predicting hot spots. Notably, we find that hot spots are closely related to pi-related interactions, especially pi . . . pi interactions.

  12. Immobilized enzymes: understanding enzyme - surface interactions at the molecular level.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoarau, Marie; Badieyan, Somayesadat; Marsh, E Neil G

    2017-11-22

    Enzymes immobilized on solid supports have important and industrial and medical applications. However, their uses are limited by the significant reductions in activity and stability that often accompany the immobilization process. Here we review recent advances in our understanding of the molecular level interactions between proteins and supporting surfaces that contribute to changes in stability and activity. This understanding has been facilitated by the application of various surface-sensitive spectroscopic techniques that allow the structure and orientation of enzymes at the solid/liquid interface to be probed, often with monolayer sensitivity. An appreciation of the molecular interactions between enzyme and surface support has allowed the surface chemistry and method of enzyme attachement to be fine-tuned such that activity and stability can be greatly enhanced. These advances suggest that a much wider variety of enzymes may eventually be amenable to immobilization as green catalysts.

  13. Prediction of protein–protein interactions: unifying evolution and structure at protein interfaces

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tuncbag, Nurcan; Gursoy, Attila; Keskin, Ozlem

    2011-01-01

    The vast majority of the chores in the living cell involve protein–protein interactions. Providing details of protein interactions at the residue level and incorporating them into protein interaction networks are crucial toward the elucidation of a dynamic picture of cells. Despite the rapid increase in the number of structurally known protein complexes, we are still far away from a complete network. Given experimental limitations, computational modeling of protein interactions is a prerequisite to proceed on the way to complete structural networks. In this work, we focus on the question 'how do proteins interact?' rather than 'which proteins interact?' and we review structure-based protein–protein interaction prediction approaches. As a sample approach for modeling protein interactions, PRISM is detailed which combines structural similarity and evolutionary conservation in protein interfaces to infer structures of complexes in the protein interaction network. This will ultimately help us to understand the role of protein interfaces in predicting bound conformations

  14. Interaction of the iron–sulfur cluster assembly protein IscU with the Hsc66/Hsc20 molecular chaperone system of Escherichia coli

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoff, Kevin G.; Silberg, Jonathan J.; Vickery, Larry E.

    2000-01-01

    The iscU gene in bacteria is located in a gene cluster encoding proteins implicated in iron–sulfur cluster assembly and an hsc70-type (heat shock cognate) molecular chaperone system, iscSUA-hscBA. To investigate possible interactions between these systems, we have overproduced and purified the IscU protein from Escherichia coli and have studied its interactions with the hscA and hscB gene products Hsc66 and Hsc20. IscU and its iron–sulfur complex (IscU–Fe/S) stimulated the basal steady-state ATPase activity of Hsc66 weakly in the absence of Hsc20 but, in the presence of Hsc20, increased the ATPase activity up to 480-fold. Hsc20 also decreased the apparent Km for IscU stimulation of Hsc66 ATPase activity, and surface plasmon resonance studies revealed that Hsc20 enhances binding of IscU to Hsc66. Surface plasmon resonance and isothermal titration calorimetry further showed that IscU and Hsc20 form a complex, and Hsc20 may thereby aid in the targeting of IscU to Hsc66. These results establish a direct and specific role for the Hsc66/Hsc20 chaperone system in functioning with isc gene components for the assembly of iron–sulfur cluster proteins. PMID:10869428

  15. Importance of a Conserved Lys/Arg Residue for Ligand/PDZ Domain Interactions as Examined by Protein Semisynthesis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Søren W; Moran, Griffin E; Sereikaité, Vita

    2016-01-01

    PDZ domains are ubiquitous small protein domains that are mediators of numerous protein-protein interactions, and play a pivotal role in protein trafficking, synaptic transmission, and the assembly of signaling-transduction complexes. In recent years, PDZ domains have emerged as novel and exciting...... drug targets for diseases (in the brain in particular), so understanding the molecular details of PDZ domain interactions is of fundamental importance. PDZ domains bind to a protein partner at either a C-terminal peptide or internal peptide motifs. Here, we examined the importance of a conserved Lys...

  16. Detection of protein-protein interactions by ribosome display and protein in situ immobilisation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Mingyue; Liu, Hong; Turner, Martin; Taussig, Michael J

    2009-12-31

    We describe a method for identification of protein-protein interactions by combining two cell-free protein technologies, namely ribosome display and protein in situ immobilisation. The method requires only PCR fragments as the starting material, the target proteins being made through cell-free protein synthesis, either associated with their encoding mRNA as ribosome complexes or immobilised on a solid surface. The use of ribosome complexes allows identification of interacting protein partners from their attached coding mRNA. To demonstrate the procedures, we have employed the lymphocyte signalling proteins Vav1 and Grb2 and confirmed the interaction between Grb2 and the N-terminal SH3 domain of Vav1. The method has promise for library screening of pairwise protein interactions, down to the analytical level of individual domain or motif mapping.

  17. Mass spectrometric analysis of protein interactions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Borch, Jonas; Jørgensen, Thomas J. D.; Roepstorff, Peter

    2005-01-01

    Mass spectrometry is a powerful tool for identification of interaction partners and structural characterization of protein interactions because of its high sensitivity, mass accuracy and tolerance towards sample heterogeneity. Several tools that allow studies of protein interaction are now...... available and recent developments that increase the confidence of studies of protein interaction by mass spectrometry include quantification of affinity-purified proteins by stable isotope labeling and reagents for surface topology studies that can be identified by mass-contributing reporters (e.g. isotope...... labels, cleavable cross-linkers or fragment ions. The use of mass spectrometers to study protein interactions using deuterium exchange and for analysis of intact protein complexes recently has progressed considerably....

  18. Combined spectroscopic, molecular docking and quantum mechanics study of β-casein and p-coumaric acid interactions following thermal treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaur, Jasmeet; Katopo, Lita; Hung, Andrew; Ashton, John; Kasapis, Stefan

    2018-06-30

    The molecular nature of interactions between β-casein and p-coumaric acid was studied following exposure of their solutions to ultra-high temperature (UHT at 145 °C). Interactions were characterised by employing multi-spectroscopic methods, molecular docking and quantum mechanics calculations. FTIR demonstrates that the ligand lies in the vicinity of the protein, hence inverting the absorbance spectrum of the complex. This outcome changes the conformational characteristics of the protein leading to a flexible and open structure that accommodates the phenolic microconstituent. Results are supported by UV-vis, CD and fluorescence quenching showing considerable shifts in spectra with complexation. Molecular docking indicates that there is at least a hydrogen bond between p-coumaric acid and the peptide backbone of isoleucine (Ile27). Quantum mechanics calculations further argue that changes in experimental observations are also due to a covalent interaction in the protein-phenolic adduct, which according to the best predicted binding pose involves the side chain of lysine 47. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  19. Evolutionary diversification of protein-protein interactions by interface add-ons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plach, Maximilian G; Semmelmann, Florian; Busch, Florian; Busch, Markus; Heizinger, Leonhard; Wysocki, Vicki H; Merkl, Rainer; Sterner, Reinhard

    2017-10-03

    Cells contain a multitude of protein complexes whose subunits interact with high specificity. However, the number of different protein folds and interface geometries found in nature is limited. This raises the question of how protein-protein interaction specificity is achieved on the structural level and how the formation of nonphysiological complexes is avoided. Here, we describe structural elements called interface add-ons that fulfill this function and elucidate their role for the diversification of protein-protein interactions during evolution. We identified interface add-ons in 10% of a representative set of bacterial, heteromeric protein complexes. The importance of interface add-ons for protein-protein interaction specificity is demonstrated by an exemplary experimental characterization of over 30 cognate and hybrid glutamine amidotransferase complexes in combination with comprehensive genetic profiling and protein design. Moreover, growth experiments showed that the lack of interface add-ons can lead to physiologically harmful cross-talk between essential biosynthetic pathways. In sum, our complementary in silico, in vitro, and in vivo analysis argues that interface add-ons are a practical and widespread evolutionary strategy to prevent the formation of nonphysiological complexes by specializing protein-protein interactions.

  20. Inferring high-confidence human protein-protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu Xueping

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background As numerous experimental factors drive the acquisition, identification, and interpretation of protein-protein interactions (PPIs, aggregated assemblies of human PPI data invariably contain experiment-dependent noise. Ascertaining the reliability of PPIs collected from these diverse studies and scoring them to infer high-confidence networks is a non-trivial task. Moreover, a large number of PPIs share the same number of reported occurrences, making it impossible to distinguish the reliability of these PPIs and rank-order them. For example, for the data analyzed here, we found that the majority (>83% of currently available human PPIs have been reported only once. Results In this work, we proposed an unsupervised statistical approach to score a set of diverse, experimentally identified PPIs from nine primary databases to create subsets of high-confidence human PPI networks. We evaluated this ranking method by comparing it with other methods and assessing their ability to retrieve protein associations from a number of diverse and independent reference sets. These reference sets contain known biological data that are either directly or indirectly linked to interactions between proteins. We quantified the average effect of using ranked protein interaction data to retrieve this information and showed that, when compared to randomly ranked interaction data sets, the proposed method created a larger enrichment (~134% than either ranking based on the hypergeometric test (~109% or occurrence ranking (~46%. Conclusions From our evaluations, it was clear that ranked interactions were always of value because higher-ranked PPIs had a higher likelihood of retrieving high-confidence experimental data. Reducing the noise inherent in aggregated experimental PPIs via our ranking scheme further increased the accuracy and enrichment of PPIs derived from a number of biologically relevant data sets. These results suggest that using our high

  1. Cross dimerization of amyloid-β and αsynuclein proteins in aqueous environment: a molecular dynamics simulations study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaya C Jose

    Full Text Available Self-assembly of the intrinsically unstructured proteins, amyloid beta (Aβ and alpha synclein (αSyn, are associated with Alzheimer's Disease, and Parkinson's and Lewy Body Diseases, respectively. Importantly, pathological overlaps between these neurodegenerative diseases, and the possibilities of interactions between Aβ and αSyn in biological milieu emerge from several recent clinical reports and in vitro studies. Nevertheless, there are very few molecular level studies that have probed the nature of spontaneous interactions between these two sequentially dissimilar proteins and key characteristics of the resulting cross complexes. In this study, we have used atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to probe the possibility of cross dimerization between αSyn1-95 and Aβ1-42, and thereby gain insights into their plausible early assembly pathways in aqueous environment. Our analyses indicate a strong probability of association between the two sequences, with inter-protein attractive electrostatic interactions playing dominant roles. Principal component analysis revealed significant heterogeneity in the strength and nature of the associations in the key interaction modes. In most, the interactions of repeating Lys residues, mainly in the imperfect repeats 'KTKEGV' present in αSyn1-95 were found to be essential for cross interactions and formation of inter-protein salt bridges. Additionally, a hydrophobicity driven interaction mode devoid of salt bridges, where the non-amyloid component (NAC region of αSyn1-95 came in contact with the hydrophobic core of Aβ1-42 was observed. The existence of such hetero complexes, and therefore hetero assembly pathways may lead to polymorphic aggregates with variations in pathological attributes. Our results provide a perspective on development of therapeutic strategies for preventing pathogenic interactions between these proteins.

  2. Descriptor Data Bank (DDB): A Cloud Platform for Multiperspective Modeling of Protein-Ligand Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ashtawy, Hossam M; Mahapatra, Nihar R

    2018-01-22

    Protein-ligand (PL) interactions play a key role in many life processes such as molecular recognition, molecular binding, signal transmission, and cell metabolism. Examples of interaction forces include hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic effects, steric clashes, electrostatic contacts, and van der Waals attractions. Currently, a large number of hypotheses and perspectives to model these interaction forces are scattered throughout the literature and largely forgotten. Instead, had they been assembled and utilized collectively, they would have substantially improved the accuracy of predicting binding affinity of protein-ligand complexes. In this work, we present Descriptor Data Bank (DDB), a data-driven platform on the cloud for facilitating multiperspective modeling of PL interactions. DDB is an open-access hub for depositing, hosting, executing, and sharing descriptor extraction tools and data for a large number of interaction modeling hypotheses. The platform also implements a machine-learning (ML) toolbox for automatic descriptor filtering and analysis and scoring function (SF) fitting and prediction. The descriptor filtering module is used to filter out irrelevant and/or noisy descriptors and to produce a compact subset from all available features. We seed DDB with 16 diverse descriptor extraction tools developed in-house and collected from the literature. The tools altogether generate over 2700 descriptors that characterize (i) proteins, (ii) ligands, and (iii) protein-ligand complexes. The in-house descriptors we extract are protein-specific which are based on pairwise primary and tertiary alignment of protein structures followed by clustering and trilateration. We built and used DDB's ML library to fit SFs to the in-house descriptors and those collected from the literature. We then evaluated them on several data sets that were constructed to reflect real-world drug screening scenarios. We found that multiperspective SFs that were constructed using a large number

  3. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YPR103W, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available tein involved in control of glucose-regulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors...gulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf

  4. Categorizing Biases in High-Confidence High-Throughput Protein-Protein Interaction Data Sets*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Xueping; Ivanic, Joseph; Memišević, Vesna; Wallqvist, Anders; Reifman, Jaques

    2011-01-01

    We characterized and evaluated the functional attributes of three yeast high-confidence protein-protein interaction data sets derived from affinity purification/mass spectrometry, protein-fragment complementation assay, and yeast two-hybrid experiments. The interacting proteins retrieved from these data sets formed distinct, partially overlapping sets with different protein-protein interaction characteristics. These differences were primarily a function of the deployed experimental technologies used to recover these interactions. This affected the total coverage of interactions and was especially evident in the recovery of interactions among different functional classes of proteins. We found that the interaction data obtained by the yeast two-hybrid method was the least biased toward any particular functional characterization. In contrast, interacting proteins in the affinity purification/mass spectrometry and protein-fragment complementation assay data sets were over- and under-represented among distinct and different functional categories. We delineated how these differences affected protein complex organization in the network of interactions, in particular for strongly interacting complexes (e.g. RNA and protein synthesis) versus weak and transient interacting complexes (e.g. protein transport). We quantified methodological differences in detecting protein interactions from larger protein complexes, in the correlation of protein abundance among interacting proteins, and in their connectivity of essential proteins. In the latter case, we showed that minimizing inherent methodology biases removed many of the ambiguous conclusions about protein essentiality and protein connectivity. We used these findings to rationalize how biological insights obtained by analyzing data sets originating from different sources sometimes do not agree or may even contradict each other. An important corollary of this work was that discrepancies in biological insights did not

  5. The selective interaction between silica nanoparticles and enzymes from molecular dynamics simulations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaotian Sun

    Full Text Available Nanoscale particles have become promising materials in many fields, such as cancer therapeutics, diagnosis, imaging, drug delivery, catalysis, as well as biosensors. In order to stimulate and facilitate these applications, there is an urgent need for the understanding of the interaction mode between the nano-particles and proteins. In this study, we investigate the orientation and adsorption between several enzymes (cytochrome c, RNase A, lysozyme and 4 nm/11 nm silica nanoparticles (SNPs by using molecular dynamics (MD simulation. Our results show that three enzymes are adsorbed onto the surfaces of both 4 nm and 11 nm SNPs during our MD simulations and the small SNPs induce greater structural stabilization. The active site of cytochrome c is far away from the surface of 4 nm SNPs, while it is adsorbed onto the surface of 11 nm SNPs. We also explore the influences of different groups (-OH, -COOH, -NH2 and CH3 coated onto silica nanoparticles, which show significantly different impacts. Our molecular dynamics results indicate the selective interaction between silicon nanoparticles and enzymes, which is consistent with experimental results. Our study provides useful guides for designing/modifying nanomaterials to interact with proteins for their bio-applications.

  6. Molecular characterization and intermolecular interaction of coat protein of Prunus necrotic ringspot virus: implications for virus assembly.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kulshrestha, Saurabh; Hallan, Vipin; Sharma, Anshul; Seth, Chandrika Attri; Chauhan, Anjali; Zaidi, Aijaz Asghar

    2013-09-01

    Coat protein (CP) and RNA3 from Prunus necrotic ringspot virus (PNRSV-rose), the most prevalent virus infecting rose in India, were characterized and regions in the coat protein important for self-interaction, during dimer formation were identified. The sequence analysis of CP and partial RNA 3 revealed that the rose isolate of PNRSV in India belongs to PV-32 group of PNRSV isolates. Apart from the already established group specific features of PV-32 group member's additional group-specific and host specific features were also identified. Presence of methionine at position 90 in the amino acid sequence alignment of PNRSV CP gene (belonging to PV-32 group) was identified as the specific conserved feature for the rose isolates of PNRSV. As protein-protein interaction plays a vital role in the infection process, an attempt was made to identify the portions of PNRSV CP responsible for self-interaction using yeast two-hybrid system. It was found (after analysis of the deletion clones) that the C-terminal region of PNRSV CP (amino acids 153-226) plays a vital role in this interaction during dimer formation. N-terminal of PNRSV CP is previously known to be involved in CP-RNA interactions, but our results also suggested that N-terminal of PNRSV CP represented by amino acids 1-77 also interacts with C-terminal (amino acids 153-226) in yeast two-hybrid system, suggesting its probable involvement in the CP-CP interaction.

  7. Water-Protein Interactions: The Secret of Protein Dynamics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silvia Martini

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Water-protein interactions help to maintain flexible conformation conditions which are required for multifunctional protein recognition processes. The intimate relationship between the protein surface and hydration water can be analyzed by studying experimental water properties measured in protein systems in solution. In particular, proteins in solution modify the structure and the dynamics of the bulk water at the solute-solvent interface. The ordering effects of proteins on hydration water are extended for several angstroms. In this paper we propose a method for analyzing the dynamical properties of the water molecules present in the hydration shells of proteins. The approach is based on the analysis of the effects of protein-solvent interactions on water protons NMR relaxation parameters. NMR relaxation parameters, especially the nonselective (R1NS and selective (R1SE spin-lattice relaxation rates of water protons, are useful for investigating the solvent dynamics at the macromolecule-solvent interfaces as well as the perturbation effects caused by the water-macromolecule interactions on the solvent dynamical properties. In this paper we demonstrate that Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy can be used to determine the dynamical contributions of proteins to the water molecules belonging to their hydration shells.

  8. PreBIND and Textomy – mining the biomedical literature for protein-protein interactions using a support vector machine

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Baskin Berivan

    2003-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The majority of experimentally verified molecular interaction and biological pathway data are present in the unstructured text of biomedical journal articles where they are inaccessible to computational methods. The Biomolecular interaction network database (BIND seeks to capture these data in a machine-readable format. We hypothesized that the formidable task-size of backfilling the database could be reduced by using Support Vector Machine technology to first locate interaction information in the literature. We present an information extraction system that was designed to locate protein-protein interaction data in the literature and present these data to curators and the public for review and entry into BIND. Results Cross-validation estimated the support vector machine's test-set precision, accuracy and recall for classifying abstracts describing interaction information was 92%, 90% and 92% respectively. We estimated that the system would be able to recall up to 60% of all non-high throughput interactions present in another yeast-protein interaction database. Finally, this system was applied to a real-world curation problem and its use was found to reduce the task duration by 70% thus saving 176 days. Conclusions Machine learning methods are useful as tools to direct interaction and pathway database back-filling; however, this potential can only be realized if these techniques are coupled with human review and entry into a factual database such as BIND. The PreBIND system described here is available to the public at http://bind.ca. Current capabilities allow searching for human, mouse and yeast protein-interaction information.

  9. Galectin-1 Is an Interactive Protein of Selenoprotein M in the Brain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qiong Liu

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Selenium, an essential trace element for human health, mainly exerts its biological function through selenoproteins. Selenoprotein M (SelM is one of the highly expressed selenoproteins in the brain, but its biological effect and molecular mechanism remain unclear. Thus, the interactive protein of SelM was investigated in this paper to guide further study. In order to avoid protein translational stop, the selenocysteine-encoding UGA inside the open reading frame of SelM was site-directly changed to the cysteine-encoding UGC to generate the SelM' mutant. Meanwhile, its N terminal transmembrane signal peptide was also cut off. This truncated SelM' was used to screen a human fetal brain cDNA library by the yeast two-hybrid system. A new interactive protein of SelM' was found to be galectin-1 (Gal-1. This protein-protein interaction was further verified by the results of fluorescence resonance energy transfer techniques, glutathione S-transferase pull-down and co-immunoprecipitation assays. As Gal-1 plays important roles in preventing neurodegeneration and promoting neuroprotection in the brain, the interaction between SelM' and Gal-1 displays a new direction for studying the biological function of SelM in the human brain.

  10. [Identification and analysis of the proteins interacted with Prestin in cochlear outer hair cells of guinea pig].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luo, X; Wang, J Y; Zhang, F L; Xia, Y

    2018-01-07

    Objective: To explore the regulation and mechanism of Prestin protein by identifying the proteins interacted with Prestin in cochlear outer hair cell(OHC) and analyzing their biological function. Methods: Co-immunoprecipitation combined mass spectrometry technology was used to isolate and identify the proteins interacted with Prestin protein of OHC, bioinformatics was used to construct Prestin protein interaction network. The proteins interacted with Prestin in OHC of guinea pig were determined by matching primary interaction mass spectrometry with protein interaction network, and annotated their functions. Results: The results of co-immunoprecipitation combined with mass spectrometry showed that 116 kinds of credible proteins could interact with Prestin. By constructing Prestin protein interaction network, matching the results of mass spectrometry and analyzing of sub-cellular localization, eight kinds of proteins were confirmed that they interacted with Prestin directly, namely EEF2, HSP90AB1, FN1, FLNA, EEF1A1, HSP90B1, ATP5A1, and ERH, respectively, which were mainly involved in the synthesis and transportation, transmembrane folding and localization, structural stability and signal transduction of Prestin protein. Conclusion: EEF2, HSP90AB1, FN1, FLNA, EEF1A1, HSP90B1, ATP5A1 and ERH provide molecular basis for sensory amplification function of OHCs by participating in biotransformation, transmembrane folding and localization, signal transduction and other biological processes of Prestin protein.

  11. Molecular dynamics simulations of the DNA interaction with metallic nanoparticles and TiO2 surfaces

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kholmurodov, Kh.T.; Krasavin, E.A.; Dushanov, E.B.; Hassan, H.K.; Galal, A.; ElHabashy, H.A.; Sweilam, N.H.; Yasuoka, K.

    2013-01-01

    The understanding of the mechanism of DNA interactions and binding with metallic nanoparticles (NPs) and surfaces represents a great interest in today's medicine applications due to diagnostic and treatment of oncology diseases. Recent experimental and simulation studies involve the DNA interaction with highly localized proton beams or metallic NPs (such as Ag, Au, etc.), aimed at targeted cancer therapy through the injection of metal micro- or nanoparticles into the tumor tissue with consequent local microwave or laser heating. The effects of mutational structure changes in DNA and protein structures could result in destroying of native chemical (hydrogen) bonds or, on the contrary, creating of new bonds that do not normally exist there. The cause of such changes might be the alteration of one or several nucleotides (in DNA) or the substitution of specific amino acid residues (in proteins) that can lead to the essential structural destabilization or unfolding. At the atomic or molecular level, the replacement of one nucleotide by another (in DNA double helices) or replacement of one amino acid residue by another (in proteins) cause essential modifications of the molecular force fields of the environment that break locally important hydrogen bonds underlying the structural stability of the biological molecules. In this work, the molecular dynamics(MD) simulations were performed for four DNA models and the flexibilities of the purine and pyrimidine nucleotides during the interaction process with the metallic NPs and TiO 2 surface were clarified

  12. Protein-protein interactions in the regulation of WRKY transcription factors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chi, Yingjun; Yang, Yan; Zhou, Yuan; Zhou, Jie; Fan, Baofang; Yu, Jing-Quan; Chen, Zhixiang

    2013-03-01

    It has been almost 20 years since the first report of a WRKY transcription factor, SPF1, from sweet potato. Great progress has been made since then in establishing the diverse biological roles of WRKY transcription factors in plant growth, development, and responses to biotic and abiotic stress. Despite the functional diversity, almost all analyzed WRKY proteins recognize the TTGACC/T W-box sequences and, therefore, mechanisms other than mere recognition of the core W-box promoter elements are necessary to achieve the regulatory specificity of WRKY transcription factors. Research over the past several years has revealed that WRKY transcription factors physically interact with a wide range of proteins with roles in signaling, transcription, and chromatin remodeling. Studies of WRKY-interacting proteins have provided important insights into the regulation and mode of action of members of the important family of transcription factors. It has also emerged that the slightly varied WRKY domains and other protein motifs conserved within each of the seven WRKY subfamilies participate in protein-protein interactions and mediate complex functional interactions between WRKY proteins and between WRKY and other regulatory proteins in the modulation of important biological processes. In this review, we summarize studies of protein-protein interactions for WRKY transcription factors and discuss how the interacting partners contribute, at different levels, to the establishment of the complex regulatory and functional network of WRKY transcription factors.

  13. Nanoscale swimmers: hydrodynamic interactions and propulsion of molecular machines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sakaue, T.; Kapral, R.; Mikhailov, A. S.

    2010-06-01

    Molecular machines execute nearly regular cyclic conformational changes as a result of ligand binding and product release. This cyclic conformational dynamics is generally non-reciprocal so that under time reversal a different sequence of machine conformations is visited. Since such changes occur in a solvent, coupling to solvent hydrodynamic modes will generally result in self-propulsion of the molecular machine. These effects are investigated for a class of coarse grained models of protein machines consisting of a set of beads interacting through pair-wise additive potentials. Hydrodynamic effects are incorporated through a configuration-dependent mobility tensor, and expressions for the propulsion linear and angular velocities, as well as the stall force, are obtained. In the limit where conformational changes are small so that linear response theory is applicable, it is shown that propulsion is exponentially small; thus, propulsion is nonlinear phenomenon. The results are illustrated by computations on a simple model molecular machine.

  14. LiGRO: a graphical user interface for protein-ligand molecular dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kagami, Luciano Porto; das Neves, Gustavo Machado; da Silva, Alan Wilter Sousa; Caceres, Rafael Andrade; Kawano, Daniel Fábio; Eifler-Lima, Vera Lucia

    2017-10-04

    To speed up the drug-discovery process, molecular dynamics (MD) calculations performed in GROMACS can be coupled to docking simulations for the post-screening analyses of large compound libraries. This requires generating the topology of the ligands in different software, some basic knowledge of Linux command lines, and a certain familiarity in handling the output files. LiGRO-the python-based graphical interface introduced here-was designed to overcome these protein-ligand parameterization challenges by allowing the graphical (non command line-based) control of GROMACS (MD and analysis), ACPYPE (ligand topology builder) and PLIP (protein-binder interactions monitor)-programs that can be used together to fully perform and analyze the outputs of complex MD simulations (including energy minimization and NVT/NPT equilibration). By allowing the calculation of linear interaction energies in a simple and quick fashion, LiGRO can be used in the drug-discovery pipeline to select compounds with a better protein-binding interaction profile. The design of LiGRO allows researchers to freely download and modify the software, with the source code being available under the terms of a GPLv3 license from http://www.ufrgs.br/lasomfarmacia/ligro/ .

  15. Molecular printboards as a general platform for protein immobilization: A supramolecular solution to nonspecific adsorption

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ludden, M.J.W.; Mulder, A.; Tampe, Robert; Reinhoudt, David; Huskens, Jurriaan

    2007-01-01

    Be specific: A supramolecular adsorbate consisting of an adamantyl group (red) and an oligo(ethylene glycol) chain has been designed to prevent nonspecific protein adsorption at cyclodextrin molecular printboards. The adamantyl group allows specific and reversible interactions. Specific

  16. Molecular mechanics calculations of proteins. Comparison of different energy minimization strategies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, I T; Jørgensen, Flemming Steen

    1997-01-01

    A general strategy for performing energy minimization of proteins using the SYBYL molecular modelling program has been developed. The influence of several variables including energy minimization procedure, solvation, dielectric function and dielectric constant have been investigated in order...... to develop a general method, which is capable of producing high quality protein structures. Avian pancreatic polypeptide (APP) and bovine pancreatic phospholipase A2 (BP PLA2) were selected for the calculations, because high quality X-ray structures exist and because all classes of secondary structure...... for this protein. Energy minimized structures of the trimeric PLA2 from Indian cobra (N.n.n. PLA2) were used for assessing the impact of protein-protein interactions. Based on the above mentioned criteria, it could be concluded that using the following conditions: Dielectric constant epsilon = 4 or 20; a distance...

  17. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YMR280C, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available olved in control of glucose-regulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensor... glucose-regulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, an

  18. [Identification of C(2)M interacting proteins by yeast two-hybrid screening].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yue, Shan-shan; Xia, Lai-xin

    2015-11-01

    The synaptonemal complex (SC) is a huge structure which assembles between the homologous chromosomes during meiotic prophase I. Drosophila germ cell-specific nucleoprotein C(2)M clustering at chromosomes can induce SC formation. To further study the molecular function and mechanism of C(2)M in meiosis, we constructed a bait vector for C(2)M and used the yeast two-hybrid system to identify C(2)M interacting proteins. Forty interacting proteins were obtained, including many DNA and histone binding proteins, ATP synthases and transcription factors. Gene silencing assays in Drosophila showed that two genes, wech and Psf1, may delay the disappearance of SC. These results indicate that Wech and Psf1 may form a complex with C(2)M to participate in the formation or stabilization of the SC complex.

  19. Protein-Protein Interaction Databases

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Szklarczyk, Damian; Jensen, Lars Juhl

    2015-01-01

    Years of meticulous curation of scientific literature and increasingly reliable computational predictions have resulted in creation of vast databases of protein interaction data. Over the years, these repositories have become a basic framework in which experiments are analyzed and new directions...

  20. Radioresistance related genes screened by protein-protein interaction network analysis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhu Xiaodong; Guo Ya; Qu Song; Li Ling; Huang Shiting; Li Danrong; Zhang Wei

    2012-01-01

    Objective: To discover radioresistance associated molecular biomarkers and its mechanism in nasopharyngeal carcinoma by protein-protein interaction network analysis. Methods: Whole genome expression microarray was applied to screen out differentially expressed genes in two cell lines CNE-2R and CNE-2 with different radiosensitivity. Four differentially expressed genes were randomly selected for further verification by the semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis with self-designed primers. The common differentially expressed genes from two experiments were analyzed with the SNOW online database in order to find out the central node related to the biomarkers of nasopharyngeal carcinoma radioresistance. The expression of STAT1 in CNE-2R and CNE-2 cells was measured by Western blot. Results: Compared with CNE-2 cells, 374 genes in CNE-2R cells were differentially expressed while 197 genes showed significant differences. Four randomly selected differentially expressed genes were verified by RT-PCR and had same change trend in consistent with the results of chip assay. Analysis with the SNOW database demonstrated that those 197 genes could form a complicated interaction network where STAT1 and JUN might be two key nodes. Indeed, the STAT1-α expression in CNE-2R was higher than that in CNE-2 (t=4.96, P<0.05). Conclusions: The key nodes of STAT1 and JUN may be the molecular biomarkers leading to radioresistance in nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and STAT1-α might have close relationship with radioresistance. (authors)

  1. Detection of protein complex from protein-protein interaction network using Markov clustering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ochieng, P J; Kusuma, W A; Haryanto, T

    2017-01-01

    Detection of complexes, or groups of functionally related proteins, is an important challenge while analysing biological networks. However, existing algorithms to identify protein complexes are insufficient when applied to dense networks of experimentally derived interaction data. Therefore, we introduced a graph clustering method based on Markov clustering algorithm to identify protein complex within highly interconnected protein-protein interaction networks. Protein-protein interaction network was first constructed to develop geometrical network, the network was then partitioned using Markov clustering to detect protein complexes. The interest of the proposed method was illustrated by its application to Human Proteins associated to type II diabetes mellitus. Flow simulation of MCL algorithm was initially performed and topological properties of the resultant network were analysed for detection of the protein complex. The results indicated the proposed method successfully detect an overall of 34 complexes with 11 complexes consisting of overlapping modules and 20 non-overlapping modules. The major complex consisted of 102 proteins and 521 interactions with cluster modularity and density of 0.745 and 0.101 respectively. The comparison analysis revealed MCL out perform AP, MCODE and SCPS algorithms with high clustering coefficient (0.751) network density and modularity index (0.630). This demonstrated MCL was the most reliable and efficient graph clustering algorithm for detection of protein complexes from PPI networks. (paper)

  2. High pressure as a tool for investigating protein-ligand interactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marchal, S; Lange, R; Tortora, P; Balny, C

    2004-01-01

    In recent years, the application of pressure on biological systems has gained increasing interest. Pressure-induced destabilization of electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions is currently exploited to study conformational protein stability and macromolecular assemblies of proteins. Due to links between severe human pathologies and ordered protein oligomerization into aggregates, which have become apparent, a better knowledge of the molecular and structural determinants that ensure the packing efficiency and stability of such complexes has taken on special importance. Here, we report the effect of pressure on the property of human ataxin-3 of aggregation. The results indicate the importance of its polyglutamine chain length in the stability and the tendency of the protein to form spheroids. Partial unfolding of the protein leading to solvent exposure of hydrophobic domains appears to be a prerequisite in the aggregation process of ataxin-3

  3. Interaction of dengue virus nonstructural protein 5 with Daxx modulates RANTES production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Khunchai, Sasiprapa; Junking, Mutita; Suttitheptumrong, Aroonroong; Yasamut, Umpa; Sawasdee, Nunghathai; Netsawang, Janjuree; Morchang, Atthapan; Chaowalit, Prapaipit; Noisakran, Sansanee; Yenchitsomanus, Pa-thai

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► For the first time how DENV NS5 increases RANTES production. ► DENV NS5 physically interacts with human Daxx. ► Nuclear localization of NS5 is required for Daxx interaction and RANTES production. -- Abstract: Dengue fever (DF), dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), and dengue shock syndrome (DSS), caused by dengue virus (DENV) infection, are important public health problems in the tropical and subtropical regions. Abnormal hemostasis and plasma leakage are the main patho-physiological changes in DHF/DSS. A remarkably increased production of cytokines, the so called ‘cytokine storm’, is observed in the patients with DHF/DSS. A complex interaction between DENV proteins and the host immune response contributes to cytokine production. However, the molecular mechanism(s) by which DENV nonstructural protein 5 (NS5) mediates these responses has not been fully elucidated. In the present study, yeast two-hybrid assay was performed to identify host proteins interacting with DENV NS5 and a death-domain-associate protein (Daxx) was identified. The in vivo relevance of this interaction was suggested by co-immunoprecipitation and nuclear co-localization of these two proteins in HEK293 cells expressing DENV NS5. HEK293 cells expressing DENV NS5-K/A, which were mutated at the nuclear localization sequences (NLS), were created to assess its functional roles in nuclear translocation, Daxx interaction, and cytokine production. In the absence of NLS, DENV NS5 could neither translocate into the nucleus nor interact with Daxx to increase the DHF-associated cytokine, RANTES (CCL5) production. This work demonstrates the interaction between DENV NS5 and Daxx and the role of the interaction on the modulation of RANTES production.

  4. Spectroscopic analysis on the binding interaction between tetracycline hydrochloride and bovine proteins β-casein, α-lactalbumin

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bi, Hongna; Tang, Lin, E-mail: tanglin@sdnu.edu.cn; Gao, Xin; Jia, Jingjing; Lv, Henghui

    2016-10-15

    We investigated the binding interaction between tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) and bovine proteins β-casein (β-CN), α-lactalbumin (α-LA) in aqueous solution by multi-spectroscopic methods and molecular modeling techniques. Fluorescence and time-resolved fluorescence showed that TCH effectively quenched the intrinsic fluorescence of bovine proteins via static quenching, while there was a single class of binding site on protein. Thermodynamic parameters revealed that electrostatic forces played major roles in the interaction between β-CN and TCH, whereas α-LA-TCH complex were stabilized by hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces. Moreover, circular dichroism spectra (CD spectra), ultraviolet visible absorption spectra (UV–vis absorption spectra), and fluorescence Excitation-Emission Matrix (EEM) spectra results indicated the secondary structure of bovine proteins was changed in the presence of TCH with the α-helix percentage of protein-TCH complexes decreased. Molecular modeling analysis supported the experimental results well. In addition, the research of surface hydrophobicity further verified tertiary structure of proteins was changed in the presence of TCH and the possible changes of protein function. These results achieved from experiments may be valuable in the milk industry and food safety.

  5. Spectroscopic analysis on the binding interaction between tetracycline hydrochloride and bovine proteins β-casein, α-lactalbumin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bi, Hongna; Tang, Lin; Gao, Xin; Jia, Jingjing; Lv, Henghui

    2016-01-01

    We investigated the binding interaction between tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) and bovine proteins β-casein (β-CN), α-lactalbumin (α-LA) in aqueous solution by multi-spectroscopic methods and molecular modeling techniques. Fluorescence and time-resolved fluorescence showed that TCH effectively quenched the intrinsic fluorescence of bovine proteins via static quenching, while there was a single class of binding site on protein. Thermodynamic parameters revealed that electrostatic forces played major roles in the interaction between β-CN and TCH, whereas α-LA-TCH complex were stabilized by hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces. Moreover, circular dichroism spectra (CD spectra), ultraviolet visible absorption spectra (UV–vis absorption spectra), and fluorescence Excitation-Emission Matrix (EEM) spectra results indicated the secondary structure of bovine proteins was changed in the presence of TCH with the α-helix percentage of protein-TCH complexes decreased. Molecular modeling analysis supported the experimental results well. In addition, the research of surface hydrophobicity further verified tertiary structure of proteins was changed in the presence of TCH and the possible changes of protein function. These results achieved from experiments may be valuable in the milk industry and food safety.

  6. Study of human salivary proline-rich proteins interaction with food tannins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soares, Susana; García-Estévez, Ignacio; Ferrer-Galego, Raúl; Brás, Natércia F; Brandão, Elsa; Silva, Mafalda; Teixeira, Natércia; Fonseca, Fátima; Sousa, Sérgio F; Ferreira-da-Silva, Frederico; Mateus, Nuno; de Freitas, Victor

    2018-03-15

    In this work, saturation transfer difference-NMR, isothermal microcalorimetry and molecular dynamics simulations have been used to study the individual interactions between basic, glycosylated and acidic proline-rich proteins (bPRPS, gPRPs, aPRPs) and P-B peptide with some representative food tannins [procyanidin B2, procyanidin B2 3'-O-gallate (B2g) and procyanidin trimer (catechin-4-8-catechin-4-8-catechin)]. Results showed that P-B peptide was in general the salivary protein (SP) with higher affinity whereas aPRPs showed lower affinity to the studied procyanidins. Moreover, B2g was the procyanidin with higher affinity for all SP. Hydrophobic and hydrogen bonds were present in all interactions but the major driving force depended on the procyanidin-SP pair. Furthermore, proline clusters or residues in their vicinity were identified as the probable sites of proteins for interaction with procyanidins. For bPRP and aPRP a significant change to less extended conformations was observed, while P-B peptide did not display any structural rearrangement upon procyanidins binding. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  7. Orphan Nuclear Receptor NR4A1 Binds a Novel Protein Interaction Site on Anti-apoptotic B Cell Lymphoma Gene 2 Family Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godoi, Paulo H C; Wilkie-Grantham, Rachel P; Hishiki, Asami; Sano, Renata; Matsuzawa, Yasuko; Yanagi, Hiroko; Munte, Claudia E; Chen, Ya; Yao, Yong; Marassi, Francesca M; Kalbitzer, Hans R; Matsuzawa, Shu-Ichi; Reed, John C

    2016-07-01

    B cell lymphoma gene 2 (Bcl-2) family proteins are key regulators of programmed cell death and important targets for drug discovery. Pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins reciprocally modulate their activities in large part through protein interactions involving a motif known as BH3 (Bcl-2 homology 3). Nur77 is an orphan member of the nuclear receptor family that lacks a BH3 domain but nevertheless binds certain anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins (Bcl-2, Bfl-1, and Bcl-B), modulating their effects on apoptosis and autophagy. We used a combination of NMR spectroscopy-based methods, mutagenesis, and functional studies to define the interaction site of a Nur77 peptide on anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins and reveal a novel interaction surface. Nur77 binds adjacent to the BH3 peptide-binding crevice, suggesting the possibility of cross-talk between these discrete binding sites. Mutagenesis of residues lining the identified interaction site on Bcl-B negated the interaction with Nur77 protein in cells and prevented Nur77-mediated modulation of apoptosis and autophagy. The findings establish a new protein interaction site with the potential to modulate the apoptosis and autophagy mechanisms governed by Bcl-2 family proteins. © 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  8. Structure based descriptors for the estimation of colloidal interactions and protein aggregation propensities.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Brunsteiner

    Full Text Available The control of protein aggregation is an important requirement in the development of bio-pharmaceutical formulations. Here a simple protein model is proposed that was used in molecular dynamics simulations to obtain a quantitative assessment of the relative contributions of proteins' net-charges, dipole-moments, and the size of hydrophobic or charged surface patches to their colloidal interactions. The results demonstrate that the strength of these interactions correlate with net-charge and dipole moment. Variation of both these descriptors within ranges typical for globular proteins have a comparable effect. By comparison no clear trends can be observed upon varying the size of hydrophobic or charged patches while keeping the other parameters constant. The results are discussed in the context of experimental literature data on protein aggregation. They provide a clear guide line for the development of improved algorithms for the prediction of aggregation propensities.

  9. Molecular clock in neutral protein evolution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wilke Claus O

    2004-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background A frequent observation in molecular evolution is that amino-acid substitution rates show an index of dispersion (that is, ratio of variance to mean substantially larger than one. This observation has been termed the overdispersed molecular clock. On the basis of in silico protein-evolution experiments, Bastolla and coworkers recently proposed an explanation for this observation: Proteins drift in neutral space, and can temporarily get trapped in regions of substantially reduced neutrality. In these regions, substitution rates are suppressed, which results in an overall substitution process that is not Poissonian. However, the simulation method of Bastolla et al. is representative only for cases in which the product of mutation rate μ and population size Ne is small. How the substitution process behaves when μNe is large is not known. Results Here, I study the behavior of the molecular clock in in silico protein evolution as a function of mutation rate and population size. I find that the index of dispersion decays with increasing μNe, and approaches 1 for large μNe . This observation can be explained with the selective pressure for mutational robustness, which is effective when μNe is large. This pressure keeps the population out of low-neutrality traps, and thus steadies the ticking of the molecular clock. Conclusions The molecular clock in neutral protein evolution can fall into two distinct regimes, a strongly overdispersed one for small μNe, and a mostly Poissonian one for large μNe. The former is relevant for the majority of organisms in the plant and animal kingdom, and the latter may be relevant for RNA viruses.

  10. Molecular features of interaction between VEGFA and anti-angiogenic drugs used in retinal diseases: a computational approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chiara Bianca Maria Platania

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Anti-angiogenic agents are biological drugs used for treatment of retinal neovascular degenerative diseases. In this study, we aimed at in-silico analysis of interaction of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA, the main mediator of angiogenesis, with binding domains of anti-angiogenic agents used for treatment of retinal diseases, such as ranibizumab, bevacizumab and aflibercept. The analysis of anti-VEGF/VEGFA complexes was carried out by means of protein-protein docking and molecular dynamics (MD coupled to molecular mechanics-Poisson Boltzmann Surface Area (MM-PBSA calculation. Molecular dynamics simulation was further analyzed by protein contact networks. Rough energetic evaluation with protein-protein docking scores revealed that aflibercept/VEGFA complex was characterized by electrostatic stabilization, whereas ranibizumab and bevacizumab complexes were stabilized by Van der Waals (VdW energy term; these results were confirmed by MM-PBSA. Comparison of MM-PBSA predicted energy terms with experimental binding parameters reported in literature indicated that the high association rate (Kon of aflibercept to VEGFA was consistent with high stabilizing electrostatic energy. On the other hand, the relatively low experimental dissociation rate (Koff of ranibizumab may be attributed to lower conformational fluctuations of the ranibizumab/VEGFA complex, higher number of contacts and hydrogen bonds in comparison to bevacizumab and aflibercept. Thus, the anti-angiogenic agents have been found to be considerably different both in terms of molecular interactions and stabilizing energy. Characterization of such features can improve the design of novel biological drugs potentially useful in clinical practice.

  11. Discerning molecular interactions: A comprehensive review on biomolecular interaction databases and network analysis tools.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miryala, Sravan Kumar; Anbarasu, Anand; Ramaiah, Sudha

    2018-02-05

    Computational analysis of biomolecular interaction networks is now gaining a lot of importance to understand the functions of novel genes/proteins. Gene interaction (GI) network analysis and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis play a major role in predicting the functionality of interacting genes or proteins and gives an insight into the functional relationships and evolutionary conservation of interactions among the genes. An interaction network is a graphical representation of gene/protein interactome, where each gene/protein is a node, and interaction between gene/protein is an edge. In this review, we discuss the popular open source databases that serve as data repositories to search and collect protein/gene interaction data, and also tools available for the generation of interaction network, visualization and network analysis. Also, various network analysis approaches like topological approach and clustering approach to study the network properties and functional enrichment server which illustrates the functions and pathway of the genes and proteins has been discussed. Hence the distinctive attribute mentioned in this review is not only to provide an overview of tools and web servers for gene and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis but also to extract useful and meaningful information from the interaction networks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Large Scale Molecular Simulation of Nanoparticle-Biomolecule Interactions and their Implications in Nanomedicine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Ruhong

    Nanoscale particles have become promising materials in various biomedical applications, however, in order to stimulate and facilitate these applications, there is an urgent need for a better understanding of their biological effects and related molecular mechanism/physics as well. In this talk, I will discuss some of our recent works, mostly molecular modelling, on nanotoxicity and their implications in de novo design of nanomedicine. We show that carbon-based nanoparticles (carbon nanotubes, graphene nanosheets, and fullerenes) can interact and disrupt the structures and functions of many important proteins. The hydrophobic interactions between the carbon nanotubes and hydrophobic residues, particularly aromatic residues through the so-called π- π stacking interactions, are found to play key roles. Meanwhile, metallofullerenol Gd@C82(OH)22 is found to inhibit tumour growth and metastases with both experimental and theoretical approaches. Graphene and graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets show strong destructive interactions to E. coli cell membranes (antibacterial activity) and A β amyloid fibrils (anti-AD, Alzheimer's disease, capability) with unique molecular mechanisms, while on the other hand, they also show a strong supportive role in enzyme immobilisation such as lipases through lid opening. In particular, the lid opening is assisted by lipase's sophisticated interaction with GO, which allows the adsorbed lipase to enhance its enzyme activity. The lipase enzymatic activity can be further optimized through fine tuning of the GO surface hydrophobicity. These findings might provide a better understanding of ``nanotoxicity'' at the molecular level with implications in de novo nanomedicine design.

  13. Cross-interactions between the Alzheimer Disease Amyloid-β Peptide and Other Amyloid Proteins: A Further Aspect of the Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luo, Jinghui; Wärmländer, Sebastian K T S; Gräslund, Astrid; Abrahams, Jan Pieter

    2016-08-05

    Many protein folding diseases are intimately associated with accumulation of amyloid aggregates. The amyloid materials formed by different proteins/peptides share many structural similarities, despite sometimes large amino acid sequence differences. Some amyloid diseases constitute risk factors for others, and the progression of one amyloid disease may affect the progression of another. These connections are arguably related to amyloid aggregates of one protein being able to directly nucleate amyloid formation of another, different protein: the amyloid cross-interaction. Here, we discuss such cross-interactions between the Alzheimer disease amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide and other amyloid proteins in the context of what is known from in vitro and in vivo experiments, and of what might be learned from clinical studies. The aim is to clarify potential molecular associations between different amyloid diseases. We argue that the amyloid cascade hypothesis in Alzheimer disease should be expanded to include cross-interactions between Aβ and other amyloid proteins. © 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  14. Protein solubility and folding enhancement by interaction with RNA.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seong Il Choi

    Full Text Available While basic mechanisms of several major molecular chaperones are well understood, this machinery has been known to be involved in folding of only limited number of proteins inside the cells. Here, we report a chaperone type of protein folding facilitated by interaction with RNA. When an RNA-binding module is placed at the N-terminus of aggregation-prone target proteins, this module, upon binding with RNA, further promotes the solubility of passenger proteins, potentially leading to enhancement of proper protein folding. Studies on in vitro refolding in the presence of RNA, coexpression of RNA molecules in vivo and the mutants with impaired RNA binding ability suggests that RNA can exert chaperoning effect on their bound proteins. The results suggest that RNA binding could affect the overall kinetic network of protein folding pathway in favor of productive folding over off-pathway aggregation. In addition, the RNA binding-mediated solubility enhancement is extremely robust for increasing soluble yield of passenger proteins and could be usefully implemented for high-throughput protein expression for functional and structural genomic research initiatives. The RNA-mediated chaperone type presented here would give new insights into de novo folding in vivo.

  15. Separation of both fibrous and globular proteins on the basis of molecular weight using high-performance size exclusion chromatography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barden, J A

    1983-11-01

    A high-performance size exclusion liquid chromatographic system has been used to separate proteins with different shapes solely on the basis of their molecular weights. After the effects of ionic and hydrophobic interactions with the stationary phase have been overcome, protein elution is normally governed by their effective size in solution. Conditions are described under which proteins, with isoelectric points within the normal operating pH range of the columns, are eluted independent of their Stokes' radii. Even fibrous proteins with axial ratios of 50 elute according to their known molecular weights over the range 2000-2,000,000.

  16. Broadening the functionality of a J-protein/Hsp70 molecular chaperone system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schilke, Brenda A; Ciesielski, Szymon J; Ziegelhoffer, Thomas; Kamiya, Erina; Tonelli, Marco; Lee, Woonghee; Cornilescu, Gabriel; Hines, Justin K; Markley, John L; Craig, Elizabeth A

    2017-10-01

    By binding to a multitude of polypeptide substrates, Hsp70-based molecular chaperone systems perform a range of cellular functions. All J-protein co-chaperones play the essential role, via action of their J-domains, of stimulating the ATPase activity of Hsp70, thereby stabilizing its interaction with substrate. In addition, J-proteins drive the functional diversity of Hsp70 chaperone systems through action of regions outside their J-domains. Targeting to specific locations within a cellular compartment and binding of specific substrates for delivery to Hsp70 have been identified as modes of J-protein specialization. To better understand J-protein specialization, we concentrated on Saccharomyces cerevisiae SIS1, which encodes an essential J-protein of the cytosol/nucleus. We selected suppressors that allowed cells lacking SIS1 to form colonies. Substitutions changing single residues in Ydj1, a J-protein, which, like Sis1, partners with Hsp70 Ssa1, were isolated. These gain-of-function substitutions were located at the end of the J-domain, suggesting that suppression was connected to interaction with its partner Hsp70, rather than substrate binding or subcellular localization. Reasoning that, if YDJ1 suppressors affect Ssa1 function, substitutions in Hsp70 itself might also be able to overcome the cellular requirement for Sis1, we carried out a selection for SSA1 suppressor mutations. Suppressing substitutions were isolated that altered sites in Ssa1 affecting the cycle of substrate interaction. Together, our results point to a third, additional means by which J-proteins can drive Hsp70's ability to function in a wide range of cellular processes-modulating the Hsp70-substrate interaction cycle.

  17. PSAIA – Protein Structure and Interaction Analyzer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vlahoviček Kristian

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background PSAIA (Protein Structure and Interaction Analyzer was developed to compute geometric parameters for large sets of protein structures in order to predict and investigate protein-protein interaction sites. Results In addition to most relevant established algorithms, PSAIA offers a new method PIADA (Protein Interaction Atom Distance Algorithm for the determination of residue interaction pairs. We found that PIADA produced more satisfactory results than comparable algorithms implemented in PSAIA. Particular advantages of PSAIA include its capacity to combine different methods to detect the locations and types of interactions between residues and its ability, without any further automation steps, to handle large numbers of protein structures and complexes. Generally, the integration of a variety of methods enables PSAIA to offer easier automation of analysis and greater reliability of results. PSAIA can be used either via a graphical user interface or from the command-line. Results are generated in either tabular or XML format. Conclusion In a straightforward fashion and for large sets of protein structures, PSAIA enables the calculation of protein geometric parameters and the determination of location and type for protein-protein interaction sites. XML formatted output enables easy conversion of results to various formats suitable for statistic analysis. Results from smaller data sets demonstrated the influence of geometry on protein interaction sites. Comprehensive analysis of properties of large data sets lead to new information useful in the prediction of protein-protein interaction sites.

  18. Specific interaction of capsid protein and importin-α/β influences West Nile virus production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bhuvanakantham, Raghavan; Chong, Mun-Keat; Ng, Mah-Lee

    2009-01-01

    West Nile virus (WNV) capsid (C) protein has been shown to enter the nucleus of infected cells. However, the mechanism by which C protein enters the nucleus is unknown. In this study, we have unveiled for the first time that nuclear transport of WNV and Dengue virus C protein is mediated by their direct association with importin-α. This interplay is mediated by the consensus sequences of bipartite nuclear localization signal located between amino acid residues 85-101 together with amino acid residues 42 and 43 of C protein. Elucidation of biological significance of importin-α/C protein interaction demonstrated that the binding efficiency of this association influenced the nuclear entry of C protein and virus production. Collectively, this study illustrated the molecular mechanism by which the C protein of arthropod-borne flavivirus enters the nucleus and showed the importance of importin-α/C protein interaction in the context of flavivirus life-cycle.

  19. Specific interaction of capsid protein and importin-{alpha}/{beta} influences West Nile virus production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bhuvanakantham, Raghavan; Chong, Mun-Keat [Flavivirology Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, 5 Science Drive 2, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597 (Singapore); Ng, Mah-Lee, E-mail: micngml@nus.edu.sg [Flavivirology Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, 5 Science Drive 2, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597 (Singapore)

    2009-11-06

    West Nile virus (WNV) capsid (C) protein has been shown to enter the nucleus of infected cells. However, the mechanism by which C protein enters the nucleus is unknown. In this study, we have unveiled for the first time that nuclear transport of WNV and Dengue virus C protein is mediated by their direct association with importin-{alpha}. This interplay is mediated by the consensus sequences of bipartite nuclear localization signal located between amino acid residues 85-101 together with amino acid residues 42 and 43 of C protein. Elucidation of biological significance of importin-{alpha}/C protein interaction demonstrated that the binding efficiency of this association influenced the nuclear entry of C protein and virus production. Collectively, this study illustrated the molecular mechanism by which the C protein of arthropod-borne flavivirus enters the nucleus and showed the importance of importin-{alpha}/C protein interaction in the context of flavivirus life-cycle.

  20. Protein-Glycan Quinary Interactions in Crowding Environment Unveiled by NMR Spectroscopy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diniz, Ana; Dias, Jorge S; Jiménez-Barbero, Jesús; Marcelo, Filipa; Cabrita, Eurico J

    2017-09-21

    Protein-glycan interactions as modulators for quinary structures in crowding environments were explored. The interaction between human galectin 3 (Gal-3) and distinct macromolecular crowders, such as bovine and human serum albumin (BSA and HSA), Ficoll 70 and PEG3350, was scrutinized. The molecular recognition event of the specific ligand, lactose, by Gal-3 in crowding conditions was evaluated. Gal-3 interactions were monitored by NMR analysing chemical shift perturbation (CSP) and line broadening of 1 H 15 N-HSQC signals. The intensity of the Gal-3 1 H 15 N-HSQC signals decreased in the presence of all crowders, due to the increase in the solution viscosity and to the formation of large protein complexes. When glycosylated containing samples of BSA and HSA were used, signal broadening was more severe than that observed in the presence of the more viscous solutions of PEG3350 and Ficoll 70. However, for the samples containing glycoproteins, the signal intensity of 1 H 15 N-HSQC recovered upon addition of lactose. We show that serum proteins interact with Gal-3, through their α2,3-linked sialylgalactose moieties exposed at their surfaces, competing with lactose for the same binding site. The quinary interaction between Gal-3 and serum glycoproteins, could help to co-localize Gal-3 at the cell surface, and may play a role in adhesion and signalling functions of this protein. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  1. Scoring functions for protein-protein interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moal, Iain H; Moretti, Rocco; Baker, David; Fernández-Recio, Juan

    2013-12-01

    The computational evaluation of protein-protein interactions will play an important role in organising the wealth of data being generated by high-throughput initiatives. Here we discuss future applications, report recent developments and identify areas requiring further investigation. Many functions have been developed to quantify the structural and energetic properties of interacting proteins, finding use in interrelated challenges revolving around the relationship between sequence, structure and binding free energy. These include loop modelling, side-chain refinement, docking, multimer assembly, affinity prediction, affinity change upon mutation, hotspots location and interface design. Information derived from models optimised for one of these challenges can be used to benefit the others, and can be unified within the theoretical frameworks of multi-task learning and Pareto-optimal multi-objective learning. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Structural insights, protein-ligand interactions and spectroscopic characterization of isoformononetin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Srivastava, Anubha; Singh, Harshita; Mishra, Rashmi; Dev, Kapil; Tandon, Poonam; Maurya, Rakesh

    2017-04-01

    Isoformononetin, a methoxylated isoflavone present in medicinal plants, has non-estrogenic bone forming effect via differential mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling. Spectroscopic (FT-Raman, FT-IR, UV-vis and NMR spectra) and quantum chemical calculations using density functional theory (DFT) and 6-311++G(d,p) as a large basis set have been employed to study the structural and electronic properties of isoformononetin. A detailed conformational analysis is performed to determine the stability among conformers and the various possibilities of intramolecular hydrogen bonding formation. Molecular docking studies with different protein kinases were performed on isoformononetin and previously studied isoflavonoid, formononetin in order to understand their inhibitory nature and the effect of functional groups on osteogenic or osteoporosis associated proteins. It is found that the oxygen atoms of methoxy, hydroxyl groups attached to phenyl rings R1, R3 and carbonyl group attached to pyran ring R2, play a major role in binding with the protein kinases that is responsible for the osteoporosis; however, no hydrophobic interactions are observed between rings of ligand and protein. The electronic properties such as HOMO and LUMO energies were determined by time-dependent TD-DFT which predict that conformer II is a little bit more stable and chemically low reactive than conformer I of isoformononetin. To estimate the structure-activity relationship, the molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) surface map, and reactivity descriptors are calculated from the optimized geometry of the molecule. From these results, it is also found that isoformononetin is kinetically more stable, less toxic, weak electrophile and chemically less reactive than formononetin. The atoms in molecules and natural bond orbital analysis are applied for the detailed analysis of intra and intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions.

  3. Prediction of the anti-inflammatory mechanisms of curcumin by module-based protein interaction network analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yanxiong Gan

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Curcumin, the medically active component from Curcuma longa (Turmeric, is widely used to treat inflammatory diseases. Protein interaction network (PIN analysis was used to predict its mechanisms of molecular action. Targets of curcumin were obtained based on ChEMBL and STITCH databases. Protein–protein interactions (PPIs were extracted from the String database. The PIN of curcumin was constructed by Cytoscape and the function modules identified by gene ontology (GO enrichment analysis based on molecular complex detection (MCODE. A PIN of curcumin with 482 nodes and 1688 interactions was constructed, which has scale-free, small world and modular properties. Based on analysis of these function modules, the mechanism of curcumin is proposed. Two modules were found to be intimately associated with inflammation. With function modules analysis, the anti-inflammatory effects of curcumin were related to SMAD, ERG and mediation by the TLR family. TLR9 may be a potential target of curcumin to treat inflammation.

  4. Molecular Dynamics Driven Design of pH-Stabilized Mutants of MNEI, a Sweet Protein.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Serena Leone

    Full Text Available MNEI is a single chain derivative of monellin, a plant protein that can interact with the human sweet taste receptor, being therefore perceived as sweet. This unusual physiological activity makes MNEI a potential template for the design of new sugar replacers for the food and beverage industry. Unfortunately, applications of MNEI have been so far limited by its intrinsic sensitivity to some pH and temperature conditions, which could occur in industrial processes. Changes in physical parameters can, in fact, lead to irreversible protein denaturation, as well as aggregation and precipitation. It has been previously shown that the correlation between pH and stability in MNEI derives from the presence of a single glutamic residue in a hydrophobic pocket of the protein. We have used molecular dynamics to study the consequences, at the atomic level, of the protonation state of such residue and have identified the network of intramolecular interactions responsible for MNEI stability at acidic pH. Based on this information, we have designed a pH-independent, stabilized mutant of MNEI and confirmed its increased stability by both molecular modeling and experimental techniques.

  5. Molecular Dynamics Driven Design of pH-Stabilized Mutants of MNEI, a Sweet Protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leone, Serena; Picone, Delia

    2016-01-01

    MNEI is a single chain derivative of monellin, a plant protein that can interact with the human sweet taste receptor, being therefore perceived as sweet. This unusual physiological activity makes MNEI a potential template for the design of new sugar replacers for the food and beverage industry. Unfortunately, applications of MNEI have been so far limited by its intrinsic sensitivity to some pH and temperature conditions, which could occur in industrial processes. Changes in physical parameters can, in fact, lead to irreversible protein denaturation, as well as aggregation and precipitation. It has been previously shown that the correlation between pH and stability in MNEI derives from the presence of a single glutamic residue in a hydrophobic pocket of the protein. We have used molecular dynamics to study the consequences, at the atomic level, of the protonation state of such residue and have identified the network of intramolecular interactions responsible for MNEI stability at acidic pH. Based on this information, we have designed a pH-independent, stabilized mutant of MNEI and confirmed its increased stability by both molecular modeling and experimental techniques.

  6. Mapping the Protein Fold Universe Using the CamTube Force Field in Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kukic, Predrag; Kannan, Arvind; Dijkstra, Maurits J J; Abeln, Sanne; Camilloni, Carlo; Vendruscolo, Michele

    2015-10-01

    It has been recently shown that the coarse-graining of the structures of polypeptide chains as self-avoiding tubes can provide an effective representation of the conformational space of proteins. In order to fully exploit the opportunities offered by such a 'tube model' approach, we present here a strategy to combine it with molecular dynamics simulations. This strategy is based on the incorporation of the 'CamTube' force field into the Gromacs molecular dynamics package. By considering the case of a 60-residue polyvaline chain, we show that CamTube molecular dynamics simulations can comprehensively explore the conformational space of proteins. We obtain this result by a 20 μs metadynamics simulation of the polyvaline chain that recapitulates the currently known protein fold universe. We further show that, if residue-specific interaction potentials are added to the CamTube force field, it is possible to fold a protein into a topology close to that of its native state. These results illustrate how the CamTube force field can be used to explore efficiently the universe of protein folds with good accuracy and very limited computational cost.

  7. Detecting protein-protein interactions in living cells

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gottschalk, Marie; Bach, Anders; Hansen, Jakob Lerche

    2009-01-01

    to the endogenous C-terminal peptide of the NMDA receptor, as evaluated by a cell-free protein-protein interaction assay. However, it is important to address both membrane permeability and effect in living cells. Therefore a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) assay was established, where the C......-terminal of the NMDA receptor and PDZ2 of PSD-95 were fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) and Renilla luciferase (Rluc) and expressed in COS7 cells. A robust and specific BRET signal was obtained by expression of the appropriate partner proteins and subsequently, the assay was used to evaluate a Tat......The PDZ domain mediated interaction between the NMDA receptor and its intracellular scaffolding protein, PSD-95, is a potential target for treatment of ischemic brain diseases. We have recently developed a number of peptide analogues with improved affinity for the PDZ domains of PSD-95 compared...

  8. The DBHS proteins SFPQ, NONO and PSPC1: a multipurpose molecular scaffold.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knott, Gavin J; Bond, Charles S; Fox, Archa H

    2016-05-19

    Nuclear proteins are often given a concise title that captures their function, such as 'transcription factor,' 'polymerase' or 'nuclear-receptor.' However, for members of the Drosophila behavior/human splicing (DBHS) protein family, no such clean-cut title exists. DBHS proteins are frequently identified engaging in almost every step of gene regulation, including but not limited to, transcriptional regulation, RNA processing and transport, and DNA repair. Herein, we present a coherent picture of DBHS proteins, integrating recent structural insights on dimerization, nucleic acid binding modalities and oligomerization propensity with biological function. The emerging paradigm describes a family of dynamic proteins mediating a wide range of protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions, on the whole acting as a multipurpose molecular scaffold. Overall, significant steps toward appreciating the role of DBHS proteins have been made, but we are only beginning to understand the complexity and broader importance of this family in cellular biology. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  9. Integration of Structural Dynamics and Molecular Evolution via Protein Interaction Networks: A New Era in Genomic Medicine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Avishek; Butler, Brandon M.; Kumar, Sudhir; Ozkan, S. Banu

    2016-01-01

    Summary Sequencing technologies are revealing many new non-synonymous single nucleotide variants (nsSNVs) in each personal exome. To assess their functional impacts, comparative genomics is frequently employed to predict if they are benign or not. However, evolutionary analysis alone is insufficient, because it misdiagnoses many disease-associated nsSNVs, such as those at positions involved in protein interfaces, and because evolutionary predictions do not provide mechanistic insights into functional change or loss. Structural analyses can aid in overcoming both of these problems by incorporating conformational dynamics and allostery in nSNV diagnosis. Finally, protein-protein interaction networks using systems-level methodologies shed light onto disease etiology and pathogenesis. Bridging these network approaches with structurally resolved protein interactions and dynamics will advance genomic medicine. PMID:26684487

  10. Dissecting the critical factors for thermodynamic stability of modular proteins using molecular modeling approach.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuno Lee

    Full Text Available Repeat proteins have recently attracted much attention as alternative scaffolds to immunoglobulin antibodies due to their unique structural and biophysical features. In particular, repeat proteins show high stability against temperature and chaotic agents. Despite many studies, structural features for the stability of repeat proteins remain poorly understood. Here we present an interesting result from in silico analyses pursuing the factors which affect the stability of repeat proteins. Previously developed repebody structure based on variable lymphocytes receptors (VLRs which consists of leucine-rich repeat (LRR modules was used as initial structure for the present study. We constructed extra six repebody structures with varying numbers of repeat modules and those structures were used for molecular dynamics simulations. For the structures, the intramolecular interactions including backbone H-bonds, van der Waals energy, and hydrophobicity were investigated and then the radius of gyration, solvent-accessible surface area, ratio of secondary structure, and hydration free energy were also calculated to find out the relationship between the number of LRR modules and stability of the protein. Our results show that the intramolecular interactions lead to more compact structure and smaller surface area of the repebodies, which are critical for the stability of repeat proteins. The other features were also well compatible with the experimental results. Based on our observations, the repebody-5 was proposed as the best structure from the all repebodies in structure optimization process. The present study successfully demonstrated that our computer-based molecular modeling approach can significantly contribute to the experiment-based protein engineering challenge.

  11. Scaffold protein harmonin (USH1C) provides molecular links between Usher syndrome type 1 and type 2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reiners, Jan; van Wijk, Erwin; Märker, Tina; Zimmermann, Ulrike; Jürgens, Karin; te Brinke, Heleen; Overlack, Nora; Roepman, Ronald; Knipper, Marlies; Kremer, Hannie; Wolfrum, Uwe

    2005-12-15

    Usher syndrome (USH) is the most frequent cause of combined deaf-blindness in man. USH is clinically and genetically heterogeneous with at least 11 chromosomal loci assigned to the three USH types (USH1A-G, USH2A-C, USH3A). Although the different USH types exhibit almost the same phenotype in human, the identified USH genes encode for proteins which belong to very different protein classes and families. We and others recently reported that the scaffold protein harmonin (USH1C-gene product) integrates all identified USH1 molecules in a USH1-protein network. Here, we investigated the relationship between the USH2 molecules and this USH1-protein network. We show a molecular interaction between the scaffold protein harmonin (USH1C) and the USH2A protein, VLGR1 (USH2C) and the candidate for USH2B, NBC3. We pinpoint these interactions to interactions between the PDZ1 domain of harmonin and the PDZ-binding motifs at the C-termini of the USH2 proteins and NBC3. We demonstrate that USH2A, VLGR1 and NBC3 are co-expressed with the USH1-protein harmonin in the synaptic terminals of both retinal photoreceptors and inner ear hair cells. In hair cells, these USH proteins are also localized in the signal uptaking stereocilia. Our data indicate that the USH2 proteins and NBC3 are further partners in the supramolecular USH-protein network in the retina and inner ear which shed new light on the function of USH2 proteins and the entire USH-protein network. These findings provide first evidence for a molecular linkage between the pathophysiology in USH1 and USH2. The organization of USH molecules in a mutual 'interactome' related to the disease can explain the common phenotype in USH.

  12. Globular and disordered – the non-identical twins in protein-protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kaare eTeilum

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available In biology proteins from different structural classes interact across and within classes in ways that are optimized to achieve balanced functional outputs. The interactions between intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs and other proteins rely on changes in flexibility and this is seen as a strong determinant for their function. This has fostered the notion that IDP’s bind with low affinity but high specificity. Here we have analyzed available detailed thermodynamic data for protein-protein interactions to put to the test if the thermodynamic profiles of IDP interactions differ from those of other protein-protein interactions. We find that ordered proteins and the disordered ones act as non identical twins operating by similar principles but where the disordered proteins complexes are on average less stable by 2.5 kcal mol-1.

  13. Emergence of modularity and disassortativity in protein-protein interaction networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wan, Xi; Cai, Shuiming; Zhou, Jin; Liu, Zengrong

    2010-12-01

    In this paper, we present a simple evolution model of protein-protein interaction networks by introducing a rule of small-preference duplication of a node, meaning that the probability of a node chosen to duplicate is inversely proportional to its degree, and subsequent divergence plus nonuniform heterodimerization based on some plausible mechanisms in biology. We show that our model cannot only reproduce scale-free connectivity and small-world pattern, but also exhibit hierarchical modularity and disassortativity. After comparing the features of our model with those of real protein-protein interaction networks, we believe that our model can provide relevant insights into the mechanism underlying the evolution of protein-protein interaction networks. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

  14. Interaction of dengue virus nonstructural protein 5 with Daxx modulates RANTES production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Khunchai, Sasiprapa [Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Research and Development, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Graduate Program in Immunology, Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Junking, Mutita [Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Research and Development, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Suttitheptumrong, Aroonroong; Yasamut, Umpa [Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Research and Development, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Graduate Program in Immunology, Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Sawasdee, Nunghathai [Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Research and Development, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Netsawang, Janjuree [Faculty of Medical Technology, Rangsit University, Bangkok (Thailand); Morchang, Atthapan [Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Research and Development, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Graduate Program in Immunology, Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Chaowalit, Prapaipit [Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Research and Development, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); Noisakran, Sansanee [Medical Biotechnology Research Unit, National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, National Science and Technology Development Agency, Bangkok (Thailand); Yenchitsomanus, Pa-thai, E-mail: grpye@mahidol.ac.th [Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Research and Development, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok (Thailand); and others

    2012-06-29

    Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer For the first time how DENV NS5 increases RANTES production. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer DENV NS5 physically interacts with human Daxx. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Nuclear localization of NS5 is required for Daxx interaction and RANTES production. -- Abstract: Dengue fever (DF), dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), and dengue shock syndrome (DSS), caused by dengue virus (DENV) infection, are important public health problems in the tropical and subtropical regions. Abnormal hemostasis and plasma leakage are the main patho-physiological changes in DHF/DSS. A remarkably increased production of cytokines, the so called 'cytokine storm', is observed in the patients with DHF/DSS. A complex interaction between DENV proteins and the host immune response contributes to cytokine production. However, the molecular mechanism(s) by which DENV nonstructural protein 5 (NS5) mediates these responses has not been fully elucidated. In the present study, yeast two-hybrid assay was performed to identify host proteins interacting with DENV NS5 and a death-domain-associate protein (Daxx) was identified. The in vivo relevance of this interaction was suggested by co-immunoprecipitation and nuclear co-localization of these two proteins in HEK293 cells expressing DENV NS5. HEK293 cells expressing DENV NS5-K/A, which were mutated at the nuclear localization sequences (NLS), were created to assess its functional roles in nuclear translocation, Daxx interaction, and cytokine production. In the absence of NLS, DENV NS5 could neither translocate into the nucleus nor interact with Daxx to increase the DHF-associated cytokine, RANTES (CCL5) production. This work demonstrates the interaction between DENV NS5 and Daxx and the role of the interaction on the modulation of RANTES production.

  15. Dendrimer-protein interactions versus dendrimer-based nanomedicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shcharbin, Dzmitry; Shcharbina, Natallia; Dzmitruk, Volha; Pedziwiatr-Werbicka, Elzbieta; Ionov, Maksim; Mignani, Serge; de la Mata, F Javier; Gómez, Rafael; Muñoz-Fernández, Maria Angeles; Majoral, Jean-Pierre; Bryszewska, Maria

    2017-04-01

    Dendrimers are hyperbranched polymers belonging to the huge class of nanomedical devices. Their wide application in biology and medicine requires understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of their interactions with biological systems. Summarizing, electrostatic force plays the predominant role in dendrimer-protein interactions, especially with charged dendrimers. Other kinds of interactions have been proven, such as H-bonding, van der Waals forces, and even hydrophobic interactions. These interactions depend on the characteristics of both participants: flexibility and surface charge of a dendrimer, rigidity of protein structure and the localization of charged amino acids at its surface. pH and ionic strength of solutions can significantly modulate interactions. Ligands and cofactors attached to a protein can also change dendrimer-protein interactions. Binding of dendrimers to a protein can change its secondary structure, conformation, intramolecular mobility and functional activity. However, this strongly depends on rigidity versus flexibility of a protein's structure. In addition, the potential applications of dendrimers to nanomedicine are reviwed related to dendrimer-protein interactions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Towards a map of the Populus biomass protein-protein interaction network

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Beers, Eric [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); Brunner, Amy [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); Helm, Richard [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); Dickerman, Allan [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)

    2015-07-31

    Biofuels can be produced from a variety of plant feedstocks. The value of a particular feedstock for biofuels production depends in part on the degree of difficulty associated with the extraction of fermentable sugars from the plant biomass. The wood of trees is potentially a rich source fermentable sugars. However, the sugars in wood exist in a tightly cross-linked matrix of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, making them largely recalcitrant to release and fermentation for biofuels production. Before breeders and genetic engineers can effectively develop plants with reduced recalcitrance to fermentation, it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the fundamental biology of the mechanisms responsible for wood formation. Regulatory, structural, and enzymatic proteins are required for the complicated process of wood formation. To function properly, proteins must interact with other proteins. Yet, very few of the protein-protein interactions necessary for wood formation are known. The main objectives of this project were to 1) identify new protein-protein interactions relevant to wood formation, and 2) perform in-depth characterizations of selected protein-protein interactions. To identify relevant protein-protein interactions, we cloned a set of approximately 400 genes that were highly expressed in the wood-forming tissue (known as secondary xylem) of poplar (Populus trichocarpa). We tested whether the proteins encoded by these biomass genes interacted with each other in a binary matrix design using the yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) method for protein-protein interaction discovery. We also tested a subset of the 400 biomass proteins for interactions with all proteins present in wood-forming tissue of poplar in a biomass library screen design using Y2H. Together, these two Y2H screens yielded over 270 interactions involving over 75 biomass proteins. For the second main objective we selected several interacting pairs or groups of interacting proteins for in

  17. Atomic and Molecular Interactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2002-01-01

    The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Atomic and Molecular Interactions was held at Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI. Emphasis was placed on current unpublished research and discussion of the future target areas in this field

  18. Calcium Regulates Molecular Interactions of Otoferlin with Soluble NSF Attachment Protein Receptor (SNARE) Proteins Required for Hair Cell Exocytosis*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramakrishnan, Neeliyath A.; Drescher, Marian J.; Morley, Barbara J.; Kelley, Philip M.; Drescher, Dennis G.

    2014-01-01

    Mutations in otoferlin, a C2 domain-containing ferlin family protein, cause non-syndromic hearing loss in humans (DFNB9 deafness). Furthermore, transmitter secretion of cochlear inner hair cells is compromised in mice lacking otoferlin. In the present study, we show that the C2F domain of otoferlin directly binds calcium (KD = 267 μm) with diminished binding in a pachanga (D1767G) C2F mouse mutation. Calcium was found to differentially regulate binding of otoferlin C2 domains to target SNARE (t-SNARE) proteins and phospholipids. C2D–F domains interact with the syntaxin-1 t-SNARE motif with maximum binding within the range of 20–50 μm Ca2+. At 20 μm Ca2+, the dissociation rate was substantially lower, indicating increased binding (KD = ∼10−9) compared with 0 μm Ca2+ (KD = ∼10−8), suggesting a calcium-mediated stabilization of the C2 domain·t-SNARE complex. C2A and C2B interactions with t-SNAREs were insensitive to calcium. The C2F domain directly binds the t-SNARE SNAP-25 maximally at 100 μm and with reduction at 0 μm Ca2+, a pattern repeated for C2F domain interactions with phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate. In contrast, C2F did not bind the vesicle SNARE protein synaptobrevin-1 (VAMP-1). Moreover, an antibody targeting otoferlin immunoprecipitated syntaxin-1 and SNAP-25 but not synaptobrevin-1. As opposed to an increase in binding with increased calcium, interactions between otoferlin C2F domain and intramolecular C2 domains occurred in the absence of calcium, consistent with intra-C2 domain interactions forming a “closed” tertiary structure at low calcium that “opens” as calcium increases. These results suggest a direct role for otoferlin in exocytosis and modulation of calcium-dependent membrane fusion. PMID:24478316

  19. Interaction of the Sliding Clamp β-Subunit and Hda, a DnaA-Related Protein

    OpenAIRE

    Kurz, Mareike; Dalrymple, Brian; Wijffels, Gene; Kongsuwan, Kritaya

    2004-01-01

    In Escherichia coli, interactions between the replication initiation protein DnaA, the β subunit of DNA polymerase III (the sliding clamp protein), and Hda, the recently identified DnaA-related protein, are required to convert the active ATP-bound form of DnaA to an inactive ADP-bound form through the accelerated hydrolysis of ATP. This rapid hydrolysis of ATP is proposed to be the main mechanism that blocks multiple initiations during cell cycle and acts as a molecular switch from initiation...

  20. Comparative Analyses of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus C4 Protein-Interacting Host Proteins in Healthy and Infected Tomato Tissues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Namgyu Kim

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV, a member of the genus Begomovirus, is one of the most important viruses of cultivated tomatoes worldwide, mainly causing yellowing and curling of leaves with stunting in plants. TYLCV causes severe problems in sub-tropical and tropical countries, as well as in Korea. However, the mechanism of TYLCV infection remains unclear, although the function of each viral component has been identified. TYLCV C4 codes for a small protein involved in various cellular functions, including symptom determination, gene silencing, viral movement, and induction of the plant defense response. In this study, through yeast-two hybrid screenings, we identified TYLCV C4-interacting host proteins from both healthy and symptom-exhibiting tomato tissues, to determine the role of TYLCV C4 proteins in the infection processes. Comparative analyses of 28 proteins from healthy tissues and 36 from infected tissues showing interactions with TYLCV C4 indicated that TYLCV C4 mainly interacts with host proteins involved in translation, ubiquitination, and plant defense, and most interacting proteins differed between the two tissues but belong to similar molecular functional categories. Four proteins—two ribosomal proteins, S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase, and 14-3-3 family protein—were detected in both tissues. Furthermore, the identified proteins in symptom-exhibiting tissues showed greater involvement in plant defenses. Some are key regulators, such as receptor-like kinases and pathogenesis-related proteins, of plant defenses. Thus, TYLCV C4 may contribute to the suppression of host defense during TYLCV infection and be involved in ubiquitination for viral infection.

  1. Globular and disordered-the non-identical twins in protein-protein interactions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Teilum, Kaare; Olsen, Johan Gotthardt; Kragelund, Birthe Brandt

    2015-01-01

    as a strong determinant for their function. This has fostered the notion that IDP's bind with low affinity but high specificity. Here we have analyzed available detailed thermodynamic data for protein-protein interactions to put to the test if the thermodynamic profiles of IDP interactions differ from those...... of other protein-protein interactions. We find that ordered proteins and the disordered ones act as non-identical twins operating by similar principles but where the disordered proteins complexes are on average less stable by 2.5 kcal mol(-1)....

  2. Arginine-aromatic interactions and their effects on arginine-induced solubilization of aromatic solutes and suppression of protein aggregation

    KAUST Repository

    Shah, Dhawal

    2011-09-21

    We examine the interaction of aromatic residues of proteins with arginine, an additive commonly used to suppress protein aggregation, using experiments and molecular dynamics simulations. An aromatic-rich peptide, FFYTP (a segment of insulin), and lysozyme and insulin are used as model systems. Mass spectrometry shows that arginine increases the solubility of FFYTP by binding to the peptide, with the simulations revealing the predominant association of arginine to be with the aromatic residues. The calculations further show a positive preferential interaction coefficient, Γ XP, contrary to conventional thinking that positive Γ XP\\'s indicate aggregation rather than suppression of aggregation. Simulations with lysozyme and insulin also show arginine\\'s preference for aromatic residues, in addition to acidic residues. We use these observations and earlier results reported by us and others to discuss the possible implications of arginine\\'s interactions with aromatic residues on the solubilization of aromatic moieties and proteins. Our results also highlight the fact that explanations based purely on Γ XP, which measures average affinity of an additive to a protein, could obscure or misinterpret the underlying molecular mechanisms behind additive-induced suppression of protein aggregation. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

  3. Arginine-aromatic interactions and their effects on arginine-induced solubilization of aromatic solutes and suppression of protein aggregation

    KAUST Repository

    Shah, Dhawal; Li, Jianguo; Shaikh, Abdul Rajjak; Rajagopalan, Raj

    2011-01-01

    We examine the interaction of aromatic residues of proteins with arginine, an additive commonly used to suppress protein aggregation, using experiments and molecular dynamics simulations. An aromatic-rich peptide, FFYTP (a segment of insulin), and lysozyme and insulin are used as model systems. Mass spectrometry shows that arginine increases the solubility of FFYTP by binding to the peptide, with the simulations revealing the predominant association of arginine to be with the aromatic residues. The calculations further show a positive preferential interaction coefficient, Γ XP, contrary to conventional thinking that positive Γ XP's indicate aggregation rather than suppression of aggregation. Simulations with lysozyme and insulin also show arginine's preference for aromatic residues, in addition to acidic residues. We use these observations and earlier results reported by us and others to discuss the possible implications of arginine's interactions with aromatic residues on the solubilization of aromatic moieties and proteins. Our results also highlight the fact that explanations based purely on Γ XP, which measures average affinity of an additive to a protein, could obscure or misinterpret the underlying molecular mechanisms behind additive-induced suppression of protein aggregation. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

  4. Targeting protein-protein interactions for parasite control.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christina M Taylor

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Finding new drug targets for pathogenic infections would be of great utility for humanity, as there is a large need to develop new drugs to fight infections due to the developing resistance and side effects of current treatments. Current drug targets for pathogen infections involve only a single protein. However, proteins rarely act in isolation, and the majority of biological processes occur via interactions with other proteins, so protein-protein interactions (PPIs offer a realm of unexplored potential drug targets and are thought to be the next-generation of drug targets. Parasitic worms were chosen for this study because they have deleterious effects on human health, livestock, and plants, costing society billions of dollars annually and many sequenced genomes are available. In this study, we present a computational approach that utilizes whole genomes of 6 parasitic and 1 free-living worm species and 2 hosts. The species were placed in orthologous groups, then binned in species-specific orthologous groups. Proteins that are essential and conserved among species that span a phyla are of greatest value, as they provide foundations for developing broad-control strategies. Two PPI databases were used to find PPIs within the species specific bins. PPIs with unique helminth proteins and helminth proteins with unique features relative to the host, such as indels, were prioritized as drug targets. The PPIs were scored based on RNAi phenotype and homology to the PDB (Protein DataBank. EST data for the various life stages, GO annotation, and druggability were also taken into consideration. Several PPIs emerged from this study as potential drug targets. A few interactions were supported by co-localization of expression in M. incognita (plant parasite and B. malayi (H. sapiens parasite, which have extremely different modes of parasitism. As more genomes of pathogens are sequenced and PPI databases expanded, this methodology will become increasingly

  5. Identification of Protein-Protein Interactions with Glutathione-S-Transferase (GST) Fusion Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Einarson, Margret B; Pugacheva, Elena N; Orlinick, Jason R

    2007-08-01

    INTRODUCTIONGlutathione-S-transferase (GST) fusion proteins have had a wide range of applications since their introduction as tools for synthesis of recombinant proteins in bacteria. GST was originally selected as a fusion moiety because of several desirable properties. First and foremost, when expressed in bacteria alone, or as a fusion, GST is not sequestered in inclusion bodies (in contrast to previous fusion protein systems). Second, GST can be affinity-purified without denaturation because it binds to immobilized glutathione, which provides the basis for simple purification. Consequently, GST fusion proteins are routinely used for antibody generation and purification, protein-protein interaction studies, and biochemical analysis. This article describes the use of GST fusion proteins as probes for the identification of protein-protein interactions.

  6. Applications of molecular replacement to G protein-coupled receptors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kruse, Andrew C.; Manglik, Aashish; Kobilka, Brian K.; Weis, William I.

    2013-01-01

    The use of molecular replacement in solving the structures of G protein-coupled receptors is discussed, with specific examples being described in detail. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are a large class of integral membrane proteins involved in regulating virtually every aspect of human physiology. Despite their profound importance in human health and disease, structural information regarding GPCRs has been extremely limited until recently. With the advent of a variety of new biochemical and crystallographic techniques, the structural biology of GPCRs has advanced rapidly, offering key molecular insights into GPCR activation and signal transduction. To date, almost all GPCR structures have been solved using molecular-replacement techniques. Here, the unique aspects of molecular replacement as applied to individual GPCRs and to signaling complexes of these important proteins are discussed

  7. Interactive analysis of systems biology molecular expression data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Prabhakar Sunil

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Systems biology aims to understand biological systems on a comprehensive scale, such that the components that make up the whole are connected to one another and work through dependent interactions. Molecular correlations and comparative studies of molecular expression are crucial to establishing interdependent connections in systems biology. The existing software packages provide limited data mining capability. The user must first generate visualization data with a preferred data mining algorithm and then upload the resulting data into the visualization package for graphic visualization of molecular relations. Results Presented is a novel interactive visual data mining application, SysNet that provides an interactive environment for the analysis of high data volume molecular expression information of most any type from biological systems. It integrates interactive graphic visualization and statistical data mining into a single package. SysNet interactively presents intermolecular correlation information with circular and heatmap layouts. It is also applicable to comparative analysis of molecular expression data, such as time course data. Conclusion The SysNet program has been utilized to analyze elemental profile changes in response to an increasing concentration of iron (Fe in growth media (an ionomics dataset. This study case demonstrates that the SysNet software is an effective platform for interactive analysis of molecular expression information in systems biology.

  8. Protein complex prediction based on k-connected subgraphs in protein interaction network

    OpenAIRE

    Habibi, Mahnaz; Eslahchi, Changiz; Wong, Limsoon

    2010-01-01

    Abstract Background Protein complexes play an important role in cellular mechanisms. Recently, several methods have been presented to predict protein complexes in a protein interaction network. In these methods, a protein complex is predicted as a dense subgraph of protein interactions. However, interactions data are incomplete and a protein complex does not have to be a complete or dense subgraph. Results We propose a more appropriate protein complex prediction method, CFA, that is based on ...

  9. Integration of structural dynamics and molecular evolution via protein interaction networks: a new era in genomic medicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Avishek; Butler, Brandon M; Kumar, Sudhir; Ozkan, S Banu

    2015-12-01

    Sequencing technologies are revealing many new non-synonymous single nucleotide variants (nsSNVs) in each personal exome. To assess their functional impacts, comparative genomics is frequently employed to predict if they are benign or not. However, evolutionary analysis alone is insufficient, because it misdiagnoses many disease-associated nsSNVs, such as those at positions involved in protein interfaces, and because evolutionary predictions do not provide mechanistic insights into functional change or loss. Structural analyses can aid in overcoming both of these problems by incorporating conformational dynamics and allostery in nSNV diagnosis. Finally, protein-protein interaction networks using systems-level methodologies shed light onto disease etiology and pathogenesis. Bridging these network approaches with structurally resolved protein interactions and dynamics will advance genomic medicine. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Controlling proteins through molecular springs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zocchi, Giovanni

    2009-01-01

    We argue that the mechanical control of proteins-the notion of controlling chemical reactions and processes by mechanics-is conceptually interesting. We give a brief review of the main accomplishments so far, leading to our present approach of using DNA molecular springs to exert controlled stresses on proteins. Our focus is on the physical principles that underlie both artificial mechanochemical devices and natural mechanisms of allostery.

  11. Caffeine and sulfadiazine interact differently with human serum albumin: A combined fluorescence and molecular docking study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Islam, Mullah Muhaiminul; Sonu, Vikash K.; Gashnga, Pynsakhiat Miki; Moyon, N. Shaemningwar; Mitra, Sivaprasad

    2016-01-01

    The interaction and binding behavior of the well-known drug sulfadiazine (SDZ) and psychoactive stimulant caffeine (CAF) with human serum albumin (HSA) was monitored by in vitro fluorescence titration and molecular docking calculations under physiological condition. The quenching of protein fluorescence on addition of CAF is due to the formation of protein-drug complex in the ground state; whereas in case of SDZ, the experimental results were explained on the basis of sphere of action model. Although both these compounds bind preferentially in Sudlow's site 1 of the protein, the association constant is approximately two fold higher in case of SDZ (∼4.0 × 104 M-1) in comparison with CAF (∼9.3 × 102 M-1) and correlates well with physico-chemical properties like pKa and lipophilicity of the drugs. Temperature dependent fluorescence study reveals that both SDZ and CAF bind spontaneously with HSA. However, the binding of SDZ with the protein is mainly governed by the hydrophobic forces in contrast with that of CAF; where, the interaction is best explained in terms of electrostatic mechanism. Molecular docking calculation predicts the binding of these drugs in different location of sub-domain IIA in the protein structure.

  12. RNA-protein interactions in plant disease: hackers at the dinner table.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spanu, Pietro D

    2015-09-01

    Plants are the source of most of our food, whether directly or as feed for the animals we eat. Our dinner table is a trophic level we share with the microbes that also feed on the primary photosynthetic producers. Microbes that enter into close interactions with plants need to evade or suppress detection and host immunity to access nutrients. They do this by deploying molecular tools - effectors - which target host processes. The mode of action of effector proteins in these events is varied and complex. Recent data from diverse systems indicate that RNA-interacting proteins and RNA itself are delivered by eukaryotic microbes, such as fungi and oomycetes, to host plants and contribute to the establishment of successful interactions. This is evidence that pathogenic microbes can interfere with the host software. We are beginning to see that pathogenic microbes are capable of hacking into the plants' immunity programs. © 2015 The Author. New Phytologist © 2015 New Phytologist Trust.

  13. Salt-bridge networks within globular and disordered proteins: characterizing trends for designable interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basu, Sankar; Mukharjee, Debasish

    2017-07-01

    There has been considerable debate about the contribution of salt bridges to the stabilization of protein folds, in spite of their participation in crucial protein functions. Salt bridges appear to contribute to the activity-stability trade-off within proteins by bringing high-entropy charged amino acids into close contacts during the course of their functions. The current study analyzes the modes of association of salt bridges (in terms of networks) within globular proteins and at protein-protein interfaces. While the most common and trivial type of salt bridge is the isolated salt bridge, bifurcated salt bridge appears to be a distinct salt-bridge motif having a special topology and geometry. Bifurcated salt bridges are found ubiquitously in proteins and interprotein complexes. Interesting and attractive examples presenting different modes of interaction are highlighted. Bifurcated salt bridges appear to function as molecular clips that are used to stitch together large surface contours at interacting protein interfaces. The present work also emphasizes the key role of salt-bridge-mediated interactions in the partial folding of proteins containing long stretches of disordered regions. Salt-bridge-mediated interactions seem to be pivotal to the promotion of "disorder-to-order" transitions in small disordered protein fragments and their stabilization upon binding. The results obtained in this work should help to guide efforts to elucidate the modus operandi of these partially disordered proteins, and to conceptualize how these proteins manage to maintain the required amount of disorder even in their bound forms. This work could also potentially facilitate explorations of geometrically specific designable salt bridges through the characterization of composite salt-bridge networks. Graphical abstract ᅟ.

  14. Building blocks for protein interaction devices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grünberg, Raik; Ferrar, Tony S.; van der Sloot, Almer M.; Constante, Marco; Serrano, Luis

    2010-01-01

    Here, we propose a framework for the design of synthetic protein networks from modular protein–protein or protein–peptide interactions and provide a starter toolkit of protein building blocks. Our proof of concept experiments outline a general work flow for part–based protein systems engineering. We streamlined the iterative BioBrick cloning protocol and assembled 25 synthetic multidomain proteins each from seven standardized DNA fragments. A systematic screen revealed two main factors controlling protein expression in Escherichia coli: obstruction of translation initiation by mRNA secondary structure or toxicity of individual domains. Eventually, 13 proteins were purified for further characterization. Starting from well-established biotechnological tools, two general–purpose interaction input and two readout devices were built and characterized in vitro. Constitutive interaction input was achieved with a pair of synthetic leucine zippers. The second interaction was drug-controlled utilizing the rapamycin-induced binding of FRB(T2098L) to FKBP12. The interaction kinetics of both devices were analyzed by surface plasmon resonance. Readout was based on Förster resonance energy transfer between fluorescent proteins and was quantified for various combinations of input and output devices. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of parts-based protein synthetic biology. Additionally, we identify future challenges and limitations of modular design along with approaches to address them. PMID:20215443

  15. Proteomic Analysis of Interaction between a Plant Virus and Its Vector Insect Reveals New Functions of Hemipteran Cuticular Protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Wenwen; Gray, Stewart; Huo, Yan; Li, Li; Wei, Taiyun; Wang, Xifeng

    2015-08-01

    Numerous viruses can be transmitted by their corresponding vector insects; however, the molecular mechanisms enabling virus transmission by vector insects have been poorly understood, especially the identity of vector components interacting with the virus. Here, we used the yeast two-hybrid system to study proteomic interactions of a plant virus (Rice stripe virus, RSV, genus Tenuivirus) with its vector insect, small brown planthopper (Laodelphax striatellus). Sixty-six proteins of L. striatellus that interacted with the nucleocapsid protein (pc3) of RSV were identified. A virus-insect interaction network, constructed for pc3 and 29 protein homologs of Drosophila melanogaster, suggested that nine proteins might directly interact with pc3. Of the 66 proteins, five (atlasin, a novel cuticular protein, jagunal, NAC domain protein, and vitellogenin) were most likely to be involved in viral movement, replication, and transovarial transmission. This work also provides evidence that the novel cuticular protein, CPR1, from L. striatellus is essential for RSV transmission by its vector insect. CPR1 binds the nucleocapsid protein (pc3) of RSV both in vivo and in vitro and colocalizes with RSV in the hemocytes of L. striatellus. Knockdown of CPR1 transcription using RNA interference resulted in a decrease in the concentration of RSV in the hemolymph, salivary glands and in viral transmission efficiency. These data suggest that CPR1 binds RSV in the insect and stabilizes the viral concentration in the hemolymph, perhaps to protect the virus or to help move the virus to the salivary tissues. Our studies provide direct experimental evidence that viruses can use existing vector proteins to aid their survival in the hemolymph. Identifying these putative vector molecules should lead to a better understanding of the interactions between viruses and vector insects. © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  16. Analysis of intraviral protein-protein interactions of the SARS coronavirus ORFeome.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Albrecht von Brunn

    2007-05-01

    Full Text Available The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV genome is predicted to encode 14 functional open reading frames, leading to the expression of up to 30 structural and non-structural protein products. The functions of a large number of viral ORFs are poorly understood or unknown. In order to gain more insight into functions and modes of action and interaction of the different proteins, we cloned the viral ORFeome and performed a genome-wide analysis for intraviral protein interactions and for intracellular localization. 900 pairwise interactions were tested by yeast-two-hybrid matrix analysis, and more than 65 positive non-redundant interactions, including six self interactions, were identified. About 38% of interactions were subsequently confirmed by CoIP in mammalian cells. Nsp2, nsp8 and ORF9b showed a wide range of interactions with other viral proteins. Nsp8 interacts with replicase proteins nsp2, nsp5, nsp6, nsp7, nsp8, nsp9, nsp12, nsp13 and nsp14, indicating a crucial role as a major player within the replication complex machinery. It was shown by others that nsp8 is essential for viral replication in vitro, whereas nsp2 is not. We show that also accessory protein ORF9b does not play a pivotal role for viral replication, as it can be deleted from the virus displaying normal plaque sizes and growth characteristics in Vero cells. However, it can be expected to be important for the virus-host interplay and for pathogenicity, due to its large number of interactions, by enhancing the global stability of the SARS proteome network, or play some unrealized role in regulating protein-protein interactions. The interactions identified provide valuable material for future studies.

  17. Proteins Encoded in Genomic Regions Associated with Immune-Mediated Disease Physically Interact and Suggest Underlying Biology

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rossin, Elizabeth J.; Hansen, Kasper Lage; Raychaudhuri, Soumya

    2011-01-01

    Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have defined over 150 genomic regions unequivocally containing variation predisposing to immune-mediated disease. Inferring disease biology from these observations, however, hinges on our ability to discover the molecular processes being perturbed by these r......Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have defined over 150 genomic regions unequivocally containing variation predisposing to immune-mediated disease. Inferring disease biology from these observations, however, hinges on our ability to discover the molecular processes being perturbed...... in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Crohn's disease (CD) GWAS, we build protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks for genes within associated loci and find abundant physical interactions between protein products of associated genes. We apply multiple permutation approaches to show that these networks are more...... that the RA and CD networks have predictive power by demonstrating that proteins in these networks, not encoded in the confirmed list of disease associated loci, are significantly enriched for association to the phenotypes in question in extended GWAS analysis. Finally, we test our method in 3 non...

  18. The colloidal state of tannins impacts the nature of their interaction with proteins: the case of salivary proline-rich protein/procyanidins binding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cala, Olivier; Dufourc, Erick J; Fouquet, Eric; Manigand, Claude; Laguerre, Michel; Pianet, Isabelle

    2012-12-18

    While the definition of tannins has been historically associated with its propensity to bind proteins in a nonspecific way, it is now admitted that specific interaction also occurs. The case of the astringency perception is a good example to illustrate this phenomenon: astringency is commonly described as a tactile sensation induced by the precipitation of a complex composed of proline-rich proteins present in the human saliva and tannins present in beverages such as tea or red wines. In the present work, the interactions between a human saliva protein segment and three different procyanidins (B1, B3, and C2) were investigated at the atomic level by NMR and molecular dynamics. The data provided evidence for (i) an increase in affinity compared to shortest human saliva peptides, which is accounted for by protein "wraping around" the tannin, (ii) a specificity in the interaction below tannin critical micelle concentration (CMC) of ca. 10 mM, with an affinity scale such that C2 > B1 > B3, and (iii) a nonspecific binding above tannin CMC that conducts irremediably to the precipitation of the tannins/protein complex. Such physicochemical findings describe in accurate terms saliva protein-tannin interactions and provide support for a more subtle description by oenologists of wine astringency perception in the mouth.

  19. BioPlex Display: An Interactive Suite for Large-Scale AP-MS Protein-Protein Interaction Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schweppe, Devin K; Huttlin, Edward L; Harper, J Wade; Gygi, Steven P

    2018-01-05

    The development of large-scale data sets requires a new means to display and disseminate research studies to large audiences. Knowledge of protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks has become a principle interest of many groups within the field of proteomics. At the confluence of technologies, such as cross-linking mass spectrometry, yeast two-hybrid, protein cofractionation, and affinity purification mass spectrometry (AP-MS), detection of PPIs can uncover novel biological inferences at a high-throughput. Thus new platforms to provide community access to large data sets are necessary. To this end, we have developed a web application that enables exploration and dissemination of the growing BioPlex interaction network. BioPlex is a large-scale interactome data set based on AP-MS of baits from the human ORFeome. The latest BioPlex data set release (BioPlex 2.0) contains 56 553 interactions from 5891 AP-MS experiments. To improve community access to this vast compendium of interactions, we developed BioPlex Display, which integrates individual protein querying, access to empirical data, and on-the-fly annotation of networks within an easy-to-use and mobile web application. BioPlex Display enables rapid acquisition of data from BioPlex and development of hypotheses based on protein interactions.

  20. Evidence for the interaction of the regulatory protein Ki-1/57 with p53 and its interacting proteins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nery, Flavia C.; Rui, Edmilson; Kuniyoshi, Tais M.; Kobarg, Joerg

    2006-01-01

    Ki-1/57 is a cytoplasmic and nuclear phospho-protein of 57 kDa and interacts with the adaptor protein RACK1, the transcription factor MEF2C, and the chromatin remodeling factor CHD3, suggesting that it might be involved in the regulation of transcription. Here, we describe yeast two-hybrid studies that identified a total of 11 proteins interacting with Ki-1/57, all of which interact or are functionally associated with p53 or other members of the p53 family of proteins. We further found that Ki-1/57 is able to interact with p53 itself in the yeast two-hybrid system when the interaction was tested directly. This interaction could be confirmed by pull down assays with purified proteins in vitro and by reciprocal co-immunoprecipitation assays from the human Hodgkin analogous lymphoma cell line L540. Furthermore, we found that the phosphorylation of p53 by PKC abolishes its interaction with Ki-1/57 in vitro

  1. Microsecond molecular dynamics simulations of intrinsically disordered proteins involved in the oxidative stress response.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elio A Cino

    Full Text Available Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs are abundant in cells and have central roles in protein-protein interaction networks. Interactions between the IDP Prothymosin alpha (ProTα and the Neh2 domain of Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2, with a common binding partner, Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1(Keap1, are essential for regulating cellular response to oxidative stress. Misregulation of this pathway can lead to neurodegenerative diseases, premature aging and cancer. In order to understand the mechanisms these two disordered proteins employ to bind to Keap1, we performed extensive 0.5-1.0 microsecond atomistic molecular dynamics (MD simulations and isothermal titration calorimetry experiments to investigate the structure/dynamics of free-state ProTα and Neh2 and their thermodynamics of bindings. The results show that in their free states, both ProTα and Neh2 have propensities to form bound-state-like β-turn structures but to different extents. We also found that, for both proteins, residues outside the Keap1-binding motifs may play important roles in stabilizing the bound-state-like structures. Based on our findings, we propose that the binding of disordered ProTα and Neh2 to Keap1 occurs synergistically via preformed structural elements (PSEs and coupled folding and binding, with a heavy bias towards PSEs, particularly for Neh2. Our results provide insights into the molecular mechanisms Neh2 and ProTα bind to Keap1, information that is useful for developing therapeutics to enhance the oxidative stress response.

  2. Protein complex prediction based on k-connected subgraphs in protein interaction network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Habibi Mahnaz

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Protein complexes play an important role in cellular mechanisms. Recently, several methods have been presented to predict protein complexes in a protein interaction network. In these methods, a protein complex is predicted as a dense subgraph of protein interactions. However, interactions data are incomplete and a protein complex does not have to be a complete or dense subgraph. Results We propose a more appropriate protein complex prediction method, CFA, that is based on connectivity number on subgraphs. We evaluate CFA using several protein interaction networks on reference protein complexes in two benchmark data sets (MIPS and Aloy, containing 1142 and 61 known complexes respectively. We compare CFA to some existing protein complex prediction methods (CMC, MCL, PCP and RNSC in terms of recall and precision. We show that CFA predicts more complexes correctly at a competitive level of precision. Conclusions Many real complexes with different connectivity level in protein interaction network can be predicted based on connectivity number. Our CFA program and results are freely available from http://www.bioinf.cs.ipm.ir/softwares/cfa/CFA.rar.

  3. Molecular Recognition of PTS-1 Cargo Proteins by Pex5p: Implications for Protein Mistargeting in Primary Hyperoxaluria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Noel Mesa-Torres

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Peroxisomal biogenesis and function critically depends on the import of cytosolic proteins carrying a PTS1 sequence into this organelle upon interaction with the peroxin Pex5p. Recent structural studies have provided important insights into the molecular recognition of cargo proteins by Pex5p. Peroxisomal import is a key feature in the pathogenesis of primary hyperoxaluria type 1 (PH1, where alanine:glyoxylate aminotransferase (AGT undergoes mitochondrial mistargeting in about a third of patients. Here, we study the molecular recognition of PTS1 cargo proteins by Pex5p using oligopeptides and AGT variants bearing different natural PTS1 sequences, and employing an array of biophysical, computational and cell biology techniques. Changes in affinity for Pex5p (spanning over 3–4 orders of magnitude reflect different thermodynamic signatures, but overall bury similar amounts of molecular surface. Structure/energetic analyses provide information on the contribution of ancillary regions and the conformational changes induced in Pex5p and the PTS1 cargo upon complex formation. Pex5p stability in vitro is enhanced upon cargo binding according to their binding affinities. Moreover, we provide evidence that the rational modulation of the AGT: Pex5p binding affinity might be useful tools to investigate mistargeting and misfolding in PH1 by pulling the folding equilibria towards the native and peroxisomal import competent state.

  4. Molecular recognition in a diverse set of protein-ligand interactions studied with molecular dynamics simulations and end-point free energy calculations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Bo; Li, Liwei; Hurley, Thomas D; Meroueh, Samy O

    2013-10-28

    End-point free energy calculations using MM-GBSA and MM-PBSA provide a detailed understanding of molecular recognition in protein-ligand interactions. The binding free energy can be used to rank-order protein-ligand structures in virtual screening for compound or target identification. Here, we carry out free energy calculations for a diverse set of 11 proteins bound to 14 small molecules using extensive explicit-solvent MD simulations. The structure of these complexes was previously solved by crystallography and their binding studied with isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) data enabling direct comparison to the MM-GBSA and MM-PBSA calculations. Four MM-GBSA and three MM-PBSA calculations reproduced the ITC free energy within 1 kcal·mol(-1) highlighting the challenges in reproducing the absolute free energy from end-point free energy calculations. MM-GBSA exhibited better rank-ordering with a Spearman ρ of 0.68 compared to 0.40 for MM-PBSA with dielectric constant (ε = 1). An increase in ε resulted in significantly better rank-ordering for MM-PBSA (ρ = 0.91 for ε = 10), but larger ε significantly reduced the contributions of electrostatics, suggesting that the improvement is due to the nonpolar and entropy components, rather than a better representation of the electrostatics. The SVRKB scoring function applied to MD snapshots resulted in excellent rank-ordering (ρ = 0.81). Calculations of the configurational entropy using normal-mode analysis led to free energies that correlated significantly better to the ITC free energy than the MD-based quasi-harmonic approach, but the computed entropies showed no correlation with the ITC entropy. When the adaptation energy is taken into consideration by running separate simulations for complex, apo, and ligand (MM-PBSAADAPT), there is less agreement with the ITC data for the individual free energies, but remarkably good rank-ordering is observed (ρ = 0.89). Interestingly, filtering MD snapshots by prescoring

  5. Efficient extraction of protein-protein interactions from full-text articles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hakenberg, Jörg; Leaman, Robert; Vo, Nguyen Ha; Jonnalagadda, Siddhartha; Sullivan, Ryan; Miller, Christopher; Tari, Luis; Baral, Chitta; Gonzalez, Graciela

    2010-01-01

    Proteins and their interactions govern virtually all cellular processes, such as regulation, signaling, metabolism, and structure. Most experimental findings pertaining to such interactions are discussed in research papers, which, in turn, get curated by protein interaction databases. Authors, editors, and publishers benefit from efforts to alleviate the tasks of searching for relevant papers, evidence for physical interactions, and proper identifiers for each protein involved. The BioCreative II.5 community challenge addressed these tasks in a competition-style assessment to evaluate and compare different methodologies, to make aware of the increasing accuracy of automated methods, and to guide future implementations. In this paper, we present our approaches for protein-named entity recognition, including normalization, and for extraction of protein-protein interactions from full text. Our overall goal is to identify efficient individual components, and we compare various compositions to handle a single full-text article in between 10 seconds and 2 minutes. We propose strategies to transfer document-level annotations to the sentence-level, which allows for the creation of a more fine-grained training corpus; we use this corpus to automatically derive around 5,000 patterns. We rank sentences by relevance to the task of finding novel interactions with physical evidence, using a sentence classifier built from this training corpus. Heuristics for paraphrasing sentences help to further remove unnecessary information that might interfere with patterns, such as additional adjectives, clauses, or bracketed expressions. In BioCreative II.5, we achieved an f-score of 22 percent for finding protein interactions, and 43 percent for mapping proteins to UniProt IDs; disregarding species, f-scores are 30 percent and 55 percent, respectively. On average, our best-performing setup required around 2 minutes per full text. All data and pattern sets as well as Java classes that

  6. Novel Technology for Protein-Protein Interaction-based Targeted Drug Discovery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jung Me Hwang

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available We have developed a simple but highly efficient in-cell protein-protein interaction (PPI discovery system based on the translocation properties of protein kinase C- and its C1a domain in live cells. This system allows the visual detection of trimeric and dimeric protein interactions including cytosolic, nuclear, and/or membrane proteins with their cognate ligands. In addition, this system can be used to identify pharmacological small compounds that inhibit specific PPIs. These properties make this PPI system an attractive tool for screening drug candidates and mapping the protein interactome.

  7. Molecular recognition in complexes of TRF proteins with telomeric DNA.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miłosz Wieczór

    Full Text Available Telomeres are specialized nucleoprotein assemblies that protect the ends of linear chromosomes. In humans and many other species, telomeres consist of tandem TTAGGG repeats bound by a protein complex known as shelterin that remodels telomeric DNA into a protective loop structure and regulates telomere homeostasis. Shelterin recognizes telomeric repeats through its two major components known as Telomere Repeat-Binding Factors, TRF1 and TRF2. These two homologous proteins are therefore essential for the formation and normal function of telomeres. Indeed, TRF1 and TRF2 are implicated in a plethora of different cellular functions and their depletion leads to telomere dysfunction with chromosomal fusions, followed by apoptotic cell death. More specifically, it was found that TRF1 acts as a negative regulator of telomere length, and TRF2 is involved in stabilizing the loop structure. Consequently, these proteins are of great interest, not only because of their key role in telomere maintenance and stability, but also as potential drug targets. In the current study, we investigated the molecular basis of telomeric sequence recognition by TRF1 and TRF2 and their DNA binding mechanism. We used molecular dynamics (MD to calculate the free energy profiles for binding of TRFs to telomeric DNA. We found that the predicted binding free energies were in good agreement with experimental data. Further, different molecular determinants of binding, such as binding enthalpies and entropies, the hydrogen bonding pattern and changes in surface area, were analyzed to decompose and examine the overall binding free energies at the structural level. With this approach, we were able to draw conclusions regarding the consecutive stages of sequence-specific association, and propose a novel aspartate-dependent mechanism of sequence recognition. Finally, our work demonstrates the applicability of computational MD-based methods to studying protein-DNA interactions.

  8. An analysis pipeline for the inference of protein-protein interaction networks

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Taylor, Ronald C.; Singhal, Mudita; Daly, Don S.; Gilmore, Jason M.; Cannon, William R.; Domico, Kelly O.; White, Amanda M.; Auberry, Deanna L.; Auberry, Kenneth J.; Hooker, Brian S.; Hurst, G. B.; McDermott, Jason E.; McDonald, W. H.; Pelletier, Dale A.; Schmoyer, Denise A.; Wiley, H. S.

    2009-12-01

    An analysis pipeline has been created for deployment of a novel algorithm, the Bayesian Estimator of Protein-Protein Association Probabilities (BEPro), for use in the reconstruction of protein-protein interaction networks. We have combined the Software Environment for BIological Network Inference (SEBINI), an interactive environment for the deployment and testing of network inference algorithms that use high-throughput data, and the Collective Analysis of Biological Interaction Networks (CABIN), software that allows integration and analysis of protein-protein interaction and gene-to-gene regulatory evidence obtained from multiple sources, to allow interactions computed by BEPro to be stored, visualized, and further analyzed. Incorporating BEPro into SEBINI and automatically feeding the resulting inferred network into CABIN, we have created a structured workflow for protein-protein network inference and supplemental analysis from sets of mass spectrometry bait-prey experiment data. SEBINI demo site: https://www.emsl.pnl.gov /SEBINI/ Contact: ronald.taylor@pnl.gov. BEPro is available at http://www.pnl.gov/statistics/BEPro3/index.htm. Contact: ds.daly@pnl.gov. CABIN is available at http://www.sysbio.org/dataresources/cabin.stm. Contact: mudita.singhal@pnl.gov.

  9. Interaction sorting method for molecular dynamics on multi-core SIMD CPU architecture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matvienko, Sergey; Alemasov, Nikolay; Fomin, Eduard

    2015-02-01

    Molecular dynamics (MD) is widely used in computational biology for studying binding mechanisms of molecules, molecular transport, conformational transitions, protein folding, etc. The method is computationally expensive; thus, the demand for the development of novel, much more efficient algorithms is still high. Therefore, the new algorithm designed in 2007 and called interaction sorting (IS) clearly attracted interest, as it outperformed the most efficient MD algorithms. In this work, a new IS modification is proposed which allows the algorithm to utilize SIMD processor instructions. This paper shows that the improvement provides an additional gain in performance, 9% to 45% in comparison to the original IS method.

  10. Identification of structural protein-protein interactions of herpes simplex virus type 1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jin H; Vittone, Valerio; Diefenbach, Eve; Cunningham, Anthony L; Diefenbach, Russell J

    2008-09-01

    In this study we have defined protein-protein interactions between the structural proteins of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) using a LexA yeast two-hybrid system. The majority of the capsid, tegument and envelope proteins of HSV-1 were screened in a matrix approach. A total of 40 binary interactions were detected including 9 out of 10 previously identified tegument-tegument interactions (Vittone, V., Diefenbach, E., Triffett, D., Douglas, M.W., Cunningham, A.L., and Diefenbach, R.J., 2005. Determination of interactions between tegument proteins of herpes simplex virus type 1. J. Virol. 79, 9566-9571). A total of 12 interactions involving the capsid protein pUL35 (VP26) and 11 interactions involving the tegument protein pUL46 (VP11/12) were identified. The most significant novel interactions detected in this study, which are likely to play a role in viral assembly, include pUL35-pUL37 (capsid-tegument), pUL46-pUL37 (tegument-tegument) and pUL49 (VP22)-pUS9 (tegument-envelope). This information will provide further insights into the pathways of HSV-1 assembly and the identified interactions are potential targets for new antiviral drugs.

  11. Serum concentration and interaction properties of MBL/ficolin associated protein-1

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Skjoedt, Mikkel-Ole; Hummelshoj, Tina; Palarasah, Yaseelan

    2011-01-01

    pathway (LCP) recognition molecules and MAP-1. We expressed recombinant MAP-1 in CHO DG44 cells, developed a quantitative ELISA assay based on a MAP-1 specific monoclonal capture antibody and measured the serum levels in 100 Danish blood donors. In addition we assessed the association properties between......Recently, a novel protein named MBL/ficolin associated protein-1 (MAP-1) derived from the MASP1 gene through differential splicing was identified. In the present study, we established biochemical characteristics, determined the serum level and assessed the interactions between the lectin complement...... MAP-1 and Ficolin-2, -3 and MBL in serum using ELISA and density gradient ultra centrifugation. When recombinant MAP-1 was subjected to N-glycosidase F treatment the molecular mass decreased from ~45kDa to ~40kDa equivalent with the calculated molecular mass from the deduced amino acid sequence...

  12. Modeling of ultrafast THz interactions in molecular crystals

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Pernille Klarskov; Clark, Stewart J.; Jepsen, Peter Uhd

    2014-01-01

    In this paper we present a numerical study of terahertz pulses interacting with crystals of cesium iodide. We model the molecular dynamics of the cesium iodide crystals with the Density Functional Theory software CASTEP, where ultrafast terahertz pulses are implemented to the CASTEP software...... to interact with molecular crystals. We investigate the molecular dynamics of cesium iodide crystals when interacting with realistic terahertz pulses of field strengths from 0 to 50 MV/cm. We find nonlinearities in the response of the CsI crystals at field strengths higher than 10 MV/cm....

  13. A domain-based approach to predict protein-protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Resat Haluk

    2007-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Knowing which proteins exist in a certain organism or cell type and how these proteins interact with each other are necessary for the understanding of biological processes at the whole cell level. The determination of the protein-protein interaction (PPI networks has been the subject of extensive research. Despite the development of reasonably successful methods, serious technical difficulties still exist. In this paper we present DomainGA, a quantitative computational approach that uses the information about the domain-domain interactions to predict the interactions between proteins. Results DomainGA is a multi-parameter optimization method in which the available PPI information is used to derive a quantitative scoring scheme for the domain-domain pairs. Obtained domain interaction scores are then used to predict whether a pair of proteins interacts. Using the yeast PPI data and a series of tests, we show the robustness and insensitivity of the DomainGA method to the selection of the parameter sets, score ranges, and detection rules. Our DomainGA method achieves very high explanation ratios for the positive and negative PPIs in yeast. Based on our cross-verification tests on human PPIs, comparison of the optimized scores with the structurally observed domain interactions obtained from the iPFAM database, and sensitivity and specificity analysis; we conclude that our DomainGA method shows great promise to be applicable across multiple organisms. Conclusion We envision the DomainGA as a first step of a multiple tier approach to constructing organism specific PPIs. As it is based on fundamental structural information, the DomainGA approach can be used to create potential PPIs and the accuracy of the constructed interaction template can be further improved using complementary methods. Explanation ratios obtained in the reported test case studies clearly show that the false prediction rates of the template networks constructed

  14. Interaction of Proteins Identified in Human Thyroid Cells

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pietsch, Jessica; Riwaldt, Stefan; Bauer, Johann; Sickmann, Albert; Weber, Gerhard; Grosse, Jirka; Infanger, Manfred; Eilles, Christoph; Grimm, Daniela

    2013-01-01

    Influence of gravity forces on the regulation of protein expression by healthy and malignant thyroid cells was studied with the aim to identify protein interactions. Western blot analyses of a limited number of proteins suggested a time-dependent regulation of protein expression by simulated microgravity. After applying free flow isoelectric focusing and mass spectrometry to search for differently expressed proteins by thyroid cells exposed to simulated microgravity for three days, a considerable number of candidates for gravi-sensitive proteins were detected. In order to show how proteins sensitive to microgravity could directly influence other proteins, we investigated all polypeptide chains identified with Mascot scores above 100, looking for groups of interacting proteins. Hence, UniProtKB entry numbers of all detected proteins were entered into the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING) and processed. The program indicated that we had detected various groups of interacting proteins in each of the three cell lines studied. The major groups of interacting proteins play a role in pathways of carbohydrate and protein metabolism, regulation of cell growth and cell membrane structuring. Analyzing these groups, networks of interaction could be established which show how a punctual influence of simulated microgravity may propagate via various members of interaction chains. PMID:23303277

  15. Interaction of Proteins Identified in Human Thyroid Cells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jessica Pietsch

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Influence of gravity forces on the regulation of protein expression by healthy and malignant thyroid cells was studied with the aim to identify protein interactions. Western blot analyses of a limited number of proteins suggested a time-dependent regulation of protein expression by simulated microgravity. After applying free flow isoelectric focusing and mass spectrometry to search for differently expressed proteins by thyroid cells exposed to simulated microgravity for three days, a considerable number of candidates for gravi-sensitive proteins were detected. In order to show how proteins sensitive to microgravity could directly influence other proteins, we investigated all polypeptide chains identified with Mascot scores above 100, looking for groups of interacting proteins. Hence, UniProtKB entry numbers of all detected proteins were entered into the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING and processed. The program indicated that we had detected various groups of interacting proteins in each of the three cell lines studied. The major groups of interacting proteins play a role in pathways of carbohydrate and protein metabolism, regulation of cell growth and cell membrane structuring. Analyzing these groups, networks of interaction could be established which show how a punctual influence of simulated microgravity may propagate via various members of interaction chains.

  16. The Molecular Basis of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Interactions with the Shaker Voltage-Gated Potassium Channel.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samira Yazdi

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Voltage-gated potassium (KV channels are membrane proteins that respond to changes in membrane potential by enabling K+ ion flux across the membrane. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs induce channel opening by modulating the voltage-sensitivity, which can provide effective treatment against refractory epilepsy by means of a ketogenic diet. While PUFAs have been reported to influence the gating mechanism by electrostatic interactions to the voltage-sensor domain (VSD, the exact PUFA-protein interactions are still elusive. In this study, we report on the interactions between the Shaker KV channel in open and closed states and a PUFA-enriched lipid bilayer using microsecond molecular dynamics simulations. We determined a putative PUFA binding site in the open state of the channel located at the protein-lipid interface in the vicinity of the extracellular halves of the S3 and S4 helices of the VSD. In particular, the lipophilic PUFA tail covered a wide range of non-specific hydrophobic interactions in the hydrophobic central core of the protein-lipid interface, while the carboxylic head group displayed more specific interactions to polar/charged residues at the extracellular regions of the S3 and S4 helices, encompassing the S3-S4 linker. Moreover, by studying the interactions between saturated fatty acids (SFA and the Shaker KV channel, our study confirmed an increased conformational flexibility in the polyunsaturated carbon tails compared to saturated carbon chains, which may explain the specificity of PUFA action on channel proteins.

  17. Soft matter interactions at the molecular scale: interaction forces and energies between single hydrophobic model peptides.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stock, Philipp; Utzig, Thomas; Valtiner, Markus

    2017-02-08

    In all realms of soft matter research a fundamental understanding of the structure/property relationships based on molecular interactions is crucial for developing a framework for the targeted design of soft materials. However, a molecular picture is often difficult to ascertain and yet essential for understanding the many different competing interactions at play, including entropies and cooperativities, hydration effects, and the enormous design space of soft matter. Here, we characterized for the first time the interaction between single hydrophobic molecules quantitatively using atomic force microscopy, and demonstrated that single molecular hydrophobic interaction free energies are dominated by the area of the smallest interacting hydrophobe. The interaction free energy amounts to 3-4 kT per hydrophobic unit. Also, we find that the transition state of the hydrophobic interactions is located at 3 Å with respect to the ground state, based on Bell-Evans theory. Our results provide a new path for understanding the nature of hydrophobic interactions at the single molecular scale. Our approach enables us to systematically vary hydrophobic and any other interaction type by utilizing peptide chemistry providing a strategic advancement to unravel molecular surface and soft matter interactions at the single molecular scale.

  18. Definition of the mitochondrial proteome by measurement of molecular masses of membrane proteins

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carroll, Joe; Fearnley, Ian M.; Walker, John E.

    2006-01-01

    The covalent structure of a protein is incompletely defined by its gene sequence, and mass spectrometric analysis of the intact protein is needed to detect the presence of any posttranslational modifications. Because most membrane proteins are purified in detergents that are incompatible with mass spectrometric ionization techniques, this essential measurement has not been made on many hydrophobic proteins, and so proteomic data are incomplete. We have extracted membrane proteins from bovine mitochondria and detergent-purified NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase (complex I) with organic solvents, fractionated the mixtures by hydrophilic interaction chromatography, and measured the molecular masses of the intact membrane proteins, including those of six subunits of complex I that are encoded in mitochondrial DNA. These measurements resolve long-standing uncertainties about the interpretation of the mitochondrial genome, and they contribute significantly to the definition of the covalent composition of complex I. PMID:17060615

  19. Direct interaction of the bacteriophage SPP1 packaging ATPase with the portal protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oliveira, Leonor; Cuervo, Ana; Tavares, Paulo

    2010-03-05

    DNA packaging in tailed bacteriophages and other viruses requires assembly of a complex molecular machine at a specific vertex of the procapsid. This machine is composed of the portal protein that provides a tunnel for DNA entry, an ATPase that fuels DNA translocation (large terminase subunit), and most frequently, a small terminase subunit. Here we characterized the interaction between the terminase ATPase subunit of bacteriophage SPP1 (gp2) and the procapsid portal vertex. We found, by affinity pulldown assays with purified proteins, that gp2 interacts with the portal protein, gp6, independently of the terminase small subunit gp1, DNA, or ATP. The gp2-procapsid interaction via the portal protein depends on gp2 concentration and requires the presence of divalent cations. Competition experiments showed that isolated gp6 can only inhibit gp2-procapsid interactions and DNA packaging at gp6:procapsid molar ratios above 10-fold. Assays with gp6 carrying mutations in distinct regions of its structure that affect the portal-induced stimulation of ATPase and DNA packaging revealed that none of these mutations impedes gp2-gp6 binding. Our results demonstrate that the SPP1 packaging ATPase binds directly to the portal and that the interaction is stronger with the portal embedded in procapsids. Identification of mutations in gp6 that allow for assembly of the ATPase-portal complex but impair DNA packaging support an intricate cross-talk between the two proteins for activity of the DNA translocation motor.

  20. Intercellular protein-protein interactions at synapses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Xiaofei; Hou, Dongmei; Jiang, Wei; Zhang, Chen

    2014-06-01

    Chemical synapses are asymmetric intercellular junctions through which neurons send nerve impulses to communicate with other neurons or excitable cells. The appropriate formation of synapses, both spatially and temporally, is essential for brain function and depends on the intercellular protein-protein interactions of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) at synaptic clefts. The CAM proteins link pre- and post-synaptic sites, and play essential roles in promoting synapse formation and maturation, maintaining synapse number and type, accumulating neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels, controlling neuronal differentiation, and even regulating synaptic plasticity directly. Alteration of the interactions of CAMs leads to structural and functional impairments, which results in many neurological disorders, such as autism, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the functions of CAMs during development and in the mature neural system, as well as in the pathogenesis of some neurological disorders. Here, we review the function of the major classes of CAMs, and how dysfunction of CAMs relates to several neurological disorders.

  1. Phthalic Acid Chemical Probes Synthesized for Protein-Protein Interaction Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chin-Jen Wu

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Plasticizers are additives that are used to increase the flexibility of plastic during manufacturing. However, in injection molding processes, plasticizers cannot be generated with monomers because they can peel off from the plastics into the surrounding environment, water, or food, or become attached to skin. Among the various plasticizers that are used, 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid (phthalic acid is a typical precursor to generate phthalates. In addition, phthalic acid is a metabolite of diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP. According to Gene_Ontology gene/protein database, phthalates can cause genital diseases, cardiotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, etc. In this study, a silanized linker (3-aminopropyl triethoxyslane, APTES was deposited on silicon dioxides (SiO2 particles and phthalate chemical probes were manufactured from phthalic acid and APTES–SiO2. These probes could be used for detecting proteins that targeted phthalic acid and for protein-protein interactions. The phthalic acid chemical probes we produced were incubated with epithelioid cell lysates of normal rat kidney (NRK-52E cells to detect the interactions between phthalic acid and NRK-52E extracted proteins. These chemical probes interacted with a number of chaperones such as protein disulfide-isomerase A6, heat shock proteins, and Serpin H1. Ingenuity Pathways Analysis (IPA software showed that these chemical probes were a practical technique for protein-protein interaction analysis.

  2. Expressed proteins of Herbaspirillum seropedicae in maize (DKB240) roots-bacteria interaction revealed using proteomics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrari, Cibele Santos; Amaral, Fernanda Plucani; Bueno, Jessica Cavalheiro Ferreira; Scariot, Mirella Christine; Valentim-Neto, Pedro Alexandre; Arisi, Ana Carolina Maisonnave

    2014-11-01

    Several molecular tools have been used to clarify the basis of plant-bacteria interaction; however, the mechanism behind the association is still unclear. In this study, we used a proteomic approach to investigate the root proteome of Zea mays (cv. DKB240) inoculated with Herbaspirillum seropedicae strain SmR1 grown in vitro and harvested 7 days after inoculation. Eighteen differentially accumulated proteins were observed in root samples, ten of which were identified by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry peptide mass fingerprint. Among the identified proteins, we observed three proteins present exclusively in inoculated root samples and six upregulated proteins and one downregulated protein relative to control. Differentially expressed maize proteins were identified as hypothetical protein ZEAMMB73_483204, hypothetical protein ZEAMMB73_269466, and tubulin beta-7 chain. The following were identified as H. seropedicae proteins: peroxiredoxin protein, EF-Tu elongation factor protein, cation transport ATPase, NADPH:quinone oxidoreductase, dinitrogenase reductase, and type III secretion ATP synthase. Our results presented the first evidence of type III secretion ATP synthase expression during H. seropedicae-maize root interaction.

  3. Prediction of protein-protein interactions between viruses and human by an SVM model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cui Guangyu

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Several computational methods have been developed to predict protein-protein interactions from amino acid sequences, but most of those methods are intended for the interactions within a species rather than for interactions across different species. Methods for predicting interactions between homogeneous proteins are not appropriate for finding those between heterogeneous proteins since they do not distinguish the interactions between proteins of the same species from those of different species. Results We developed a new method for representing a protein sequence of variable length in a frequency vector of fixed length, which encodes the relative frequency of three consecutive amino acids of a sequence. We built a support vector machine (SVM model to predict human proteins that interact with virus proteins. In two types of viruses, human papillomaviruses (HPV and hepatitis C virus (HCV, our SVM model achieved an average accuracy above 80%, which is higher than that of another SVM model with a different representation scheme. Using the SVM model and Gene Ontology (GO annotations of proteins, we predicted new interactions between virus proteins and human proteins. Conclusions Encoding the relative frequency of amino acid triplets of a protein sequence is a simple yet powerful representation method for predicting protein-protein interactions across different species. The representation method has several advantages: (1 it enables a prediction model to achieve a better performance than other representations, (2 it generates feature vectors of fixed length regardless of the sequence length, and (3 the same representation is applicable to different types of proteins.

  4. Exploiting conformational ensembles in modeling protein-protein interactions on the proteome scale

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuzu, Guray; Gursoy, Attila; Nussinov, Ruth; Keskin, Ozlem

    2013-01-01

    Cellular functions are performed through protein-protein interactions; therefore, identification of these interactions is crucial for understanding biological processes. Recent studies suggest that knowledge-based approaches are more useful than ‘blind’ docking for modeling at large scales. However, a caveat of knowledge-based approaches is that they treat molecules as rigid structures. The Protein Data Bank (PDB) offers a wealth of conformations. Here, we exploited ensemble of the conformations in predictions by a knowledge-based method, PRISM. We tested ‘difficult’ cases in a docking-benchmark dataset, where the unbound and bound protein forms are structurally different. Considering alternative conformations for each protein, the percentage of successfully predicted interactions increased from ~26% to 66%, and 57% of the interactions were successfully predicted in an ‘unbiased’ scenario, in which data related to the bound forms were not utilized. If the appropriate conformation, or relevant template interface, is unavailable in the PDB, PRISM could not predict the interaction successfully. The pace of the growth of the PDB promises a rapid increase of ensemble conformations emphasizing the merit of such knowledge-based ensemble strategies for higher success rates in protein-protein interaction predictions on an interactome-scale. We constructed the structural network of ERK interacting proteins as a case study. PMID:23590674

  5. Evidence of probabilistic behaviour in protein interaction networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reifman Jaques

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Data from high-throughput experiments of protein-protein interactions are commonly used to probe the nature of biological organization and extract functional relationships between sets of proteins. What has not been appreciated is that the underlying mechanisms involved in assembling these networks may exhibit considerable probabilistic behaviour. Results We find that the probability of an interaction between two proteins is generally proportional to the numerical product of their individual interacting partners, or degrees. The degree-weighted behaviour is manifested throughout the protein-protein interaction networks studied here, except for the high-degree, or hub, interaction areas. However, we find that the probabilities of interaction between the hubs are still high. Further evidence is provided by path length analyses, which show that these hubs are separated by very few links. Conclusion The results suggest that protein-protein interaction networks incorporate probabilistic elements that lead to scale-rich hierarchical architectures. These observations seem to be at odds with a biologically-guided organization. One interpretation of the findings is that we are witnessing the ability of proteins to indiscriminately bind rather than the protein-protein interactions that are actually utilized by the cell in biological processes. Therefore, the topological study of a degree-weighted network requires a more refined methodology to extract biological information about pathways, modules, or other inferred relationships among proteins.

  6. Human serum albumin interactions with C{sub 60} fullerene studied by spectroscopy, small-angle neutron scattering, and molecular dynamics simulations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, Song [Vanderbilt University, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (United States); Zhao, Xiongce [NIDDK, National Institutes of Health (United States); Mo, Yiming [Institute of Agriculture, University of Tennessee (United States); Cummings, Peter T., E-mail: cummingspt@ornl.gov [Vanderbilt University, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (United States); Heller, William T., E-mail: hellerwt@ornl.gov [Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Center for Structural Molecular Biology (United States)

    2013-07-15

    Concern about the toxicity of engineered nanoparticles, such as the prototypical nanomaterial C{sub 60} fullerene, continues to grow. While, evidence continues to mount that C{sub 60} and its derivatives may pose health hazards, the specific molecular interactions of these particles with biological macromolecules require further investigation. In this article, we report combined experimental and theoretical studies on the interaction of one of the most prevalent proteins in the human body, human serum albumin (HSA), with C{sub 60} in an aqueous environment. The C{sub 60}-HSA interaction was probed by circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), and atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to understand C{sub 60}-driven changes in the structure of HSA in solution. The CD spectroscopy demonstrates that the secondary structure of the protein decreases in {alpha}-helical content in response to the presence of C{sub 60} (0.68 nm in diameter). Similarly, C{sub 60} produces subtle changes in the solution conformation of HSA (an 8.0 nm Multiplication-Sign 3.8 nm protein), as evidenced by the SANS data and MD simulations, but the data do not indicate that C{sub 60} changes the oligomerization state of the protein, such as by inducing aggregation. The results demonstrate that the interaction is not highly disruptive to the protein in a manner that would prevent it from performing its physiological function.

  7. A novel protein-protein interaction in the RES (REtention and Splicing) complex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tripsianes, Konstantinos; Friberg, Anders; Barrandon, Charlotte; Brooks, Mark; van Tilbeurgh, Herman; Seraphin, Bertrand; Sattler, Michael

    2014-10-10

    The retention and splicing (RES) complex is a conserved spliceosome-associated module that was shown to enhance splicing of a subset of transcripts and promote the nuclear retention of unspliced pre-mRNAs in yeast. The heterotrimeric RES complex is organized around the Snu17p protein that binds to both the Bud13p and Pml1p subunits. Snu17p exhibits an RRM domain that resembles a U2AF homology motif (UHM) and Bud13p harbors a Trp residue reminiscent of an UHM-ligand motif (ULM). It has therefore been proposed that the interaction between Snu17p and Bud13p resembles canonical UHM-ULM complexes. Here, we have used biochemical and NMR structural analysis to characterize the structure of the yeast Snu17p-Bud13p complex. Unlike known UHMs that sequester the Trp residue of the ULM ligand in a hydrophobic pocket, Snu17p and Bud13p utilize a large interaction surface formed around the two helices of the Snu17p domain. In total 18 residues of the Bud13p ligand wrap around the Snu17p helical surface in an U-turn-like arrangement. The invariant Trp(232) in Bud13p is located in the center of the turn, and contacts surface residues of Snu17p. The structural data are supported by mutational analysis and indicate that Snu17p provides an extended binding surface with Bud13p that is notably distinct from canonical UHM-ULM interactions. Our data highlight structural diversity in RRM-protein interactions, analogous to the one seen for nucleic acid interactions. © 2014 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  8. BRI1 and BAK1 interact with G proteins and regulate sugar-responsive growth and development in Arabidopsis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Yuancheng; Chen, Liangliang; Li, Shengjun; Zhang, Yueying; Xu, Ran; Liu, Zupei; Liu, Wuxia; Kong, Jingjing; Huang, Xiahe; Wang, Yingchun; Cheng, Beijiu; Zheng, Leiying; Li, Yunhai

    2018-04-18

    Sugars function as signal molecules to regulate growth, development, and gene expression in plants, yeasts, and animals. A coordination of sugar availability with phytohormone signals is crucial for plant growth and development. The molecular link between sugar availability and hormone-dependent plant growth are largely unknown. Here we report that BRI1 and BAK1 are involved in sugar-responsive growth and development. Glucose influences the physical interactions and phosphorylations of BRI1 and BAK1 in a concentration-dependent manner. BRI1 and BAK1 physically interact with G proteins that are essential for mediating sugar signaling. Biochemical data show that BRI1 can phosphorylate G protein β subunit and γ subunits, and BAK1 can phosphorylate G protein γ subunits. Genetic analyses suggest that BRI1 and BAK1 function in a common pathway with G-protein subunits to regulate sugar responses. Thus, our findings reveal an important genetic and molecular mechanism by which BR receptors associate with G proteins to regulate sugar-responsive growth and development.

  9. Consequences of intramolecular dityrosine formation on a DNA-protein complex: a molecular modeling study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gras, Julien; Sy, Denise; Eon, Severine; Charlier, Michel; Spotheim-Maurizot, Melanie

    2005-01-01

    Irradiation of the free lac repressor with γ-rays abolishes protein's ability to specifically bind operator DNA. A possible radiation-induced protein damage is a dityrosine (DTyr) formed by two spatially close radiation-induced tyrosyl radicals. We performed the molecular modeling of complexes between operator DNA and DTyr-bearing parts (headpieces) of the repressor. The presence of DTyr affects the structure and the interactions between partners. A detailed analysis allows to conclude this damage can partially account for the loss of repressor ability to bind DNA

  10. 3DProIN: Protein-Protein Interaction Networks and Structure Visualization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Hui; Liu, Chunmei

    2014-06-14

    3DProIN is a computational tool to visualize protein-protein interaction networks in both two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) view. It models protein-protein interactions in a graph and explores the biologically relevant features of the tertiary structures of each protein in the network. Properties such as color, shape and name of each node (protein) of the network can be edited in either 2D or 3D views. 3DProIN is implemented using 3D Java and C programming languages. The internet crawl technique is also used to parse dynamically grasped protein interactions from protein data bank (PDB). It is a java applet component that is embedded in the web page and it can be used on different platforms including Linux, Mac and Window using web browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. It also was converted into a mac app and submitted to the App store as a free app. Mac users can also download the app from our website. 3DProIN is available for academic research at http://bicompute.appspot.com.

  11. Nullspace Sampling with Holonomic Constraints Reveals Molecular Mechanisms of Protein Gαs.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dimitar V Pachov

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Proteins perform their function or interact with partners by exchanging between conformational substates on a wide range of spatiotemporal scales. Structurally characterizing these exchanges is challenging, both experimentally and computationally. Large, diffusional motions are often on timescales that are difficult to access with molecular dynamics simulations, especially for large proteins and their complexes. The low frequency modes of normal mode analysis (NMA report on molecular fluctuations associated with biological activity. However, NMA is limited to a second order expansion about a minimum of the potential energy function, which limits opportunities to observe diffusional motions. By contrast, kino-geometric conformational sampling (KGS permits large perturbations while maintaining the exact geometry of explicit conformational constraints, such as hydrogen bonds. Here, we extend KGS and show that a conformational ensemble of the α subunit Gαs of heterotrimeric stimulatory protein Gs exhibits structural features implicated in its activation pathway. Activation of protein Gs by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs is associated with GDP release and large conformational changes of its α-helical domain. Our method reveals a coupled α-helical domain opening motion while, simultaneously, Gαs helix α5 samples an activated conformation. These motions are moderated in the activated state. The motion centers on a dynamic hub near the nucleotide-binding site of Gαs, and radiates to helix α4. We find that comparative NMA-based ensembles underestimate the amplitudes of the motion. Additionally, the ensembles fall short in predicting the accepted direction of the full activation pathway. Taken together, our findings suggest that nullspace sampling with explicit, holonomic constraints yields ensembles that illuminate molecular mechanisms involved in GDP release and protein Gs activation, and further establish conformational coupling between key

  12. AMMOS2: a web server for protein-ligand-water complexes refinement via molecular mechanics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labbé, Céline M; Pencheva, Tania; Jereva, Dessislava; Desvillechabrol, Dimitri; Becot, Jérôme; Villoutreix, Bruno O; Pajeva, Ilza; Miteva, Maria A

    2017-07-03

    AMMOS2 is an interactive web server for efficient computational refinement of protein-small organic molecule complexes. The AMMOS2 protocol employs atomic-level energy minimization of a large number of experimental or modeled protein-ligand complexes. The web server is based on the previously developed standalone software AMMOS (Automatic Molecular Mechanics Optimization for in silico Screening). AMMOS utilizes the physics-based force field AMMP sp4 and performs optimization of protein-ligand interactions at five levels of flexibility of the protein receptor. The new version 2 of AMMOS implemented in the AMMOS2 web server allows the users to include explicit water molecules and individual metal ions in the protein-ligand complexes during minimization. The web server provides comprehensive analysis of computed energies and interactive visualization of refined protein-ligand complexes. The ligands are ranked by the minimized binding energies allowing the users to perform additional analysis for drug discovery or chemical biology projects. The web server has been extensively tested on 21 diverse protein-ligand complexes. AMMOS2 minimization shows consistent improvement over the initial complex structures in terms of minimized protein-ligand binding energies and water positions optimization. The AMMOS2 web server is freely available without any registration requirement at the URL: http://drugmod.rpbs.univ-paris-diderot.fr/ammosHome.php. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  13. Western blotting of high and low molecular weight proteins using heat.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurien, Biji T; Scofield, R Hal

    2015-01-01

    A method for the electrophoretic transfer of high and low molecular weight proteins to nitrocellulose membranes following sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) polyacrylamide gel is described here. The transfer was performed with heated (70-75 °C) normal transfer buffer from which methanol had been omitted. Complete transfer of high and low molecular weight antigens (molecular weight protein standards, a purified protein, and proteins from a human tissue extract) could be carried out in 10 min for a 7 % (0.75 mm) SDS polyacrylamide gel. For 10 and 12.5 % gels (0.75 mm) the corresponding time was 15 min. A complete transfer could be carried out in 20 min for 7, 10, and 12.5 % gels (1.5 mm gels). The permeability of the gel is increased by heat, such that the proteins trapped in the polyacrylamide gel matrix can be easily transferred to the membrane. The heat mediated transfer method was compared with a conventional transfer protocol, under similar conditions. The conventional method transferred minimal low molecular weight proteins while retaining most of the high molecular weight proteins in the gel. In summary, this procedure is particularly useful for the transfer of high molecular weight proteins, very rapid, and avoids the use of methanol.

  14. Exploring hierarchical and overlapping modular structure in the yeast protein interaction network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhao Yi

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Developing effective strategies to reveal modular structures in protein interaction networks is crucial for better understanding of molecular mechanisms of underlying biological processes. In this paper, we propose a new density-based algorithm (ADHOC for clustering vertices of a protein interaction network using a novel subgraph density measurement. Results By statistically evaluating several independent criteria, we found that ADHOC could significantly improve the outcome as compared with five previously reported density-dependent methods. We further applied ADHOC to investigate the hierarchical and overlapping modular structure in the yeast PPI network. Our method could effectively detect both protein modules and the overlaps between them, and thus greatly promote the precise prediction of protein functions. Moreover, by further assaying the intermodule layer of the yeast PPI network, we classified hubs into two types, module hubs and inter-module hubs. Each type presents distinct characteristics both in network topology and biological functions, which could conduce to the better understanding of relationship between network architecture and biological implications. Conclusions Our proposed algorithm based on the novel subgraph density measurement makes it possible to more precisely detect hierarchical and overlapping modular structures in protein interaction networks. In addition, our method also shows a strong robustness against the noise in network, which is quite critical for analyzing such a high noise network.

  15. Bioluminescence resonance energy transfer system for measuring dynamic protein-protein interactions in bacteria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cui, Boyu; Wang, Yao; Song, Yunhong; Wang, Tietao; Li, Changfu; Wei, Yahong; Luo, Zhao-Qing; Shen, Xihui

    2014-05-20

    Protein-protein interactions are important for virtually every biological process, and a number of elegant approaches have been designed to detect and evaluate such interactions. However, few of these methods allow the detection of dynamic and real-time protein-protein interactions in bacteria. Here we describe a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) system based on the bacterial luciferase LuxAB. We found that enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (eYFP) accepts the emission from LuxAB and emits yellow fluorescence. Importantly, BRET occurred when LuxAB and eYFP were fused, respectively, to the interacting protein pair FlgM and FliA. Furthermore, we observed sirolimus (i.e., rapamycin)-inducible interactions between FRB and FKBP12 and a dose-dependent abolishment of such interactions by FK506, the ligand of FKBP12. Using this system, we showed that osmotic stress or low pH efficiently induced multimerization of the regulatory protein OmpR and that the multimerization induced by low pH can be reversed by a neutralizing agent, further indicating the usefulness of this system in the measurement of dynamic interactions. This method can be adapted to analyze dynamic protein-protein interactions and the importance of such interactions in bacterial processes such as development and pathogenicity. Real-time measurement of protein-protein interactions in prokaryotes is highly desirable for determining the roles of protein complex in the development or virulence of bacteria, but methods that allow such measurement are not available. Here we describe the development of a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) technology that meets this need. The use of endogenous excitation light in this strategy circumvents the requirement for the sophisticated instrument demanded by standard fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Furthermore, because the LuxAB substrate decanal is membrane permeable, the assay can be performed without lysing the bacterial cells

  16. Cellular and molecular-genetic mechanisms of symbiosis and associative interaction of microorganisms with plants in rhizosphere

    OpenAIRE

    Lioshina L. G.

    2009-01-01

    The review contains the results of research on symbiotic and associative interaction of microorganisms and plants in rhizosphere. A special attention is given to the process of contact association of microorganisms and plants tissues including the concrete molecular structures and dominant role pertaining to protein-carbohydrate interaction. There are common features and distinctions at formation of arbuscular mycorhiza, rhizobia– legume symbiosis and association of non-leguminous plants with...

  17. Full Data of Yeast Interacting Proteins Database (Original Version) - Yeast Interacting Proteins Database | LSDB Archive [Life Science Database Archive metadata

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available List Contact us Yeast Interacting Proteins Database Full Data of Yeast Interacting Proteins Database (Origin...al Version) Data detail Data name Full Data of Yeast Interacting Proteins Database (Original Version) DOI 10....18908/lsdba.nbdc00742-004 Description of data contents The entire data in the Yeast Interacting Proteins Database...eir interactions are required. Several sources including YPD (Yeast Proteome Database, Costanzo, M. C., Hoga...ematic name in the SGD (Saccharomyces Genome Database; http://www.yeastgenome.org /). Bait gene name The gen

  18. From nonspecific DNA-protein encounter complexes to the prediction of DNA-protein interactions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mu Gao

    2009-03-01

    Full Text Available DNA-protein interactions are involved in many essential biological activities. Because there is no simple mapping code between DNA base pairs and protein amino acids, the prediction of DNA-protein interactions is a challenging problem. Here, we present a novel computational approach for predicting DNA-binding protein residues and DNA-protein interaction modes without knowing its specific DNA target sequence. Given the structure of a DNA-binding protein, the method first generates an ensemble of complex structures obtained by rigid-body docking with a nonspecific canonical B-DNA. Representative models are subsequently selected through clustering and ranking by their DNA-protein interfacial energy. Analysis of these encounter complex models suggests that the recognition sites for specific DNA binding are usually favorable interaction sites for the nonspecific DNA probe and that nonspecific DNA-protein interaction modes exhibit some similarity to specific DNA-protein binding modes. Although the method requires as input the knowledge that the protein binds DNA, in benchmark tests, it achieves better performance in identifying DNA-binding sites than three previously established methods, which are based on sophisticated machine-learning techniques. We further apply our method to protein structures predicted through modeling and demonstrate that our method performs satisfactorily on protein models whose root-mean-square Calpha deviation from native is up to 5 A from their native structures. This study provides valuable structural insights into how a specific DNA-binding protein interacts with a nonspecific DNA sequence. The similarity between the specific DNA-protein interaction mode and nonspecific interaction modes may reflect an important sampling step in search of its specific DNA targets by a DNA-binding protein.

  19. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YGL127C, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available ith protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; acts as a regula...rotein involved in control of glucose-regulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors

  20. Protein-Protein Interactions Prediction Based on Iterative Clique Extension with Gene Ontology Filtering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lei Yang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Cliques (maximal complete subnets in protein-protein interaction (PPI network are an important resource used to analyze protein complexes and functional modules. Clique-based methods of predicting PPI complement the data defection from biological experiments. However, clique-based predicting methods only depend on the topology of network. The false-positive and false-negative interactions in a network usually interfere with prediction. Therefore, we propose a method combining clique-based method of prediction and gene ontology (GO annotations to overcome the shortcoming and improve the accuracy of predictions. According to different GO correcting rules, we generate two predicted interaction sets which guarantee the quality and quantity of predicted protein interactions. The proposed method is applied to the PPI network from the Database of Interacting Proteins (DIP and most of the predicted interactions are verified by another biological database, BioGRID. The predicted protein interactions are appended to the original protein network, which leads to clique extension and shows the significance of biological meaning.

  1. Introduction to a Protein Interaction System Used for Quantitative Evaluation of Biomolecular Interactions

    OpenAIRE

    Yamniuk, Aaron

    2013-01-01

    A central goal of molecular biology is the determination of biomolecular function. This comes largely from a knowledge of the non-covalent interactions that biological small and macro-molecules experience. The fundamental mission of the Molecular Interactions Research Group (MIRG) of the ABRF is to show how solution biophysical tools are used to quantitatively characterize molecular interactions, and to educate the ABRF members and scientific community on the utility and limitations of core t...

  2. The Development of Protein Microarrays and Their Applications in DNA-Protein and Protein-Protein Interaction Analyses of Arabidopsis Transcription Factors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gong, Wei; He, Kun; Covington, Mike; Dinesh-Kumar, S. P.; Snyder, Michael; Harmer, Stacey L.; Zhu, Yu-Xian; Deng, Xing Wang

    2009-01-01

    We used our collection of Arabidopsis transcription factor (TF) ORFeome clones to construct protein microarrays containing as many as 802 TF proteins. These protein microarrays were used for both protein-DNA and protein-protein interaction analyses. For protein-DNA interaction studies, we examined AP2/ERF family TFs and their cognate cis-elements. By careful comparison of the DNA-binding specificity of 13 TFs on the protein microarray with previous non-microarray data, we showed that protein microarrays provide an efficient and high throughput tool for genome-wide analysis of TF-DNA interactions. This microarray protein-DNA interaction analysis allowed us to derive a comprehensive view of DNA-binding profiles of AP2/ERF family proteins in Arabidopsis. It also revealed four TFs that bound the EE (evening element) and had the expected phased gene expression under clock-regulation, thus providing a basis for further functional analysis of their roles in clock regulation of gene expression. We also developed procedures for detecting protein interactions using this TF protein microarray and discovered four novel partners that interact with HY5, which can be validated by yeast two-hybrid assays. Thus, plant TF protein microarrays offer an attractive high-throughput alternative to traditional techniques for TF functional characterization on a global scale. PMID:19802365

  3. Interaction of proteins with ionic liquid, alcohol and DMSO and in situ generation of gold nano-clusters in a cell.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nandi, Somen; Parui, Sridip; Halder, Ritaban; Jana, Biman; Bhattacharyya, Kankan

    2018-06-01

    In this review, we give a brief overview on how the interaction of proteins with ionic liquids, alcohols and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) influences the stability, conformational dynamics and function of proteins/enzymes. We present experimental results obtained from fluorescence correlation spectroscopy on the effect of ionic liquid or alcohol or DMSO on the size (more precisely, the diffusion constant) and conformational dynamics of lysozyme, cytochrome c and human serum albumin in aqueous solution. The interaction of ionic liquid with biomolecules (e.g. protein, DNA etc.) has emerged as a current frontier. We demonstrate that ionic liquids are excellent stabilizers of protein and DNA and, in some cases, cause refolding of a protein already denatured by chemical denaturing agents. We show that in ethanol-water binary mixture, proteins undergo non-monotonic changes in size and dynamics with increasing ethanol content. We also discuss the effect of water-DMSO mixture on the stability of proteins. We demonstrate how large-scale molecular dynamics simulations have revealed the molecular origin of this observed phenomenon and provide a microscopic picture of the immediate environment of the biomolecules. Finally, we describe how favorable interactions of ionic liquids may be utilized for in situ generation of fluorescent gold nano-clusters for imaging a live cell.

  4. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YOR047C, YKL038W [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available racts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; acts as a...Bait description Protein involved in control of glucose-regulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose senso...rs Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; acts as a regulator of the tra

  5. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YFR049W, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; acts as a regulator... (0) YOR047C STD1 Protein involved in control of glucose-regulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sens...ors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; ac

  6. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YGL145W, YNL258C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available ripheral membrane protein required for Golgi-to-ER retrograde traffic; component ... membrane protein required for Golgi-to-ER retrograde traffic; component of the ER target site that interact

  7. p15PAF is an intrinsically disordered protein with nonrandom structural preferences at sites of interaction with other proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Biasio, Alfredo; Ibáñez de Opakua, Alain; Cordeiro, Tiago N; Villate, Maider; Merino, Nekane; Sibille, Nathalie; Lelli, Moreno; Diercks, Tammo; Bernadó, Pau; Blanco, Francisco J

    2014-02-18

    We present to our knowledge the first structural characterization of the proliferating-cell-nuclear-antigen-associated factor p15(PAF), showing that it is monomeric and intrinsically disordered in solution but has nonrandom conformational preferences at sites of protein-protein interactions. p15(PAF) is a 12 kDa nuclear protein that acts as a regulator of DNA repair during DNA replication. The p15(PAF) gene is overexpressed in several types of human cancer. The nearly complete NMR backbone assignment of p15(PAF) allowed us to measure 86 N-H(N) residual dipolar couplings. Our residual dipolar coupling analysis reveals nonrandom conformational preferences in distinct regions, including the proliferating-cell-nuclear-antigen-interacting protein motif (PIP-box) and the KEN-box (recognized by the ubiquitin ligase that targets p15(PAF) for degradation). In accordance with these findings, analysis of the (15)N R2 relaxation rates shows a relatively reduced mobility for the residues in these regions. The agreement between the experimental small angle x-ray scattering curve of p15(PAF) and that computed from a statistical coil ensemble corrected for the presence of local secondary structural elements further validates our structural model for p15(PAF). The coincidence of these transiently structured regions with protein-protein interaction and posttranslational modification sites suggests a possible role for these structures as molecular recognition elements for p15(PAF). Copyright © 2014 Biophysical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Theoretical and experimental approach on the molecular interactions of the DL-Alanine with an electrolytic environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cantero-López, Plinio; Yañez-Osses, Osvaldo; Páez-Meza, Manuel Silvestre; López, Johana E.; Páez-Hernández, Dayán; Arratia-Pérez, Ramiro

    2017-11-01

    The molecular interactions that promote the stability of proteins and amino acids in saline solutions is a central topic of molecular biophysics. However, a well-supported molecular picture of the phenomena has not been established yet. In this paper, we studied as model system the mix between DL-Alanine in aqueous solutions of STP (Na2S2O3·5H2O) at different temperatures, from volumetric and viscometric properties. The thermophysical properties obtained indicate the presence of a strong preferential solvation, structure-making action and a possible salt in effect. Quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations provide a new insight to support these arguments.

  9. Interaction with Single-stranded DNA-binding Protein Stimulates Escherichia coli Ribonuclease HI Enzymatic Activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petzold, Christine; Marceau, Aimee H; Miller, Katherine H; Marqusee, Susan; Keck, James L

    2015-06-05

    Single-stranded (ss) DNA-binding proteins (SSBs) bind and protect ssDNA intermediates formed during replication, recombination, and repair reactions. SSBs also directly interact with many different genome maintenance proteins to stimulate their enzymatic activities and/or mediate their proper cellular localization. We have identified an interaction formed between Escherichia coli SSB and ribonuclease HI (RNase HI), an enzyme that hydrolyzes RNA in RNA/DNA hybrids. The RNase HI·SSB complex forms by RNase HI binding the intrinsically disordered C terminus of SSB (SSB-Ct), a mode of interaction that is shared among all SSB interaction partners examined to date. Residues that comprise the SSB-Ct binding site are conserved among bacterial RNase HI enzymes, suggesting that RNase HI·SSB complexes are present in many bacterial species and that retaining the interaction is important for its cellular function. A steady-state kinetic analysis shows that interaction with SSB stimulates RNase HI activity by lowering the reaction Km. SSB or RNase HI protein variants that disrupt complex formation nullify this effect. Collectively our findings identify a direct RNase HI/SSB interaction that could play a role in targeting RNase HI activity to RNA/DNA hybrid substrates within the genome. © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  10. A rice kinase-protein interaction map.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Xiaodong; Richter, Todd; Chen, Mei; Fujii, Hiroaki; Seo, Young Su; Xie, Mingtang; Zheng, Xianwu; Kanrar, Siddhartha; Stevenson, Rebecca A; Dardick, Christopher; Li, Ying; Jiang, Hao; Zhang, Yan; Yu, Fahong; Bartley, Laura E; Chern, Mawsheng; Bart, Rebecca; Chen, Xiuhua; Zhu, Lihuang; Farmerie, William G; Gribskov, Michael; Zhu, Jian-Kang; Fromm, Michael E; Ronald, Pamela C; Song, Wen-Yuan

    2009-03-01

    Plants uniquely contain large numbers of protein kinases, and for the vast majority of the 1,429 kinases predicted in the rice (Oryza sativa) genome, little is known of their functions. Genetic approaches often fail to produce observable phenotypes; thus, new strategies are needed to delineate kinase function. We previously developed a cost-effective high-throughput yeast two-hybrid system. Using this system, we have generated a protein interaction map of 116 representative rice kinases and 254 of their interacting proteins. Overall, the resulting interaction map supports a large number of known or predicted kinase-protein interactions from both plants and animals and reveals many new functional insights. Notably, we found a potential widespread role for E3 ubiquitin ligases in pathogen defense signaling mediated by receptor-like kinases, particularly by the kinases that may have evolved from recently expanded kinase subfamilies in rice. We anticipate that the data provided here will serve as a foundation for targeted functional studies in rice and other plants. The application of yeast two-hybrid and TAPtag analyses for large-scale plant protein interaction studies is also discussed.

  11. Genomic and proteomic analyses of Prdm5 reveal interactions with insulator binding proteins in embryonic stem cells

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Galli, Giorgio Giacomo; Carrara, Matteo; Francavilla, Chiara

    2013-01-01

    PRDM proteins belong to the SET- domain protein family involved in the regulation of gene expression. Although few PRDM members possess histone methyltransferase activity, the molecular mechanisms by which the other members exert transcriptional regulation remain to be delineated. In this study, we...... find that Prdm5 is highly expressed in mouse embryonic stem cells (mES) and exploit this cellular system to characterize molecular functions of Prdm5. By combining proteomics and next generation sequencing technologies we identify Prdm5 interaction partners and genomic occupancy. We demonstrate that......, despite Prdm5 is dispensable for mES cell maintenance, it directly targets genomic regions involved in early embryonic development and affects the expression of a subset of developmental regulators during cell differentiation. Importantly, Prdm5 interacts with Ctcf, Cohesin and TFIIIC and co...

  12. Molecular interactions with reference to manifestation of solvation ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The density and viscosity data were analyzed by some semi-empirical viscosity models, and the results have been discussed in terms of molecular interactions and structural effects. The excess properties were found to be either negative or positive depending on the molecular interactions and the nature of liquid mixtures.

  13. [Interaction of FABP4 with plasma membrane proteins of endothelial cells].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saavedra, Paula; Girona, Josefa; Aragonès, Gemma; Cabré, Anna; Guaita, Sandra; Heras, Mercedes; Masana, Lluís

    2015-01-01

    Fatty acid binding protein (FABP4) is an adipose tissue-secreted adipokine implicated in the regulation of the energetic metabolism and inflammation. High levels of circulating FABP4 have been described in people with obesity, atherogenic dyslipidemia, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Recent studies have demonstrated that FABP4 could have a direct effect on peripheral tissues and, specifically, on vascular function. It is still unknown how the interaction between FABP4 and the endothelial cells is produced to prompt these effects on vascular function. The objective of this work is studying the interaction between FABP4 and the plasma membrane proteins of endothelial cells. HUVEC cells were incubated with and without FABP4 (100 ng/ml) for 5 minutes. Immunolocalization of FABP4 was studied by confocal microscopy. The results showed that FABP4 colocalizates with CD31, a membrane protein marker. A strategy which combines 6XHistidine-tag FABP4 (FABP4-His), incubations with or without FABP4-His (100 ng/ml), formaldehyde cross-linking, cellular membrane protein extraction and western blot, was designed to study the FABP4 interactions with membrane proteins of HUVECs. The results showed different western blot profiles depending of the incubation with or without FABP4-His. The immunoblot revelead three covalent protein complexes of about 108, 77 and 33 kDa containing FAPB4 and its putative receptor. The existence of a specific binding protein complex able to bind FABP4 to endothelial cells is supported by these results. The obtained results will permit us advance in the molecular knowledge of FABP4 effects as well as use this protein and its receptor as therapeutic target to prevent cardiovascular. Copyright © 2014 Sociedad Española de Arteriosclerosis. Published by Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  14. Systematic Protein-Protein Docking and Molecular Dynamics Studies of HIV-1 gp120 and CD4: Insights for New Drug Development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Rizman-Idid

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Background and the purpose of the study: The interactions between HIV-1 gp120 and mutated CD4 proteins were investigated in order to identify a lead structure for therapy based on competitive blocking of the HIV binding receptor for human T-cells. Crystal structures of HIV gp120-CD4 complexes reveal a close interaction of the virus receptor with CD4 Phe43, which is embedded in a pocket of the virus protein.Methods: This study applies computer simulations to determine the best binding of amino acid 43 CD4 mutants to HIV gp120. Besides natural CD4, three mutants carrying alternate aromatic residues His, Trp and Tyr at position 43 were investigated. Several docking programs were applied on isolated proteins based on selected crystal structures of gp120-CD4 complexes, as well as a 5 ns molecular dynamics study on the protein complexes. The initial structures were minimized in Gromacs to avoid crystal packing effects, and then subjected to docking experiments using AutoDock4, FireDock, ClusPro and ZDock. In molecular dynamics, the Gibbs free binding energy was calculated for the gp120-CD4 complexes. The docking outputs were analyzed on energy within the respective docking software.Results and conclusion: Visualization and hydrogen bonding analysis were performed using the Swiss-PdbViewer. Strong binding to HIV gp120 can be achieved with an extended aromatic group (Trp. However, the sterical demand of the interaction affects the binding kinetics. In conclusion, a ligand for an efficient blocking of HIV gp120 should involve an extended but conformational flexible aromatic group, i.e. a biphenyl. A docking study on biphenylalanine-43 confirms this expectation

  15. Computational prediction of protein-protein interactions in Leishmania predicted proteomes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio M Rezende

    Full Text Available The Trypanosomatids parasites Leishmania braziliensis, Leishmania major and Leishmania infantum are important human pathogens. Despite of years of study and genome availability, effective vaccine has not been developed yet, and the chemotherapy is highly toxic. Therefore, it is clear just interdisciplinary integrated studies will have success in trying to search new targets for developing of vaccines and drugs. An essential part of this rationale is related to protein-protein interaction network (PPI study which can provide a better understanding of complex protein interactions in biological system. Thus, we modeled PPIs for Trypanosomatids through computational methods using sequence comparison against public database of protein or domain interaction for interaction prediction (Interolog Mapping and developed a dedicated combined system score to address the predictions robustness. The confidence evaluation of network prediction approach was addressed using gold standard positive and negative datasets and the AUC value obtained was 0.94. As result, 39,420, 43,531 and 45,235 interactions were predicted for L. braziliensis, L. major and L. infantum respectively. For each predicted network the top 20 proteins were ranked by MCC topological index. In addition, information related with immunological potential, degree of protein sequence conservation among orthologs and degree of identity compared to proteins of potential parasite hosts was integrated. This information integration provides a better understanding and usefulness of the predicted networks that can be valuable to select new potential biological targets for drug and vaccine development. Network modularity which is a key when one is interested in destabilizing the PPIs for drug or vaccine purposes along with multiple alignments of the predicted PPIs were performed revealing patterns associated with protein turnover. In addition, around 50% of hypothetical protein present in the networks

  16. Analysis of Protein-Membrane Interactions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kemmer, Gerdi Christine

    Cellular membranes are complex structures, consisting of hundreds of different lipids and proteins. These membranes act as barriers between distinct environments, constituting hot spots for many essential functions of the cell, including signaling, energy conversion, and transport. These functions....... Discovered interactions were then probed on the level of the membrane using liposome-based assays. In the second part, a transmembrane protein was investigated. Assays to probe activity of the plasma membrane ATPase (Arabidopsis thaliana H+ -ATPase isoform 2 (AHA2)) in single liposomes using both giant...... are implemented by soluble proteins reversibly binding to, as well as by integral membrane proteins embedded in, cellular membranes. The activity and interaction of these proteins is furthermore modulated by the lipids of the membrane. Here, liposomes were used as model membrane systems to investigate...

  17. A selection that reports on protein-protein interactions within a thermophilic bacterium.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nguyen, Peter Q; Silberg, Jonathan J

    2010-07-01

    Many proteins can be split into fragments that exhibit enhanced function upon fusion to interacting proteins. While this strategy has been widely used to create protein-fragment complementation assays (PCAs) for discovering protein-protein interactions within mesophilic organisms, similar assays have not yet been developed for studying natural and engineered protein complexes at the temperatures where thermophilic microbes grow. We describe the development of a selection for protein-protein interactions within Thermus thermophilus that is based upon growth complementation by fragments of Thermotoga neapolitana adenylate kinase (AK(Tn)). Complementation studies with an engineered thermophile (PQN1) that is not viable above 75 degrees C because its adk gene has been replaced by a Geobacillus stearothermophilus ortholog revealed that growth could be restored at 78 degrees C by a vector that coexpresses polypeptides corresponding to residues 1-79 and 80-220 of AK(Tn). In contrast, PQN1 growth was not complemented by AK(Tn) fragments harboring a C156A mutation within the zinc-binding tetracysteine motif unless these fragments were fused to Thermotoga maritima chemotaxis proteins that heterodimerize (CheA and CheY) or homodimerize (CheX). This enhanced complementation is interpreted as arising from chemotaxis protein-protein interactions, since AK(Tn)-C156A fragments having only one polypeptide fused to a chemotaxis protein did not complement PQN1 to the same extent. This selection increases the maximum temperature where a PCA can be used to engineer thermostable protein complexes and to map protein-protein interactions.

  18. Reverse engineering of an affinity-switchable molecular interaction characterized by atomic force microscopy single-molecule force spectroscopy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anselmetti, Dario; Bartels, Frank Wilco; Becker, Anke; Decker, Björn; Eckel, Rainer; McIntosh, Matthew; Mattay, Jochen; Plattner, Patrik; Ros, Robert; Schäfer, Christian; Sewald, Norbert

    2008-02-19

    Tunable and switchable interaction between molecules is a key for regulation and control of cellular processes. The translation of the underlying physicochemical principles to synthetic and switchable functional entities and molecules that can mimic the corresponding molecular functions is called reverse molecular engineering. We quantitatively investigated autoinducer-regulated DNA-protein interaction in bacterial gene regulation processes with single atomic force microscopy (AFM) molecule force spectroscopy in vitro, and developed an artificial bistable molecular host-guest system that can be controlled and regulated by external signals (UV light exposure and thermal energy). The intermolecular binding functionality (affinity) and its reproducible and reversible switching has been proven by AFM force spectroscopy at the single-molecule level. This affinity-tunable optomechanical switch will allow novel applications with respect to molecular manipulation, nanoscale rewritable molecular memories, and/or artificial ion channels, which will serve for the controlled transport and release of ions and neutral compounds in the future.

  19. Structural basis for ribosome protein S1 interaction with RNA in trans-translation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Yi; Dai, Yazhuang; Hou, Meijing; Wang, Huilin; Yao, Hongwei; Guo, Chenyun; Lin, Donghai; Liao, Xinli

    2017-05-27

    Ribosomal protein S1 (RpsA), the largest 30S protein in ribosome, plays a significant role in translation and trans-translation. In Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the C-terminus of RpsA is known as tuberculosis drug target of pyrazinoic acid, which inhibits the interaction between MtRpsA and tmRNA in trans-translation. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the interaction of MtRpsA with tmRNA remains unknown. We herein analyzed the interaction of the C-terminal domain of MtRpsA with three RNA fragments poly(A), sMLD and pre-sMLD. NMR titration analysis revealed that the RNA binding sites on MtRpsA CTD are mainly located in the β2, β3 and β5 strands and the adjacent L3 loop of the S1 domain. Fluorescence experiments determined the MtRpsA CTD binding to RNAs are in the micromolar affinity range. Sequence analysis also revealed conserved residues in the mapped RNA binding region. Residues L304, V305, G308, F310, H322, I323, R357 and I358 were verified to be the key residues influencing the interaction between MtRpsA CTD and pre-sMLD. Molecular docking further confirmed that the poly(A)-like sequence and sMLD of tmRNA are all involved in the protein-RNA interaction, through charged interaction and hydrogen bonds. The results will be beneficial for designing new anti-tuberculosis drugs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. A method for investigating protein-protein interactions related to Salmonella typhimurium pathogenesis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chowdhury, Saiful M. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Shi, Liang [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Yoon, Hyunjin [Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States); Ansong, Charles [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Rommereim, Leah M. [Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States); Norbeck, Angela D. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Auberry, Kenneth J. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Moore, R. J. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Adkins, Joshua N. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Heffron, Fred [Oregon Health and Science Univ., Portland, OR (United States); Smith, Richard D. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

    2009-02-10

    We successfully modified an existing method to investigate protein-protein interactions in the pathogenic bacterium Salmonella typhimurium (STM). This method includes i) addition of a histidine-biotin-histidine tag to the bait proteins via recombinant DNA techniques; ii) in vivo cross-linking with formaldehyde; iii) tandem affinity purification of bait proteins under fully denaturing conditions; and iv) identification of the proteins cross-linked to the bait proteins by liquid-chromatography in conjunction with tandem mass-spectrometry. In vivo cross-linking stabilized protein interactions permitted the subsequent two-step purification step conducted under denaturing conditions. The two-step purification greatly reduced nonspecific binding of non-cross-linked proteins to bait proteins. Two different negative controls were employed to reduce false-positive identification. In an initial demonstration of this approach, we tagged three selected STM proteins- HimD, PduB and PhoP- with known binding partners that ranged from stable (e.g., HimD) to transient (i.e., PhoP). Distinct sets of interacting proteins were identified with each bait protein, including the known binding partners such as HimA for HimD, as well as anticipated and unexpected binding partners. Our results suggest that novel protein-protein interactions may be critical to pathogenesis by Salmonella typhimurium. .

  1. MEGADOCK-Web: an integrated database of high-throughput structure-based protein-protein interaction predictions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayashi, Takanori; Matsuzaki, Yuri; Yanagisawa, Keisuke; Ohue, Masahito; Akiyama, Yutaka

    2018-05-08

    Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) play several roles in living cells, and computational PPI prediction is a major focus of many researchers. The three-dimensional (3D) structure and binding surface are important for the design of PPI inhibitors. Therefore, rigid body protein-protein docking calculations for two protein structures are expected to allow elucidation of PPIs different from known complexes in terms of 3D structures because known PPI information is not explicitly required. We have developed rapid PPI prediction software based on protein-protein docking, called MEGADOCK. In order to fully utilize the benefits of computational PPI predictions, it is necessary to construct a comprehensive database to gather prediction results and their predicted 3D complex structures and to make them easily accessible. Although several databases exist that provide predicted PPIs, the previous databases do not contain a sufficient number of entries for the purpose of discovering novel PPIs. In this study, we constructed an integrated database of MEGADOCK PPI predictions, named MEGADOCK-Web. MEGADOCK-Web provides more than 10 times the number of PPI predictions than previous databases and enables users to conduct PPI predictions that cannot be found in conventional PPI prediction databases. In MEGADOCK-Web, there are 7528 protein chains and 28,331,628 predicted PPIs from all possible combinations of those proteins. Each protein structure is annotated with PDB ID, chain ID, UniProt AC, related KEGG pathway IDs, and known PPI pairs. Additionally, MEGADOCK-Web provides four powerful functions: 1) searching precalculated PPI predictions, 2) providing annotations for each predicted protein pair with an experimentally known PPI, 3) visualizing candidates that may interact with the query protein on biochemical pathways, and 4) visualizing predicted complex structures through a 3D molecular viewer. MEGADOCK-Web provides a huge amount of comprehensive PPI predictions based on

  2. DP 71 AND BETA DYSTROGLYCAN INTERACTION: A MOLECULAR MODELING APPROACH TO UNDERSTAND DUCHENNE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simanti Bhattacharya,

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Dp 71 is the most prevalent and widely expressed non muscle isoform of dystrophin (Dp and its mutations are associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a severe form of muscular disorder. Dp 71 deviates from the canonical Dp by means of its truncated N terminal which also has abolished certain amino acids that comprise WW domain in the canonical form. This WW domain is very crucial for Dp’s interaction with partner proteins to establish a bridge between extra cellular matrices and cellular cytoskeleton. In our current study we have employed molecular modeling technique to understand the structural architecture of the N terminal region of Dp 71 and its deviation from the canonical form. We have further extended our studies to analyze the interaction probabilities between Dp 71 and β-DG applying molecular docking. Our studies for the first time have revealed that in spite of the underlying differences in terms of amino acids and structural organization, Dp 71 can interact with β-DG with its N terminal region which shares the similar molecular surface with the canonical form of Dp. These findings have opened up a platform to investigate the molecular interactions, spatio temporal orientations of the amino acids of Dp 71 and β-DG to understand the onset of DMD in much more greater detail

  3. Prediction and characterization of protein-protein interaction networks in swine

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wang Fen

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Studying the large-scale protein-protein interaction (PPI network is important in understanding biological processes. The current research presents the first PPI map of swine, which aims to give new insights into understanding their biological processes. Results We used three methods, Interolog-based prediction of porcine PPI network, domain-motif interactions from structural topology-based prediction of porcine PPI network and motif-motif interactions from structural topology-based prediction of porcine PPI network, to predict porcine protein interactions among 25,767 porcine proteins. We predicted 20,213, 331,484, and 218,705 porcine PPIs respectively, merged the three results into 567,441 PPIs, constructed four PPI networks, and analyzed the topological properties of the porcine PPI networks. Our predictions were validated with Pfam domain annotations and GO annotations. Averages of 70, 10,495, and 863 interactions were related to the Pfam domain-interacting pairs in iPfam database. For comparison, randomized networks were generated, and averages of only 4.24, 66.79, and 44.26 interactions were associated with Pfam domain-interacting pairs in iPfam database. In GO annotations, we found 52.68%, 75.54%, 27.20% of the predicted PPIs sharing GO terms respectively. However, the number of PPI pairs sharing GO terms in the 10,000 randomized networks reached 52.68%, 75.54%, 27.20% is 0. Finally, we determined the accuracy and precision of the methods. The methods yielded accuracies of 0.92, 0.53, and 0.50 at precisions of about 0.93, 0.74, and 0.75, respectively. Conclusion The results reveal that the predicted PPI networks are considerably reliable. The present research is an important pioneering work on protein function research. The porcine PPI data set, the confidence score of each interaction and a list of related data are available at (http://pppid.biositemap.com/.

  4. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YOR358W, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available ; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; act...rotein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt15p; acts as a regulator o

  5. In Silico Identification of Proteins Associated with Drug-induced Liver Injury Based on the Prediction of Drug-target Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ivanov, Sergey; Semin, Maxim; Lagunin, Alexey; Filimonov, Dmitry; Poroikov, Vladimir

    2017-07-01

    Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is the leading cause of acute liver failure as well as one of the major reasons for drug withdrawal from clinical trials and the market. Elucidation of molecular interactions associated with DILI may help to detect potentially hazardous pharmacological agents at the early stages of drug development. The purpose of our study is to investigate which interactions with specific human protein targets may cause DILI. Prediction of interactions with 1534 human proteins was performed for the dataset with information about 699 drugs, which were divided into three categories of DILI: severe (178 drugs), moderate (310 drugs) and without DILI (211 drugs). Based on the comparison of drug-target interactions predicted for different drugs' categories and interpretation of those results using clustering, Gene Ontology, pathway and gene expression analysis, we identified 61 protein targets associated with DILI. Most of the revealed proteins were linked with hepatocytes' death caused by disruption of vital cellular processes, as well as the emergence of inflammation in the liver. It was found that interaction of a drug with the identified targets is the essential molecular mechanism of the severe DILI for the most of the considered pharmaceuticals. Thus, pharmaceutical agents interacting with many of the identified targets may be considered as candidates for filtering out at the early stages of drug research. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  6. Size-dependent interaction of silica nanoparticles with lysozyme and bovine serum albumin proteins

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yadav, Indresh; Aswal, Vinod K.; Kohlbrecher, Joachim

    2016-05-01

    The interaction of three different sized (diameter 10, 18, and 28 nm) anionic silica nanoparticles with two model proteins—cationic lysozyme [molecular weight (MW) 14.7 kDa)] and anionic bovine serum albumin (BSA) (MW 66.4 kDa) has been studied by UV-vis spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). The adsorption behavior of proteins on the nanoparticles, measured by UV-vis spectroscopy, is found to be very different for lysozyme and BSA. Lysozyme adsorbs strongly on the nanoparticles and shows exponential behavior as a function of lysozyme concentration irrespective of the nanoparticle size. The total amount of adsorbed lysozyme, as governed by the surface-to-volume ratio, increases on lowering the size of the nanoparticles for a fixed volume fraction of the nanoparticles. On the other hand, BSA does not show any adsorption for all the different sizes of the nanoparticles. Despite having different interactions, both proteins induce similar phase behavior where the nanoparticle-protein system transforms from one phase (clear) to two phase (turbid) as a function of protein concentration. The phase behavior is modified towards the lower concentrations for both proteins with increasing the nanoparticle size. DLS suggests that the phase behavior arises as a result of the nanoparticles' aggregation on the addition of proteins. The size-dependent modifications in the interaction potential, responsible for the phase behavior, have been determined by SANS data as modeled using the two-Yukawa potential accounting for the repulsive and attractive interactions in the systems. The protein-induced interaction between the nanoparticles is found to be short-range attraction for lysozyme and long-range attraction for BSA. The magnitude of attractive interaction irrespective of protein type is enhanced with increase in the size of the nanoparticles. The total (attractive+repulsive) potential leading to two-phase formation is found to be

  7. Predicting and validating protein interactions using network structure.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pao-Yang Chen

    2008-07-01

    Full Text Available Protein interactions play a vital part in the function of a cell. As experimental techniques for detection and validation of protein interactions are time consuming, there is a need for computational methods for this task. Protein interactions appear to form a network with a relatively high degree of local clustering. In this paper we exploit this clustering by suggesting a score based on triplets of observed protein interactions. The score utilises both protein characteristics and network properties. Our score based on triplets is shown to complement existing techniques for predicting protein interactions, outperforming them on data sets which display a high degree of clustering. The predicted interactions score highly against test measures for accuracy. Compared to a similar score derived from pairwise interactions only, the triplet score displays higher sensitivity and specificity. By looking at specific examples, we show how an experimental set of interactions can be enriched and validated. As part of this work we also examine the effect of different prior databases upon the accuracy of prediction and find that the interactions from the same kingdom give better results than from across kingdoms, suggesting that there may be fundamental differences between the networks. These results all emphasize that network structure is important and helps in the accurate prediction of protein interactions. The protein interaction data set and the program used in our analysis, and a list of predictions and validations, are available at http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/bioinfo/resources/PredictingInteractions.

  8. Protein-protein interaction network-based detection of functionally similar proteins within species.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Baoxing; Wang, Fen; Guo, Yang; Sang, Qing; Liu, Min; Li, Dengyun; Fang, Wei; Zhang, Deli

    2012-07-01

    Although functionally similar proteins across species have been widely studied, functionally similar proteins within species showing low sequence similarity have not been examined in detail. Identification of these proteins is of significant importance for understanding biological functions, evolution of protein families, progression of co-evolution, and convergent evolution and others which cannot be obtained by detection of functionally similar proteins across species. Here, we explored a method of detecting functionally similar proteins within species based on graph theory. After denoting protein-protein interaction networks using graphs, we split the graphs into subgraphs using the 1-hop method. Proteins with functional similarities in a species were detected using a method of modified shortest path to compare these subgraphs and to find the eligible optimal results. Using seven protein-protein interaction networks and this method, some functionally similar proteins with low sequence similarity that cannot detected by sequence alignment were identified. By analyzing the results, we found that, sometimes, it is difficult to separate homologous from convergent evolution. Evaluation of the performance of our method by gene ontology term overlap showed that the precision of our method was excellent. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  9. Cellular and molecular-genetic mechanisms of symbiosis and associative interaction of microorganisms with plants in rhizosphere

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lioshina L. G.

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available The review contains the results of research on symbiotic and associative interaction of microorganisms and plants in rhizosphere. A special attention is given to the process of contact association of microorganisms and plants tissues including the concrete molecular structures and dominant role pertaining to protein-carbohydrate interaction. There are common features and distinctions at formation of arbuscular mycorhiza, rhizobia– legume symbiosis and association of non-leguminous plants with Azospirillum

  10. Elucidating the interaction of clofazimine with bovine liver catalase; a comprehensive spectroscopic and molecular docking approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zaman, Masihuz; Nusrat, Saima; Zakariya, Syed Mohammad; Khan, Mohsin Vahid; Ajmal, Mohammad Rehan; Khan, Rizwan Hasan

    2017-08-01

    Nowadays, understanding of interface between protein and drugs has become an active research area of interest. These types of interactions provide structural guidelines in drug design with greater clinical efficacy. Thus, structural changes in catalase induced by clofazimine were monitored by various biophysical techniques including UV-visible spectrometer, fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism, and dynamic light scattering techniques. Increase in absorption spectra (UV-visible spectrum) confers the complex formation between drug and protein. Fluorescence quenching with a binding constants of 2.47 × 10 4  M -1 revealed that clofazimine binds with protein. Using fluorescence resonance energy transfer, the distance (r) between the protein (donor) and drug (acceptor) was found to be 2.89 nm. Negative Gibbs free energy change (ΔG°) revealed that binding process is spontaneous. In addition, an increase in α-helicity was observed by far-UV circular dichroism spectra by adding clofazimine to protein. Dynamic light scattering results indicate that topology of bovine liver catalase was slightly altered in the presence of clofazimine. Hydrophobic interactions are the main forces between clofazimine and catalase interaction as depicted by molecular docking studies. Apart from hydrophobic interactions, some hydrogen bonding was also observed during docking method. The results obtained from the present study may establish abundant in optimizing the properties of ligand-protein mixtures relevant for numerous formulations. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  11. Molecular dissection of placental malaria protein VAR2CSA interaction with a chemo-enzymatically synthesized chondroitin sulfate library.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugiura, Nobuo; Clausen, Thomas Mandel; Shioiri, Tatsumasa; Gustavsson, Tobias; Watanabe, Hideto; Salanti, Ali

    2016-12-01

    Placental malaria, a serious infection caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, is characterized by the selective accumulation of infected erythrocytes (IEs) in the placentas of the pregnant women. Placental adherence is mediated by the malarial VAR2CSA protein, which interacts with chondroitin sulfate (CS) proteoglycans present in the placental tissue. CS is a linear acidic polysaccharide composed of repeating disaccharide units of D-glucuronic acid and N-acetyl-D-galactosamine that are modified by sulfate groups at different positions. Previous reports have shown that placental-adhering IEs were associated with an unusually low sulfated form of chondroitin sulfate A (CSA) and that a partially sulfated dodecasaccharide is the minimal motif for the interaction. However, the fine molecular structure of this CS chain remains unclear. In this study, we have characterized the CS chain that interacts with a recombinant minimal CS-binding region of VAR2CSA (rVAR2) using a CS library of various defined lengths and sulfate compositions. The CS library was chemo-enzymatically synthesized with bacterial chondroitin polymerase and recombinant CS sulfotransferases. We found that C-4 sulfation of the N-acetyl-D-galactosamine residue is critical for supporting rVAR2 binding, whereas no other sulfate modifications showed effects. Interaction of rVAR2 with CS is highly correlated with the degree of C-4 sulfation and CS chain length. We confirmed that the minimum structure binding to rVAR2 is a tri-sulfated CSA dodecasaccharide, and found that a highly sulfated CSA eicosasaccharide is a more potent inhibitor of rVAR2 binding than the dodecasaccharides. These results suggest that CSA derivatives may potentially serve as targets in therapeutic strategies against placental malaria.

  12. Computational Analysis of Molecular Interaction Networks Underlying Change of HIV-1 Resistance to Selected Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kierczak, Marcin; Dramiński, Michał; Koronacki, Jacek; Komorowski, Jan

    2010-12-12

    Despite more than two decades of research, HIV resistance to drugs remains a serious obstacle in developing efficient AIDS treatments. Several computational methods have been developed to predict resistance level from the sequence of viral proteins such as reverse transcriptase (RT) or protease. These methods, while powerful and accurate, give very little insight into the molecular interactions that underly acquisition of drug resistance/hypersusceptibility. Here, we attempt at filling this gap by using our Monte Carlo feature selection and interdependency discovery method (MCFS-ID) to elucidate molecular interaction networks that characterize viral strains with altered drug resistance levels. We analyzed a number of HIV-1 RT sequences annotated with drug resistance level using the MCFS-ID method. This let us expound interdependency networks that characterize change of drug resistance to six selected RT inhibitors: Abacavir, Lamivudine, Stavudine, Zidovudine, Tenofovir and Nevirapine. The networks consider interdependencies at the level of physicochemical properties of mutating amino acids, eg,: polarity. We mapped each network on the 3D structure of RT in attempt to understand the molecular meaning of interacting pairs. The discovered interactions describe several known drug resistance mechanisms and, importantly, some previously unidentified ones. Our approach can be easily applied to a whole range of problems from the domain of protein engineering. A portable Java implementation of our MCFS-ID method is freely available for academic users and can be obtained at: http://www.ipipan.eu/staff/m.draminski/software.htm.

  13. A new protein-protein interaction sensor based on tripartite split-GFP association.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cabantous, Stéphanie; Nguyen, Hau B; Pedelacq, Jean-Denis; Koraïchi, Faten; Chaudhary, Anu; Ganguly, Kumkum; Lockard, Meghan A; Favre, Gilles; Terwilliger, Thomas C; Waldo, Geoffrey S

    2013-10-04

    Monitoring protein-protein interactions in living cells is key to unraveling their roles in numerous cellular processes and various diseases. Previously described split-GFP based sensors suffer from poor folding and/or self-assembly background fluorescence. Here, we have engineered a micro-tagging system to monitor protein-protein interactions in vivo and in vitro. The assay is based on tripartite association between two twenty amino-acids long GFP tags, GFP10 and GFP11, fused to interacting protein partners, and the complementary GFP1-9 detector. When proteins interact, GFP10 and GFP11 self-associate with GFP1-9 to reconstitute a functional GFP. Using coiled-coils and FRB/FKBP12 model systems we characterize the sensor in vitro and in Escherichia coli. We extend the studies to mammalian cells and examine the FK-506 inhibition of the rapamycin-induced association of FRB/FKBP12. The small size of these tags and their minimal effect on fusion protein behavior and solubility should enable new experiments for monitoring protein-protein association by fluorescence.

  14. The calcium-binding protein ALG-2 regulates protein secretion and trafficking via interactions with MISSL and MAP1B proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takahara, Terunao; Inoue, Kuniko; Arai, Yumika; Kuwata, Keiko; Shibata, Hideki; Maki, Masatoshi

    2017-10-13

    Mobilization of intracellular calcium is essential for a wide range of cellular processes, including signal transduction, apoptosis, and vesicular trafficking. Several lines of evidence have suggested that apoptosis-linked gene 2 (ALG-2, also known as PDCD6 ), a calcium-binding protein, acts as a calcium sensor linking calcium levels with efficient vesicular trafficking, especially at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-to-Golgi transport step. However, how ALG-2 regulates these processes remains largely unclear. Here, we report that M APK1- i nteracting and s pindle- s tabilizing (MISS)- l ike (MISSL), a previously uncharacterized protein, interacts with ALG-2 in a calcium-dependent manner. Live-cell imaging revealed that upon a rise in intracellular calcium levels, GFP-tagged MISSL (GFP-MISSL) dynamically relocalizes in a punctate pattern and colocalizes with ALG-2. MISSL knockdown caused disorganization of the components of the ER exit site, the ER-Golgi intermediate compartment, and Golgi. Importantly, knockdown of either MISSL or ALG-2 attenuated the secretion of se creted a lkaline p hosphatase (SEAP), a model secreted cargo protein, with similar reductions in secretion by single- and double-protein knockdowns, suggesting that MISSL and ALG-2 act in the same pathway to regulate the secretion process. Furthermore, ALG-2 or MISSL knockdown delayed ER-to-Golgi transport of procollagen type I. We also found that ALG-2 and MISSL interact with microtubule-associated protein 1B (MAP1B) and that MAP1B knockdown reverts the reduced secretion of SEAP caused by MISSL or ALG-2 depletion. These results suggest that a change in the intracellular calcium level plays a role in regulation of the secretory pathway via interaction of ALG-2 with MISSL and MAP1B. © 2017 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

  15. Modification of -Adenosyl--Homocysteine as Inhibitor of Nonstructural Protein 5 Methyltransferase Dengue Virus Through Molecular Docking and Molecular Dynamics Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Usman Sumo Friend Tambunan

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Dengue fever is still a major threat worldwide, approximately threatening two-fifths of the world’s population in tropical and subtropical countries. Nonstructural protein 5 (NS5 methyltransferase enzyme plays a vital role in the process of messenger RNA capping of dengue by transferring methyl groups from S -adenosyl- l -methionine to N7 atom of the guanine bases of RNA and the RNA ribose group of 2′OH, resulting in S -adenosyl- l -homocysteine (SAH. The modification of SAH compound was screened using molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation, along with computational ADME-Tox (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity test. The 2 simulations were performed using Molecular Operating Environment (MOE 2008.10 software, whereas the ADME-Tox test was performed using various software. The modification of SAH compound was done using several functional groups that possess different polarities and properties, resulting in 3460 ligands to be docked. After conducting docking simulation, we earned 3 best ligands (SAH-M331, SAH-M2696, and SAH-M1356 based on ΔG binding and molecular interactions, which show better results than the standard ligands. Moreover, the results of molecular dynamics simulation show that the best ligands are still able to maintain the active site residue interaction with the binding site until the end of the simulation. After a series of molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation were performed, we concluded that SAH-M1356 ligand is the most potential SAH-based compound to inhibit NS5 methyltransferase enzyme for treating dengue fever.

  16. Interaction of nucleosome assembly proteins abolishes nuclear localization of DGKζ by attenuating its association with importins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Okada, Masashi; Hozumi, Yasukazu; Ichimura, Tohru; Tanaka, Toshiaki; Hasegawa, Hiroshi; Yamamoto, Masakazu; Takahashi, Nobuya; Iseki, Ken; Yagisawa, Hitoshi; Shinkawa, Takashi; Isobe, Toshiaki; Goto, Kaoru

    2011-01-01

    Diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) is involved in the regulation of lipid-mediated signal transduction through the metabolism of a second messenger diacylglycerol. Of the DGK family, DGKζ, which contains a nuclear localization signal, localizes mainly to the nucleus but translocates to the cytoplasm under pathological conditions. However, the detailed mechanism of translocation and its functional significance remain unclear. To elucidate these issues, we used a proteomic approach to search for protein targets that interact with DGKζ. Results show that nucleosome assembly protein (NAP) 1-like 1 (NAP1L1) and NAP1-like 4 (NAP1L4) are identified as novel DGKζ binding partners. NAP1Ls constitutively shuttle between the nucleus and the cytoplasm in transfected HEK293 cells. The molecular interaction of DGKζ and NAP1Ls prohibits nuclear import of DGKζ because binding of NAP1Ls to DGKζ blocks import carrier proteins, Qip1 and NPI1, to interact with DGKζ, leading to cytoplasmic tethering of DGKζ. In addition, overexpression of NAP1Ls exerts a protective effect against doxorubicin-induced cytotoxicity. These findings suggest that NAP1Ls are involved in a novel molecular basis for the regulation of nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of DGKζ and provide a clue to examine functional significance of its translocation under pathological conditions.

  17. Data management of protein interaction networks

    CERN Document Server

    Cannataro, Mario

    2012-01-01

    Interactomics: a complete survey from data generation to knowledge extraction With the increasing use of high-throughput experimental assays, more and more protein interaction databases are becoming available. As a result, computational analysis of protein-to-protein interaction (PPI) data and networks, now known as interactomics, has become an essential tool to determine functionally associated proteins. From wet lab technologies to data management to knowledge extraction, this timely book guides readers through the new science of interactomics, giving them the tools needed to: Generate

  18. Molecular interaction of selected phytochemicals under the charged environment of Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (PfCRT) model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patel, Saumya K; Khedkar, Vijay M; Jha, Prakash C; Jasrai, Yogesh T; Pandya, Himanshu A; George, Linz-Buoy; Highland, Hyacinth N; Skelton, Adam A

    2016-01-01

    Phytochemicals of Catharanthus roseus Linn. and Tylophora indica have been known for their inhibition of malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum in cell culture. Resistance to chloroquine (CQ), a widely used antimalarial drug, is due to the CQ resistance transporter (CRT) system. The present study deals with computational modeling of Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (PfCRT) protein and development of charged environment to mimic a condition of resistance. The model of PfCRT was developed using Protein homology/analogy engine (PHYRE ver 0.2) and was validated based on the results obtained using PSI-PRED. Subsequently, molecular interactions of selected phytochemicals extracted from C. roseus Linn. and T. indica were studied using multiple-iterated genetic algorithm-based docking protocol in order to investigate the translocation of these legends across the PfCRT protein. Further, molecular dynamics studies exhibiting interaction energy estimates of these compounds within the active site of the protein showed that compounds are more selective toward PfCRT. Clusters of conformations with the free energy of binding were estimated which clearly demonstrated the potential channel and by this means the translocation across the PfCRT is anticipated.

  19. Power transformations improve interpolation of grids for molecular mechanics interaction energies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Minh, David D L

    2018-02-18

    A common strategy for speeding up molecular docking calculations is to precompute nonbonded interaction energies between a receptor molecule and a set of three-dimensional grids. The grids are then interpolated to compute energies for ligand atoms in many different binding poses. Here, I evaluate a smoothing strategy of taking a power transformation of grid point energies and inverse transformation of the result from trilinear interpolation. For molecular docking poses from 85 protein-ligand complexes, this smoothing procedure leads to significant accuracy improvements, including an approximately twofold reduction in the root mean square error at a grid spacing of 0.4 Å and retaining the ability to rank docking poses even at a grid spacing of 0.7 Å. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  20. Disaggregases, molecular chaperones that resolubilize protein aggregates

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Z. Mokry

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The process of folding is a seminal event in the life of a protein, as it is essential for proper protein function and therefore cell physiology. Inappropriate folding, or misfolding, can not only lead to loss of function, but also to the formation of protein aggregates, an insoluble association of polypeptides that harm cell physiology, either by themselves or in the process of formation. Several biological processes have evolved to prevent and eliminate the existence of non-functional and amyloidogenic aggregates, as they are associated with several human pathologies. Molecular chaperones and heat shock proteins are specialized in controlling the quality of the proteins in the cell, specifically by aiding proper folding, and dissolution and clearance of already formed protein aggregates. The latter is a function of disaggregases, mainly represented by the ClpB/Hsp104 subfamily of molecular chaperones, that are ubiquitous in all organisms but, surprisingly, have no orthologs in the cytosol of metazoan cells. This review aims to describe the characteristics of disaggregases and to discuss the function of yeast Hsp104, a disaggregase that is also involved in prion propagation and inheritance.

  1. Physics-based scoring of protein-ligand interactions: explicit polarizability, quantum mechanics and free energies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bryce, Richard A

    2011-04-01

    The ability to accurately predict the interaction of a ligand with its receptor is a key limitation in computer-aided drug design approaches such as virtual screening and de novo design. In this article, we examine current strategies for a physics-based approach to scoring of protein-ligand affinity, as well as outlining recent developments in force fields and quantum chemical techniques. We also consider advances in the development and application of simulation-based free energy methods to study protein-ligand interactions. Fuelled by recent advances in computational algorithms and hardware, there is the opportunity for increased integration of physics-based scoring approaches at earlier stages in computationally guided drug discovery. Specifically, we envisage increased use of implicit solvent models and simulation-based scoring methods as tools for computing the affinities of large virtual ligand libraries. Approaches based on end point simulations and reference potentials allow the application of more advanced potential energy functions to prediction of protein-ligand binding affinities. Comprehensive evaluation of polarizable force fields and quantum mechanical (QM)/molecular mechanical and QM methods in scoring of protein-ligand interactions is required, particularly in their ability to address challenging targets such as metalloproteins and other proteins that make highly polar interactions. Finally, we anticipate increasingly quantitative free energy perturbation and thermodynamic integration methods that are practical for optimization of hits obtained from screened ligand libraries.

  2. Predicting protein-protein interactions from multimodal biological data sources via nonnegative matrix tri-factorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Hua; Huang, Heng; Ding, Chris; Nie, Feiping

    2013-04-01

    Protein interactions are central to all the biological processes and structural scaffolds in living organisms, because they orchestrate a number of cellular processes such as metabolic pathways and immunological recognition. Several high-throughput methods, for example, yeast two-hybrid system and mass spectrometry method, can help determine protein interactions, which, however, suffer from high false-positive rates. Moreover, many protein interactions predicted by one method are not supported by another. Therefore, computational methods are necessary and crucial to complete the interactome expeditiously. In this work, we formulate the problem of predicting protein interactions from a new mathematical perspective--sparse matrix completion, and propose a novel nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF)-based matrix completion approach to predict new protein interactions from existing protein interaction networks. Through using manifold regularization, we further develop our method to integrate different biological data sources, such as protein sequences, gene expressions, protein structure information, etc. Extensive experimental results on four species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Drosophila melanogaster, Homo sapiens, and Caenorhabditis elegans, have shown that our new methods outperform related state-of-the-art protein interaction prediction methods.

  3. The role of exon shuffling in shaping protein-protein interaction networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    França Gustavo S

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Physical protein-protein interaction (PPI is a critical phenomenon for the function of most proteins in living organisms and a significant fraction of PPIs are the result of domain-domain interactions. Exon shuffling, intron-mediated recombination of exons from existing genes, is known to have been a major mechanism of domain shuffling in metazoans. Thus, we hypothesized that exon shuffling could have a significant influence in shaping the topology of PPI networks. Results We tested our hypothesis by compiling exon shuffling and PPI data from six eukaryotic species: Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Cryptococcus neoformans and Arabidopsis thaliana. For all four metazoan species, genes enriched in exon shuffling events presented on average higher vertex degree (number of interacting partners in PPI networks. Furthermore, we verified that a set of protein domains that are simultaneously promiscuous (known to interact to multiple types of other domains, self-interacting (able to interact with another copy of themselves and abundant in the genomes presents a stronger signal for exon shuffling. Conclusions Exon shuffling appears to have been a recurrent mechanism for the emergence of new PPIs along metazoan evolution. In metazoan genomes, exon shuffling also promoted the expansion of some protein domains. We speculate that their promiscuous and self-interacting properties may have been decisive for that expansion.

  4. A discriminatory function for prediction of protein-DNA interactions based on alpha shape modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Weiqiang; Yan, Hong

    2010-10-15

    Protein-DNA interaction has significant importance in many biological processes. However, the underlying principle of the molecular recognition process is still largely unknown. As more high-resolution 3D structures of protein-DNA complex are becoming available, the surface characteristics of the complex become an important research topic. In our work, we apply an alpha shape model to represent the surface structure of the protein-DNA complex and developed an interface-atom curvature-dependent conditional probability discriminatory function for the prediction of protein-DNA interaction. The interface-atom curvature-dependent formalism captures atomic interaction details better than the atomic distance-based method. The proposed method provides good performance in discriminating the native structures from the docking decoy sets, and outperforms the distance-dependent formalism in terms of the z-score. Computer experiment results show that the curvature-dependent formalism with the optimal parameters can achieve a native z-score of -8.17 in discriminating the native structure from the highest surface-complementarity scored decoy set and a native z-score of -7.38 in discriminating the native structure from the lowest RMSD decoy set. The interface-atom curvature-dependent formalism can also be used to predict apo version of DNA-binding proteins. These results suggest that the interface-atom curvature-dependent formalism has a good prediction capability for protein-DNA interactions. The code and data sets are available for download on http://www.hy8.com/bioinformatics.htm kenandzhou@hotmail.com.

  5. Predicting protein-protein interactions in Arabidopsis thaliana through integration of orthology, gene ontology and co-expression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vandepoele Klaas

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Large-scale identification of the interrelationships between different components of the cell, such as the interactions between proteins, has recently gained great interest. However, unraveling large-scale protein-protein interaction maps is laborious and expensive. Moreover, assessing the reliability of the interactions can be cumbersome. Results In this study, we have developed a computational method that exploits the existing knowledge on protein-protein interactions in diverse species through orthologous relations on the one hand, and functional association data on the other hand to predict and filter protein-protein interactions in Arabidopsis thaliana. A highly reliable set of protein-protein interactions is predicted through this integrative approach making use of existing protein-protein interaction data from yeast, human, C. elegans and D. melanogaster. Localization, biological process, and co-expression data are used as powerful indicators for protein-protein interactions. The functional repertoire of the identified interactome reveals interactions between proteins functioning in well-conserved as well as plant-specific biological processes. We observe that although common mechanisms (e.g. actin polymerization and components (e.g. ARPs, actin-related proteins exist between different lineages, they are active in specific processes such as growth, cancer metastasis and trichome development in yeast, human and Arabidopsis, respectively. Conclusion We conclude that the integration of orthology with functional association data is adequate to predict protein-protein interactions. Through this approach, a high number of novel protein-protein interactions with diverse biological roles is discovered. Overall, we have predicted a reliable set of protein-protein interactions suitable for further computational as well as experimental analyses.

  6. Molecular dynamics simulations of conformation changes of HIV-1 regulatory protein on graphene

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhao, Daohui; Li, Libo; He, Daohang; Zhou, Jian, E-mail: jianzhou@scut.edu.cn

    2016-07-30

    Graphical abstract: Preferential adsorption of Vpr13-33 on graphene accompanied by early conformational change from α-helix to β-sheet structures was observed by molecular simulations. This work presents the molecular mechanism of graphene-induced peptide conformational alteration and sheds light on developing graphene-based materials to inhibit HIV. - Highlights: • Graphene induced early structural transition of Vpr13-33 is studied by MD simulations. • Both π-π stacking and hydrophobic interactions orchestrate the peptide adsorption. • Vpr has an increased propensity of β-sheet content on graphene surface. • To develop graphene-based materials to inhibit HIV is possible. - Abstract: The fragment of viral protein R (Vpr), Vpr13-33, plays an important role in regulating nuclear importing of HIV genes through channel formation in which it adopts a leucine-zipper-like alpha-helical conformation. A recent experimental study reported that helical Vpr13-33 would transform to β-sheet or random coil structures and aggregate on the surface of graphene or graphene oxide through hydrophobic interactions. Due to experimental limitations, however, there is still a considerable lack of understanding on the adsorption dynamics at the early stage of the conformational transition at water-graphene interface and the underlying driving force at molecular level. In this study, atomistic molecular dynamics simulations were used to explore the conformation transition phenomena. Vpr13-33 kept α-helical structure in solution, but changed to β-sheet structure when strongly adsorbed onto graphene. Preferential adsorption of Vpr13-33 on graphene is dominated by hydrophobic interactions. The cluster analysis identified the most significant populated conformation and the early stage of structure conversion from α-helical to β-sheet was found, but the full β-sheet propagation was not observed. Free energy landscape analysis further complemented the transformation analysis of

  7. Molecular dynamics simulations of conformation changes of HIV-1 regulatory protein on graphene

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhao, Daohui; Li, Libo; He, Daohang; Zhou, Jian

    2016-01-01

    Graphical abstract: Preferential adsorption of Vpr13-33 on graphene accompanied by early conformational change from α-helix to β-sheet structures was observed by molecular simulations. This work presents the molecular mechanism of graphene-induced peptide conformational alteration and sheds light on developing graphene-based materials to inhibit HIV. - Highlights: • Graphene induced early structural transition of Vpr13-33 is studied by MD simulations. • Both π-π stacking and hydrophobic interactions orchestrate the peptide adsorption. • Vpr has an increased propensity of β-sheet content on graphene surface. • To develop graphene-based materials to inhibit HIV is possible. - Abstract: The fragment of viral protein R (Vpr), Vpr13-33, plays an important role in regulating nuclear importing of HIV genes through channel formation in which it adopts a leucine-zipper-like alpha-helical conformation. A recent experimental study reported that helical Vpr13-33 would transform to β-sheet or random coil structures and aggregate on the surface of graphene or graphene oxide through hydrophobic interactions. Due to experimental limitations, however, there is still a considerable lack of understanding on the adsorption dynamics at the early stage of the conformational transition at water-graphene interface and the underlying driving force at molecular level. In this study, atomistic molecular dynamics simulations were used to explore the conformation transition phenomena. Vpr13-33 kept α-helical structure in solution, but changed to β-sheet structure when strongly adsorbed onto graphene. Preferential adsorption of Vpr13-33 on graphene is dominated by hydrophobic interactions. The cluster analysis identified the most significant populated conformation and the early stage of structure conversion from α-helical to β-sheet was found, but the full β-sheet propagation was not observed. Free energy landscape analysis further complemented the transformation analysis of

  8. Differential protein expression of hepatic cells associated with MeHg exposure: deepening into the molecular mechanisms of toxicity

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cuello, Susana; Madrid, Yolanda; Luque-Garcia, Jose L.; Camara, Carmen [Complutense University of Madrid, Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Madrid (Spain); Ramos, Sonia [Institute of Food Science, Technology and Nutrition, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Madrid (Spain)

    2012-08-15

    Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying MeHg toxicity and the way in which this molecule interacts with living organisms is a critical point since MeHg represents a well-known risk to ecosystems and human health. We used a quantitative proteomic approach based on stable isotopic labeling by amino acids in cell culture in combination with SDS-PAGE and nanoflow LC-ESI-LTQ for analyzing the differential protein expression of hepatic cells associated to MeHg exposure. Seventy-eight proteins were found de-regulated by more than 1.5-fold. We identified a number of proteins involved in different essential biological processes including apoptosis, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular trafficking and energy production. Among these proteins, we found several molecules whose de-regulation has been already related to MeHg exposure, thus confirming the usefulness of our discovery approach, and new ones that helped to gain a deeper insight into the biomolecular mechanisms related to MeHg-induced toxicity. Overexpression of several HSPs and the proteasome 26S subunit itself showed the proteasome system as a molecular target of toxic MeHg. As for the interaction networks, the top ranked was the nucleic acid metabolism, where many of the identified de-regulated proteins are involved. (orig.)

  9. Multiple structure-intrinsic disorder interactions regulate and coordinate Hox protein function

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bondos, Sarah

    During animal development, Hox transcription factors determine fate of developing tissues to generate diverse organs and appendages. Hox proteins are famous for their bizarre mutant phenotypes, such as replacing antennae with legs. Clearly, the functions of individual Hox proteins must be distinct and reliable in vivo, or the organism risks malformation or death. However, within the Hox protein family, the DNA-binding homeodomains are highly conserved and the amino acids that contact DNA are nearly invariant. These observations raise the question: How do different Hox proteins correctly identify their distinct target genes using a common DNA binding domain? One possible means to modulate DNA binding is through the influence of the non-homeodomain protein regions, which differ significantly among Hox proteins. However genetic approaches never detected intra-protein interactions, and early biochemical attempts were hindered because the special features of ``intrinsically disordered'' sequences were not appreciated. We propose the first-ever structural model of a Hox protein to explain how specific contacts between distant, intrinsically disordered regions of the protein and the homeodomain regulate DNA binding and coordinate this activity with other Hox molecular functions.

  10. Large-scale prediction of drug–target interactions using protein sequences and drug topological structures

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cao Dongsheng; Liu Shao; Xu Qingsong; Lu Hongmei; Huang Jianhua; Hu Qiannan; Liang Yizeng

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► Drug–target interactions are predicted using an extended SAR methodology. ► A drug–target interaction is regarded as an event triggered by many factors. ► Molecular fingerprint and CTD descriptors are used to represent drugs and proteins. ► Our approach shows compatibility between the new scheme and current SAR methodology. - Abstract: The identification of interactions between drugs and target proteins plays a key role in the process of genomic drug discovery. It is both consuming and costly to determine drug–target interactions by experiments alone. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new in silico prediction approaches capable of identifying these potential drug–target interactions in a timely manner. In this article, we aim at extending current structure–activity relationship (SAR) methodology to fulfill such requirements. In some sense, a drug–target interaction can be regarded as an event or property triggered by many influence factors from drugs and target proteins. Thus, each interaction pair can be represented theoretically by using these factors which are based on the structural and physicochemical properties simultaneously from drugs and proteins. To realize this, drug molecules are encoded with MACCS substructure fingerings representing existence of certain functional groups or fragments; and proteins are encoded with some biochemical and physicochemical properties. Four classes of drug–target interaction networks in humans involving enzymes, ion channels, G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and nuclear receptors, are independently used for establishing predictive models with support vector machines (SVMs). The SVM models gave prediction accuracy of 90.31%, 88.91%, 84.68% and 83.74% for four datasets, respectively. In conclusion, the results demonstrate the ability of our proposed method to predict the drug–target interactions, and show a general compatibility between the new scheme and current SAR

  11. Large-scale prediction of drug-target interactions using protein sequences and drug topological structures

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cao Dongsheng [Research Center of Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Central South University, Changsha 410083 (China); Liu Shao [Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008 (China); Xu Qingsong [School of Mathematical Sciences and Computing Technology, Central South University, Changsha 410083 (China); Lu Hongmei; Huang Jianhua [Research Center of Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Central South University, Changsha 410083 (China); Hu Qiannan [Key Laboratory of Combinatorial Biosynthesis and Drug Discovery (Wuhan University), Ministry of Education, and Wuhan University School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan 430071 (China); Liang Yizeng, E-mail: yizeng_liang@263.net [Research Center of Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Central South University, Changsha 410083 (China)

    2012-11-08

    Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Drug-target interactions are predicted using an extended SAR methodology. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer A drug-target interaction is regarded as an event triggered by many factors. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Molecular fingerprint and CTD descriptors are used to represent drugs and proteins. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Our approach shows compatibility between the new scheme and current SAR methodology. - Abstract: The identification of interactions between drugs and target proteins plays a key role in the process of genomic drug discovery. It is both consuming and costly to determine drug-target interactions by experiments alone. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new in silico prediction approaches capable of identifying these potential drug-target interactions in a timely manner. In this article, we aim at extending current structure-activity relationship (SAR) methodology to fulfill such requirements. In some sense, a drug-target interaction can be regarded as an event or property triggered by many influence factors from drugs and target proteins. Thus, each interaction pair can be represented theoretically by using these factors which are based on the structural and physicochemical properties simultaneously from drugs and proteins. To realize this, drug molecules are encoded with MACCS substructure fingerings representing existence of certain functional groups or fragments; and proteins are encoded with some biochemical and physicochemical properties. Four classes of drug-target interaction networks in humans involving enzymes, ion channels, G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and nuclear receptors, are independently used for establishing predictive models with support vector machines (SVMs). The SVM models gave prediction accuracy of 90.31%, 88.91%, 84.68% and 83.74% for four datasets, respectively. In conclusion, the results demonstrate the ability of our proposed method to predict the drug

  12. RAIN: RNA-protein Association and Interaction Networks

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Junge, Alexander; Refsgaard, Jan Christian; Garde, Christian

    2017-01-01

    is challenging due to data heterogeneity. Here, we present a database of ncRNA-RNA and ncRNA-protein interactions and its integration with the STRING database of protein-protein interactions. These ncRNA associations cover four organisms and have been established from curated examples, experimental data...

  13. Detection of irradiated food by the changes in protein molecular mass distribution

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Niciforovic, A.; Radojcic, M.; Milosavljevic, B.H.

    1998-01-01

    Complete text of publication follows. The present work deals with the radiation-induced damage of proteins, which is followed by the change in the molecular mass. The phenomenon was studied on protein rich samples, i.e., chicken meat and dehydrated egg white. The radiation dose applied was in the range of the ones used for food microbial control. Chicken drumstick and chicken white meat proteins were separated according to their molecular mass. The protein profile was compared to the meat samples irradiated in the frozen state with 5 kGy at 60 Co source. In the case of chicken white meat, irradiation produces both nonselective protein scission (e.g. the amount of proteins of molecular mass larger than 30 kDa decreases, while the amount of proteins of molecular mass smaller than 30 kDa increases), and selective protein scission (e.g. appearance of a protein fragment of molecular mass equal to 18 kDa). In the case of chicken drumstick proteins the irradiation induces both the protein scission and the aggregation. The changes are nonspecific as well as specific and the generation of Mm = 18 kDa protein fragment was observed again. Irradiation of aerated dehydrated egg white proteins produces only nonselective protein scission. The results are discussed in view of the routine application of SDS-PAGE method for the detection of irradiated foodstuff

  14. On the role of electrostatics on protein-protein interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Zhe; Witham, Shawn; Alexov, Emil

    2011-01-01

    The role of electrostatics on protein-protein interactions and binding is reviewed in this article. A brief outline of the computational modeling, in the framework of continuum electrostatics, is presented and basic electrostatic effects occurring upon the formation of the complex are discussed. The role of the salt concentration and pH of the water phase on protein-protein binding free energy is demonstrated and indicates that the increase of the salt concentration tends to weaken the binding, an observation that is attributed to the optimization of the charge-charge interactions across the interface. It is pointed out that the pH-optimum (pH of optimal binding affinity) varies among the protein-protein complexes, and perhaps is a result of their adaptation to particular subcellular compartment. At the end, the similarities and differences between hetero- and homo-complexes are outlined and discussed with respect to the binding mode and charge complementarity. PMID:21572182

  15. Probing the interaction of ferrocene containing hyperbranched poly-ester with model plasma protein: Effect on the interaction mechanism and conformational change

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Xiao, Fengjuan, E-mail: xfj66@126.com; Gu, Muqing; Liang, Ye; Li, Lanlan; Yu, Xiaolei; Wu, Xiangfeng

    2014-05-01

    Interaction mechanism and conformational change of model plasma protein-bovine serum albumin (BSA) induced by ferrocenyl-functionalized hyperbranched polyester (HBPE-Fc) were investigated using cyclicvoltammetry (CV), differential pulsed voltammetry (DPV), fluorescence, UV–vis absorption spectrometry and circular dichroism (CD). Some complicated interactions occurred between BSA and HBPE-Fc and the new redox centers appeared in the BSA/HBPE-Fc complex that changed and hindered the electron transfer of Fe/Fe{sup 2+}. Fluorescence quenching data showed that the fluorescence of BSA was statically quenched by HBPE-Fc, which implied that ground state complex formed between BSA and HBPE-Fc. van der Waals force and hydrogen bond played major roles in the interaction of HBPE-Fc with BSA. The binding constant Ka for HBPE-Fc–protein interaction is in the order of 10{sup 6} at room temperature indicates that there is a strong interaction between HBPE-Fc and BSA. Synchronous, three-dimensional fluorescence and CD studies indicated that the interaction of BSA with HBPE-Fc induced conformational changes in BSA with overall decrease in the α-helical structure and increase in β-pleated sheet structure. The molecular model of the interaction between HBPE-Fc and BSA was also presented according to the results in this study. - Highlights: • A novel ferrocenyl-functionalized hyperbranched polymer (HBPE-Fc) with potential anticancer effects. • New redox centers appear in the BSA/HBPE-Fc complex that changed and hindered the electron transfer of Fe/Fe{sup 2+}. • BSA fluorescence was statically quenched by HBPE-Fc. • BSA/HBPE-Fc ground state complex was mainly formed by the hydrogen bonds and van der Waals force. • HBPE-Fc induced conformational changes in BSA with overall decrease in the α-helical structure and increase in β-pleated sheet structure. • The molecular model of the interaction was presented according to the results in this study.

  16. PDB-Explorer: a web-based interactive map of the protein data bank in shape space.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jin, Xian; Awale, Mahendra; Zasso, Michaël; Kostro, Daniel; Patiny, Luc; Reymond, Jean-Louis

    2015-10-23

    The RCSB Protein Data Bank (PDB) provides public access to experimentally determined 3D-structures of biological macromolecules (proteins, peptides and nucleic acids). While various tools are available to explore the PDB, options to access the global structural diversity of the entire PDB and to perceive relationships between PDB structures remain very limited. A 136-dimensional atom pair 3D-fingerprint for proteins (3DP) counting categorized atom pairs at increasing through-space distances was designed to represent the molecular shape of PDB-entries. Nearest neighbor searches examples were reported exemplifying the ability of 3DP-similarity to identify closely related biomolecules from small peptides to enzyme and large multiprotein complexes such as virus particles. The principle component analysis was used to obtain the visualization of PDB in 3DP-space. The 3DP property space groups proteins and protein assemblies according to their 3D-shape similarity, yet shows exquisite ability to distinguish between closely related structures. An interactive website called PDB-Explorer is presented featuring a color-coded interactive map of PDB in 3DP-space. Each pixel of the map contains one or more PDB-entries which are directly visualized as ribbon diagrams when the pixel is selected. The PDB-Explorer website allows performing 3DP-nearest neighbor searches of any PDB-entry or of any structure uploaded as protein-type PDB file. All functionalities on the website are implemented in JavaScript in a platform-independent manner and draw data from a server that is updated daily with the latest PDB additions, ensuring complete and up-to-date coverage. The essentially instantaneous 3DP-similarity search with the PDB-Explorer provides results comparable to those of much slower 3D-alignment algorithms, and automatically clusters proteins from the same superfamilies in tight groups. A chemical space classification of PDB based on molecular shape was obtained using a new atom-pair 3

  17. Correlating Nitrile IR Frequencies to Local Electrostatics Quantifies Noncovalent Interactions of Peptides and Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deb, Pranab; Haldar, Tapas; Kashid, Somnath M; Banerjee, Subhrashis; Chakrabarty, Suman; Bagchi, Sayan

    2016-05-05

    Noncovalent interactions, in particular the hydrogen bonds and nonspecific long-range electrostatic interactions are fundamental to biomolecular functions. A molecular understanding of the local electrostatic environment, consistently for both specific (hydrogen-bonding) and nonspecific electrostatic (local polarity) interactions, is essential for a detailed understanding of these processes. Vibrational Stark Effect (VSE) has proven to be an extremely useful method to measure the local electric field using infrared spectroscopy of carbonyl and nitrile based probes. The nitrile chemical group would be an ideal choice because of its absorption in an infrared spectral window transparent to biomolecules, ease of site-specific incorporation into proteins, and common occurrence as a substituent in various drug molecules. However, the inability of VSE to describe the dependence of IR frequency on electric field for hydrogen-bonded nitriles to date has severely limited nitrile's utility to probe the noncovalent interactions. In this work, using infrared spectroscopy and atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, we have reported for the first time a linear correlation between nitrile frequencies and electric fields in a wide range of hydrogen-bonding environments that may bridge the existing gap between VSE and H-bonding interactions. We have demonstrated the robustness of this field-frequency correlation for both aromatic nitriles and sulfur-based nitriles in a wide range of molecules of varying size and compactness, including small molecules in complex solvation environments, an amino acid, disordered peptides, and structured proteins. This correlation, when coupled to VSE, can be used to quantify noncovalent interactions, specific or nonspecific, in a consistent manner.

  18. Dissection of Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Protein Body Formation in Maize Endosperm - DE-FG03-95-ER20183

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Larkins, Brian A.

    2003-01-01

    Dissection of Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Protein Body Formation in Maize Endosperm - DE-FG03-95-ER20183 Final Technical Report and Patent Summary Dr. Brian A. Larkins, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 Endosperm texture is an important quality trait in maize, as it influences the shipping characteristics of the grain, its susceptibility to insects, the yield of grits from dry milling, energy costs during wet milling, and the baking and digestibility properties of the flour. There appears to be a causal relationship between kernel hardness and the formation of zein-containing protein bodies, as mutations affecting protein body number and structure are associated with a soft, starchy kernel. In this project we used a variety of approaches to better understand this relationship and investigate the molecular and biochemical changes associated with starchy endosperm mutants. We characterized the distribution of zein mRNAs on endosperm rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) membranes and the interactions between zein proteins, as each of these could influence the structure of protein bodies. Based on in situ hybridization, mRNAs encoding the 22-kD alpha- and 27-kD gamma-zeins are randomly distributed on RER; hence, mRNA targeting does not appear to influence the formation of protein bodies. Investigation of the interactions between zein proteins (alpha, beta, gamma, delta) with the yeast two-hybrid system showed that interactions between the 19- and 22-alpha-zeins are relatively weak, although each of them interacted strongly with the 10-kD delta-zein. Strong interactions were detected between the alpha- and delta-zeins and the 16-kD gamma- and 15-kD beta-zeins; however, the 50-kD and 27-kD gamma-zeins did not interact detectably with the alpha- and delta-zein proteins. The NH2- and COOH-terminal domains of the 22-kD alpha-zein were found to interact most strongly with the 15-kD beta- and 16-kD gamma-zeins, suggesting the 16-kD and 15

  19. Molecular dynamics of surfactant protein C

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ramírez, Eunice; Santana, Alberto; Cruz, Anthony

    2006-01-01

    Surfactant protein C (SP-C) is a membrane-associated protein essential for normal respiration. It has been found that the alpha-helix form of SP-C can undergo, under certain conditions, a transformation from an alpha-helix to a beta-strand conformation that closely resembles amyloid fibrils, which...... are possible contributors to the pathogenesis of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Molecular dynamics simulations using the NAMD2 package were performed for systems containing from one to seven SP-C molecules to study their behavior in water. The results of our simulations show that unfolding of the protein...

  20. Prediction of thermodynamic instabilities of protein solutions from simple protein–protein interactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    D’Agostino, Tommaso; Solana, José Ramón; Emanuele, Antonio

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: ► We propose a model of effective protein–protein interaction embedding solvent effects. ► A previous square-well model is enhanced by giving to the interaction a free energy character. ► The temperature dependence of the interaction is due to entropic effects of the solvent. ► The validity of the original SW model is extended to entropy driven phase transitions. ► We get good fits for lysozyme and haemoglobin spinodal data taken from literature. - Abstract: Statistical thermodynamics of protein solutions is often studied in terms of simple, microscopic models of particles interacting via pairwise potentials. Such modelling can reproduce the short range structure of protein solutions at equilibrium and predict thermodynamics instabilities of these systems. We introduce a square well model of effective protein–protein interaction that embeds the solvent’s action. We modify an existing model [45] by considering a well depth having an explicit dependence on temperature, i.e. an explicit free energy character, thus encompassing the statistically relevant configurations of solvent molecules around proteins. We choose protein solutions exhibiting demixing upon temperature decrease (lysozyme, enthalpy driven) and upon temperature increase (haemoglobin, entropy driven). We obtain satisfactory fits of spinodal curves for both the two proteins without adding any mean field term, thus extending the validity of the original model. Our results underline the solvent role in modulating or stretching the interaction potential

  1. Interaction between plate make and protein in protein crystallisation screening.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gordon J King

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Protein crystallisation screening involves the parallel testing of large numbers of candidate conditions with the aim of identifying conditions suitable as a starting point for the production of diffraction quality crystals. Generally, condition screening is performed in 96-well plates. While previous studies have examined the effects of protein construct, protein purity, or crystallisation condition ingredients on protein crystallisation, few have examined the effect of the crystallisation plate. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We performed a statistically rigorous examination of protein crystallisation, and evaluated interactions between crystallisation success and plate row/column, different plates of same make, different plate makes and different proteins. From our analysis of protein crystallisation, we found a significant interaction between plate make and the specific protein being crystallised. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Protein crystal structure determination is the principal method for determining protein structure but is limited by the need to produce crystals of the protein under study. Many important proteins are difficult to crystallize, so that identification of factors that assist crystallisation could open up the structure determination of these more challenging targets. Our findings suggest that protein crystallisation success may be improved by matching a protein with its optimal plate make.

  2. Integral UBL domain proteins: a family of proteasome interacting proteins

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hartmann-Petersen, Rasmus; Gordon, Colin

    2004-01-01

    The family of ubiquitin-like (UBL) domain proteins (UDPs) comprises a conserved group of proteins involved in a multitude of different cellular activities. However, recent studies on UBL-domain proteins indicate that these proteins appear to share a common property in their ability to interact...

  3. Yeast Interacting Proteins Database: YOR302W, YOR047C [Yeast Interacting Proteins Database

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available rol of glucose-regulated gene expression; interacts with protein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt...tein kinase Snf1p, glucose sensors Snf3p and Rgt2p, and TATA-binding protein Spt1

  4. Protein signatures using electrostatic molecular surfaces in harmonic space

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. Sofia Carvalho

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available We developed a novel method based on the Fourier analysis of protein molecular surfaces to speed up the analysis of the vast structural data generated in the post-genomic era. This method computes the power spectrum of surfaces of the molecular electrostatic potential, whose three-dimensional coordinates have been either experimentally or theoretically determined. Thus we achieve a reduction of the initial three-dimensional information on the molecular surface to the one-dimensional information on pairs of points at a fixed scale apart. Consequently, the similarity search in our method is computationally less demanding and significantly faster than shape comparison methods. As proof of principle, we applied our method to a training set of viral proteins that are involved in major diseases such as Hepatitis C, Dengue fever, Yellow fever, Bovine viral diarrhea and West Nile fever. The training set contains proteins of four different protein families, as well as a mammalian representative enzyme. We found that the power spectrum successfully assigns a unique signature to each protein included in our training set, thus providing a direct probe of functional similarity among proteins. The results agree with established biological data from conventional structural biochemistry analyses.

  5. Analysis of protein-protein interaction networks by means of annotated graph mining algorithms

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rahmani, Hossein

    2012-01-01

    This thesis discusses solutions to several open problems in Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) networks with the aid of Knowledge Discovery. PPI networks are usually represented as undirected graphs, with nodes corresponding to proteins and edges representing interactions among protein pairs. A large

  6. Protein-protein interactions within late pre-40S ribosomes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melody G Campbell

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Ribosome assembly in eukaryotic organisms requires more than 200 assembly factors to facilitate and coordinate rRNA transcription, processing, and folding with the binding of the ribosomal proteins. Many of these assembly factors bind and dissociate at defined times giving rise to discrete assembly intermediates, some of which have been partially characterized with regards to their protein and RNA composition. Here, we have analyzed the protein-protein interactions between the seven assembly factors bound to late cytoplasmic pre-40S ribosomes using recombinant proteins in binding assays. Our data show that these factors form two modules: one comprising Enp1 and the export adaptor Ltv1 near the beak structure, and the second comprising the kinase Rio2, the nuclease Nob1, and a regulatory RNA binding protein Dim2/Pno1 on the front of the head. The GTPase-like Tsr1 and the universally conserved methylase Dim1 are also peripherally connected to this second module. Additionally, in an effort to further define the locations for these essential proteins, we have analyzed the interactions between these assembly factors and six ribosomal proteins: Rps0, Rps3, Rps5, Rps14, Rps15 and Rps29. Together, these results and previous RNA-protein crosslinking data allow us to propose a model for the binding sites of these seven assembly factors. Furthermore, our data show that the essential kinase Rio2 is located at the center of the pre-ribosomal particle and interacts, directly or indirectly, with every other assembly factor, as well as three ribosomal proteins required for cytoplasmic 40S maturation. These data suggest that Rio2 could play a central role in regulating cytoplasmic maturation steps.

  7. Potato leafroll virus structural proteins manipulate overlapping, yet distinct protein interaction networks during infection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeBlasio, Stacy L; Johnson, Richard; Sweeney, Michelle M; Karasev, Alexander; Gray, Stewart M; MacCoss, Michael J; Cilia, Michelle

    2015-06-01

    Potato leafroll virus (PLRV) produces a readthrough protein (RTP) via translational readthrough of the coat protein amber stop codon. The RTP functions as a structural component of the virion and as a nonincorporated protein in concert with numerous insect and plant proteins to regulate virus movement/transmission and tissue tropism. Affinity purification coupled to quantitative MS was used to generate protein interaction networks for a PLRV mutant that is unable to produce the read through domain (RTD) and compared to the known wild-type PLRV protein interaction network. By quantifying differences in the protein interaction networks, we identified four distinct classes of PLRV-plant interactions: those plant and nonstructural viral proteins interacting with assembled coat protein (category I); plant proteins in complex with both coat protein and RTD (category II); plant proteins in complex with the RTD (category III); and plant proteins that had higher affinity for virions lacking the RTD (category IV). Proteins identified as interacting with the RTD are potential candidates for regulating viral processes that are mediated by the RTP such as phloem retention and systemic movement and can potentially be useful targets for the development of strategies to prevent infection and/or viral transmission of Luteoviridae species that infect important crop species. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  8. Molecular modeling of protein materials: case study of elastin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tarakanova, Anna; Buehler, Markus J

    2013-01-01

    Molecular modeling of protein materials is a quickly growing area of research that has produced numerous contributions in fields ranging from structural engineering to medicine and biology. We review here the history and methods commonly employed in molecular modeling of protein materials, emphasizing the advantages for using modeling as a complement to experimental work. We then consider a case study of the protein elastin, a critically important ‘mechanical protein’ to exemplify the approach in an area where molecular modeling has made a significant impact. We outline the progression of computational modeling studies that have considerably enhanced our understanding of this important protein which endows elasticity and recoil to the tissues it is found in, including the skin, lungs, arteries and the heart. A vast collection of literature has been directed at studying the structure and function of this protein for over half a century, the first molecular dynamics study of elastin being reported in the 1980s. We review the pivotal computational works that have considerably enhanced our fundamental understanding of elastin's atomistic structure and its extraordinary qualities—focusing on two in particular: elastin's superb elasticity and the inverse temperature transition—the remarkable ability of elastin to take on a more structured conformation at higher temperatures, suggesting its effectiveness as a biomolecular switch. Our hope is to showcase these methods as both complementary and enriching to experimental approaches that have thus far dominated the study of most protein-based materials. (topical review)

  9. GRIP: A web-based system for constructing Gold Standard datasets for protein-protein interaction prediction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zheng Huiru

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Information about protein interaction networks is fundamental to understanding protein function and cellular processes. Interaction patterns among proteins can suggest new drug targets and aid in the design of new therapeutic interventions. Efforts have been made to map interactions on a proteomic-wide scale using both experimental and computational techniques. Reference datasets that contain known interacting proteins (positive cases and non-interacting proteins (negative cases are essential to support computational prediction and validation of protein-protein interactions. Information on known interacting and non interacting proteins are usually stored within databases. Extraction of these data can be both complex and time consuming. Although, the automatic construction of reference datasets for classification is a useful resource for researchers no public resource currently exists to perform this task. Results GRIP (Gold Reference dataset constructor from Information on Protein complexes is a web-based system that provides researchers with the functionality to create reference datasets for protein-protein interaction prediction in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Both positive and negative cases for a reference dataset can be extracted, organised and downloaded by the user. GRIP also provides an upload facility whereby users can submit proteins to determine protein complex membership. A search facility is provided where a user can search for protein complex information in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Conclusion GRIP is developed to retrieve information on protein complex, cellular localisation, and physical and genetic interactions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Manual construction of reference datasets can be a time consuming process requiring programming knowledge. GRIP simplifies and speeds up this process by allowing users to automatically construct reference datasets. GRIP is free to access at http://rosalind.infj.ulst.ac.uk/GRIP/.

  10. The effect of protein-protein and protein-membrane interactions on membrane fouling in ultrafiltration

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Huisman, I.H.; Prádanos, P.; Hernández, A.

    2000-01-01

    It was studied how protein-protein and protein-membrane interactions influence the filtration performance during the ultrafiltration of protein solutions over polymeric membranes. This was done by measuring flux, streaming potential, and protein transmission during filtration of bovine serum albumin

  11. Core Data of Yeast Interacting Proteins Database (Original Version) - Yeast Interacting Proteins Database | LSDB Archive [Life Science Database Archive metadata

    Lifescience Database Archive (English)

    Full Text Available y are in the reverse direction. *1 A comprehensive two-hybrid analysis to explore the yeast protein interact...s. 2000 Jan 1;28(1):73-6. *2 The yeast proteome database (YPD) and Caenorhabditis elegans proteome database (WormPD): comprehensive...000 Jan 1;28(1):73-6. *3 A comprehensive analysis of protein-protein interactions in Saccharomyces cerevisia

  12. Unraveling Prion Protein Interactions with Aptamers and Other PrP-Binding Nucleic Acids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Macedo, Bruno; Cordeiro, Yraima

    2017-05-17

    Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are a group of neurodegenerative disorders that affect humans and other mammals. The etiologic agents common to these diseases are misfolded conformations of the prion protein (PrP). The molecular mechanisms that trigger the structural conversion of the normal cellular PrP (PrP C ) into the pathogenic conformer (PrP Sc ) are still poorly understood. It is proposed that a molecular cofactor would act as a catalyst, lowering the activation energy of the conversion process, therefore favoring the transition of PrP C to PrP Sc . Several in vitro studies have described physical interactions between PrP and different classes of molecules, which might play a role in either PrP physiology or pathology. Among these molecules, nucleic acids (NAs) are highlighted as potential PrP molecular partners. In this context, the SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) methodology has proven extremely valuable to investigate PrP-NA interactions, due to its ability to select small nucleic acids, also termed aptamers, that bind PrP with high affinity and specificity. Aptamers are single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that can be folded into a wide range of structures (from harpins to G-quadruplexes). They are selected from a nucleic acid pool containing a large number (10 14 -10 16 ) of random sequences of the same size (~20-100 bases). Aptamers stand out because of their potential ability to bind with different affinities to distinct conformations of the same protein target. Therefore, the identification of high-affinity and selective PrP ligands may aid the development of new therapies and diagnostic tools for TSEs. This review will focus on the selection of aptamers targeted against either full-length or truncated forms of PrP, discussing the implications that result from interactions of PrP with NAs, and their potential advances in the studies of prions. We will also provide a critical evaluation

  13. Structural analysis of intermolecular interactions in the kinesin adaptor complex fasciculation and elongation protein zeta 1/ short coiled-coil protein (FEZ1/SCOCO.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marcos Rodrigo Alborghetti

    Full Text Available Cytoskeleton and protein trafficking processes, including vesicle transport to synapses, are key processes in neuronal differentiation and axon outgrowth. The human protein FEZ1 (fasciculation and elongation protein zeta 1 / UNC-76, in C. elegans, SCOCO (short coiled-coil protein / UNC-69 and kinesins (e.g. kinesin heavy chain / UNC116 are involved in these processes. Exploiting the feature of FEZ1 protein as a bivalent adapter of transport mediated by kinesins and FEZ1 protein interaction with SCOCO (proteins involved in the same path of axonal growth, we investigated the structural aspects of intermolecular interactions involved in this complex formation by NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, cross-linking coupled with mass spectrometry (MS, SAXS (Small Angle X-ray Scattering and molecular modelling. The topology of homodimerization was accessed through NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance studies of the region involved in this process, corresponding to FEZ1 (92-194. Through studies involving the protein in its monomeric configuration (reduced and dimeric state, we propose that homodimerization occurs with FEZ1 chains oriented in an anti-parallel topology. We demonstrate that the interaction interface of FEZ1 and SCOCO defined by MS and computational modelling is in accordance with that previously demonstrated for UNC-76 and UNC-69. SAXS and literature data support a heterotetrameric complex model. These data provide details about the interaction interfaces probably involved in the transport machinery assembly and open perspectives to understand and interfere in this assembly and its involvement in neuronal differentiation and axon outgrowth.

  14. Computational exploration of single-protein mechanics by steered molecular dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sotomayor, Marcos [Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (United States)

    2015-12-31

    Hair cell mechanotransduction happens in tens of microseconds, involves forces of a few picoNewtons, and is mediated by nanometer-scale molecular conformational changes. As proteins involved in this process become identified and their high resolution structures become available, multiple tools are being used to explore their “single-molecule responses” to force. Optical tweezers and atomic force microscopy offer exquisite force and extension resolution, but cannot reach the high loading rates expected for high frequency auditory stimuli. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can reach these fast time scales, and also provide a unique view of the molecular events underlying protein mechanics, but its predictions must be experimentally verified. Thus a combination of simulations and experiments might be appropriate to study the molecular mechanics of hearing. Here I review the basics of MD simulations and the different methods used to apply force and study protein mechanics in silico. Simulations of tip link proteins are used to illustrate the advantages and limitations of this method.

  15. When biomolecules meet graphene: from molecular level interactions to material design and applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Dapeng; Zhang, Wensi; Yu, Xiaoqing; Wang, Zhenping; Su, Zhiqiang; Wei, Gang

    2016-12-01

    Graphene-based materials have attracted increasing attention due to their atomically-thick two-dimensional structures, high conductivity, excellent mechanical properties, and large specific surface areas. The combination of biomolecules with graphene-based materials offers a promising method to fabricate novel graphene-biomolecule hybrid nanomaterials with unique functions in biology, medicine, nanotechnology, and materials science. In this review, we focus on a summarization of the recent studies in functionalizing graphene-based materials using different biomolecules, such as DNA, peptides, proteins, enzymes, carbohydrates, and viruses. The different interactions between graphene and biomolecules at the molecular level are demonstrated and discussed in detail. In addition, the potential applications of the created graphene-biomolecule nanohybrids in drug delivery, cancer treatment, tissue engineering, biosensors, bioimaging, energy materials, and other nanotechnological applications are presented. This review will be helpful to know the modification of graphene with biomolecules, understand the interactions between graphene and biomolecules at the molecular level, and design functional graphene-based nanomaterials with unique properties for various applications.

  16. On the strong influence of molecular interactions over large distances

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pfennig, Andreas

    2018-03-01

    Molecular-dynamics simulations of liquid water show deterministic chaos, i.e. an intentionally introduced molecular position shift of an individual molecule increases exponentially by a factor of 10 in 0.23 ps. This is a Lyaponov instability. As soon as it reaches molecular scale, the direction of the resulting shift in molecular motions is unpredictable. The influence of any individual distant particle on an observed molecule will be minute, but the effect will quickly increase to molecular scale and beyond due to this exponential growth. Consequently, any individual particle in the universe will affect the behavior of any molecule within at most 33 ps after the interaction reaches it. A larger distance of the faraway particle does not decrease the influence on an observed molecule, but the effect reaches molecular scale only some ps later. Thus in evaluating the interactions, nearby and faraway molecules have to be equally accounted for. The consequences of this quickly reacting network of interactions on universal scale are fundamental. Even in a strictly deterministic view, molecular behavior is principally unpredictable, and thus has to be regarded random. Corresponding statements apply for any particles interacting. This result leads to a fundamental rethinking of the structure of interactions of molecules and particles as well as the behavior of reality.

  17. Deciphering peculiar protein-protein interacting modules in Deinococcus radiodurans

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barkallah Insaf

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Interactomes of proteins under positive selection from ionizing-radiation-resistant bacteria (IRRB might be a part of the answer to the question as to how IRRB, particularly Deinococcus radiodurans R1 (Deira, resist ionizing radiation. Here, using the Database of Interacting Proteins (DIP and the Protein Structural Interactome (PSI-base server for PSI map, we have predicted novel interactions of orthologs of the 58 proteins under positive selection in Deira and other IRRB, but which are absent in IRSB. Among these, 18 domains and their interactomes have been identified in DNA checkpoint and repair; kinases pathways; energy and nucleotide metabolisms were the important biological processes that were found to be involved. This finding provides new clues to the cellular pathways that can to be important for ionizing-radiation resistance in Deira.

  18. A combined spectroscopic and molecular docking study on site selective binding interaction of Toluidine blue O with Human and Bovine serum albumins

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Selva Sharma, Arumugam [Department of Chemistry, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641046 (India); Anandakumar, Shanmugam [Department of Bioinformatics, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641046 (India); Ilanchelian, Malaichamy, E-mail: chelian73@yahoo.com [Department of Chemistry, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641046 (India)

    2014-07-01

    In the present investigation the interaction of a biologically active photodynamic therapeutic agent Toluidine blue O (TBO) with Serum albumins viz Human serum albumin (HSA) and Bovine serum albumin (BSA) was studied using absorption, emission, circular dichroism spectroscopy and molecular docking experiments. The emission titration experiments between HSA/BSA and TBO revealed the existence of strong interactions between TBO and the proteins. The site competitive experiment of HSA and BSA showed that the primary binding site of TBO is located in site I of HSA/BSA involving hydrophobic, hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction. To ascertain the results of site competitive experiments, molecular docking was utilized to characterize the binding models of TBO–HSA/BSA complexes. From the molecular docking studies, free energy calculations were undertaken to examine the energy contributions and the role of various amino acid residues of HSA/BSA in TBO binding. The existence of Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) between the ligand and the protein was utilized to calculate the donor–acceptor distance of TBO and protein. The TBO induced conformational changes of HSA/BSA was established using synchronous emission, three dimensional emission and circular dichroism studies. - Highlights: • Site selective binding interaction of TBO with HSA and BSA were investigated. • TBO quenches the intrinsic fluorescence of HSA/BSA by static quenching process. • Computational studies of TBO with HSA/BSA substantiate the experimental findings. • 3D and CD spectral studies of TBO–HSA/BSA revealed structural changes in protein. • The distance (r) between TBO and HSA/BSA were estimated from FRET theory.

  19. On the analysis of protein-protein interactions via knowledge-based potentials for the prediction of protein-protein docking

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Feliu, Elisenda; Aloy, Patrick; Oliva, Baldo

    2011-01-01

    Development of effective methods to screen binary interactions obtained by rigid-body protein-protein docking is key for structure prediction of complexes and for elucidating physicochemical principles of protein-protein binding. We have derived empirical knowledge-based potential functions for s...... and with independence of the partner. This information is encoded at the residue level and could be easily incorporated in the initial grid scoring for Fast Fourier Transform rigid-body docking methods.......Development of effective methods to screen binary interactions obtained by rigid-body protein-protein docking is key for structure prediction of complexes and for elucidating physicochemical principles of protein-protein binding. We have derived empirical knowledge-based potential functions...... for selecting rigid-body docking poses. These potentials include the energetic component that provides the residues with a particular secondary structure and surface accessibility. These scoring functions have been tested on a state-of-art benchmark dataset and on a decoy dataset of permanent interactions. Our...

  20. Prediction of heterodimeric protein complexes from weighted protein-protein interaction networks using novel features and kernel functions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peiying Ruan

    Full Text Available Since many proteins express their functional activity by interacting with other proteins and forming protein complexes, it is very useful to identify sets of proteins that form complexes. For that purpose, many prediction methods for protein complexes from protein-protein interactions have been developed such as MCL, MCODE, RNSC, PCP, RRW, and NWE. These methods have dealt with only complexes with size of more than three because the methods often are based on some density of subgraphs. However, heterodimeric protein complexes that consist of two distinct proteins occupy a large part according to several comprehensive databases of known complexes. In this paper, we propose several feature space mappings from protein-protein interaction data, in which each interaction is weighted based on reliability. Furthermore, we make use of prior knowledge on protein domains to develop feature space mappings, domain composition kernel and its combination kernel with our proposed features. We perform ten-fold cross-validation computational experiments. These results suggest that our proposed kernel considerably outperforms the naive Bayes-based method, which is the best existing method for predicting heterodimeric protein complexes.

  1. Interaction of the Sliding Clamp β-Subunit and Hda, a DnaA-Related Protein

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurz, Mareike; Dalrymple, Brian; Wijffels, Gene; Kongsuwan, Kritaya

    2004-01-01

    In Escherichia coli, interactions between the replication initiation protein DnaA, the β subunit of DNA polymerase III (the sliding clamp protein), and Hda, the recently identified DnaA-related protein, are required to convert the active ATP-bound form of DnaA to an inactive ADP-bound form through the accelerated hydrolysis of ATP. This rapid hydrolysis of ATP is proposed to be the main mechanism that blocks multiple initiations during cell cycle and acts as a molecular switch from initiation to replication. However, the biochemical mechanism for this crucial step in DNA synthesis has not been resolved. Using purified Hda and β proteins in a plate binding assay and Ni-nitrilotriacetic acid pulldown analysis, we show for the first time that Hda directly interacts with β in vitro. A new β-binding motif, a hexapeptide with the consensus sequence QL[SP]LPL, related to the previously identified β-binding pentapeptide motif (QL[SD]LF) was found in the amino terminus of the Hda protein. Mutants of Hda with amino acid changes in the hexapeptide motif are severely defective in their ability to bind β. A 10-amino-acid peptide containing the E. coli Hda β-binding motif was shown to compete with Hda for binding to β in an Hda-β interaction assay. These results establish that the interaction of Hda with β is mediated through the hexapeptide sequence. We propose that this interaction may be crucial to the events that lead to the inactivation of DnaA and the prevention of excess initiation of rounds of replication. PMID:15150238

  2. Interaction of the sliding clamp beta-subunit and Hda, a DnaA-related protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurz, Mareike; Dalrymple, Brian; Wijffels, Gene; Kongsuwan, Kritaya

    2004-06-01

    In Escherichia coli, interactions between the replication initiation protein DnaA, the beta subunit of DNA polymerase III (the sliding clamp protein), and Hda, the recently identified DnaA-related protein, are required to convert the active ATP-bound form of DnaA to an inactive ADP-bound form through the accelerated hydrolysis of ATP. This rapid hydrolysis of ATP is proposed to be the main mechanism that blocks multiple initiations during cell cycle and acts as a molecular switch from initiation to replication. However, the biochemical mechanism for this crucial step in DNA synthesis has not been resolved. Using purified Hda and beta proteins in a plate binding assay and Ni-nitrilotriacetic acid pulldown analysis, we show for the first time that Hda directly interacts with beta in vitro. A new beta-binding motif, a hexapeptide with the consensus sequence QL[SP]LPL, related to the previously identified beta-binding pentapeptide motif (QL[SD]LF) was found in the amino terminus of the Hda protein. Mutants of Hda with amino acid changes in the hexapeptide motif are severely defective in their ability to bind beta. A 10-amino-acid peptide containing the E. coli Hda beta-binding motif was shown to compete with Hda for binding to beta in an Hda-beta interaction assay. These results establish that the interaction of Hda with beta is mediated through the hexapeptide sequence. We propose that this interaction may be crucial to the events that lead to the inactivation of DnaA and the prevention of excess initiation of rounds of replication.

  3. Relative quantification of protein-protein interactions using a dual luciferase reporter pull-down assay system.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuaizheng Jia

    Full Text Available The identification and quantitative analysis of protein-protein interactions are essential to the functional characterization of proteins in the post-proteomics era. The methods currently available are generally time-consuming, technically complicated, insensitive and/or semi-quantitative. The lack of simple, sensitive approaches to precisely quantify protein-protein interactions still prevents our understanding of the functions of many proteins. Here, we develop a novel dual luciferase reporter pull-down assay by combining a biotinylated Firefly luciferase pull-down assay with a dual luciferase reporter assay. The biotinylated Firefly luciferase-tagged protein enables rapid and efficient isolation of a putative Renilla luciferase-tagged binding protein from a relatively small amount of sample. Both of these proteins can be quantitatively detected using the dual luciferase reporter assay system. Protein-protein interactions, including Fos-Jun located in the nucleus; MAVS-TRAF3 in cytoplasm; inducible IRF3 dimerization; viral protein-regulated interactions, such as MAVS-MAVS and MAVS-TRAF3; IRF3 dimerization; and protein interaction domain mapping, are studied using this novel assay system. Herein, we demonstrate that this dual luciferase reporter pull-down assay enables the quantification of the relative amounts of interacting proteins that bind to streptavidin-coupled beads for protein purification. This study provides a simple, rapid, sensitive, and efficient approach to identify and quantify relative protein-protein interactions. Importantly, the dual luciferase reporter pull-down method will facilitate the functional determination of proteins.

  4. Manipulating fatty acid biosynthesis in microalgae for biofuel through protein-protein interactions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jillian L Blatti

    Full Text Available Microalgae are a promising feedstock for renewable fuels, and algal metabolic engineering can lead to crop improvement, thus accelerating the development of commercially viable biodiesel production from algae biomass. We demonstrate that protein-protein interactions between the fatty acid acyl carrier protein (ACP and thioesterase (TE govern fatty acid hydrolysis within the algal chloroplast. Using green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Cr as a model, a structural simulation of docking CrACP to CrTE identifies a protein-protein recognition surface between the two domains. A virtual screen reveals plant TEs with similar in silico binding to CrACP. Employing an activity-based crosslinking probe designed to selectively trap transient protein-protein interactions between the TE and ACP, we demonstrate in vitro that CrTE must functionally interact with CrACP to release fatty acids, while TEs of vascular plants show no mechanistic crosslinking to CrACP. This is recapitulated in vivo, where overproduction of the endogenous CrTE increased levels of short-chain fatty acids and engineering plant TEs into the C. reinhardtii chloroplast did not alter the fatty acid profile. These findings highlight the critical role of protein-protein interactions in manipulating fatty acid biosynthesis for algae biofuel engineering as illuminated by activity-based probes.

  5. Protein-Protein Interaction Reagents | Office of Cancer Genomics

    Science.gov (United States)

    The CTD2 Center at Emory University has a library of genes used to study protein-protein interactions in mammalian cells. These genes are cloned in different mammalian expression vectors. A list of available cancer-associated genes can be accessed below. Emory_CTD^2_PPI_Reagents.xlsx Contact: Haian Fu

  6. A protein domain interaction interface database: InterPare

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lee Jungsul

    2005-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Most proteins function by interacting with other molecules. Their interaction interfaces are highly conserved throughout evolution to avoid undesirable interactions that lead to fatal disorders in cells. Rational drug discovery includes computational methods to identify the interaction sites of lead compounds to the target molecules. Identifying and classifying protein interaction interfaces on a large scale can help researchers discover drug targets more efficiently. Description We introduce a large-scale protein domain interaction interface database called InterPare http://interpare.net. It contains both inter-chain (between chains interfaces and intra-chain (within chain interfaces. InterPare uses three methods to detect interfaces: 1 the geometric distance method for checking the distance between atoms that belong to different domains, 2 Accessible Surface Area (ASA, a method for detecting the buried region of a protein that is detached from a solvent when forming multimers or complexes, and 3 the Voronoi diagram, a computational geometry method that uses a mathematical definition of interface regions. InterPare includes visualization tools to display protein interior, surface, and interaction interfaces. It also provides statistics such as the amino acid propensities of queried protein according to its interior, surface, and interface region. The atom coordinates that belong to interface, surface, and interior regions can be downloaded from the website. Conclusion InterPare is an open and public database server for protein interaction interface information. It contains the large-scale interface data for proteins whose 3D-structures are known. As of November 2004, there were 10,583 (Geometric distance, 10,431 (ASA, and 11,010 (Voronoi diagram entries in the Protein Data Bank (PDB containing interfaces, according to the above three methods. In the case of the geometric distance method, there are 31,620 inter-chain domain

  7. DiffSLC: A graph centrality method to detect essential proteins of a protein-protein interaction network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mistry, Divya; Wise, Roger P; Dickerson, Julie A

    2017-01-01

    Identification of central genes and proteins in biomolecular networks provides credible candidates for pathway analysis, functional analysis, and essentiality prediction. The DiffSLC centrality measure predicts central and essential genes and proteins using a protein-protein interaction network. Network centrality measures prioritize nodes and edges based on their importance to the network topology. These measures helped identify critical genes and proteins in biomolecular networks. The proposed centrality measure, DiffSLC, combines the number of interactions of a protein and the gene coexpression values of genes from which those proteins were translated, as a weighting factor to bias the identification of essential proteins in a protein interaction network. Potentially essential proteins with low node degree are promoted through eigenvector centrality. Thus, the gene coexpression values are used in conjunction with the eigenvector of the network's adjacency matrix and edge clustering coefficient to improve essentiality prediction. The outcome of this prediction is shown using three variations: (1) inclusion or exclusion of gene co-expression data, (2) impact of different coexpression measures, and (3) impact of different gene expression data sets. For a total of seven networks, DiffSLC is compared to other centrality measures using Saccharomyces cerevisiae protein interaction networks and gene expression data. Comparisons are also performed for the top ranked proteins against the known essential genes from the Saccharomyces Gene Deletion Project, which show that DiffSLC detects more essential proteins and has a higher area under the ROC curve than other compared methods. This makes DiffSLC a stronger alternative to other centrality methods for detecting essential genes using a protein-protein interaction network that obeys centrality-lethality principle. DiffSLC is implemented using the igraph package in R, and networkx package in Python. The python package can be

  8. Microbial interactions: ecology in a molecular perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Braga, Raíssa Mesquita; Dourado, Manuella Nóbrega; Araújo, Welington Luiz

    2016-12-01

    The microorganism-microorganism or microorganism-host interactions are the key strategy to colonize and establish in a variety of different environments. These interactions involve all ecological aspects, including physiochemical changes, metabolite exchange, metabolite conversion, signaling, chemotaxis and genetic exchange resulting in genotype selection. In addition, the establishment in the environment depends on the species diversity, since high functional redundancy in the microbial community increases the competitive ability of the community, decreasing the possibility of an invader to establish in this environment. Therefore, these associations are the result of a co-evolution process that leads to the adaptation and specialization, allowing the occupation of different niches, by reducing biotic and abiotic stress or exchanging growth factors and signaling. Microbial interactions occur by the transference of molecular and genetic information, and many mechanisms can be involved in this exchange, such as secondary metabolites, siderophores, quorum sensing system, biofilm formation, and cellular transduction signaling, among others. The ultimate unit of interaction is the gene expression of each organism in response to an environmental (biotic or abiotic) stimulus, which is responsible for the production of molecules involved in these interactions. Therefore, in the present review, we focused on some molecular mechanisms involved in the microbial interaction, not only in microbial-host interaction, which has been exploited by other reviews, but also in the molecular strategy used by different microorganisms in the environment that can modulate the establishment and structuration of the microbial community. Copyright © 2016 Sociedade Brasileira de Microbiologia. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

  9. Protein Annotation from Protein Interaction Networks and Gene Ontology

    OpenAIRE

    Nguyen, Cao D.; Gardiner, Katheleen J.; Cios, Krzysztof J.

    2011-01-01

    We introduce a novel method for annotating protein function that combines Naïve Bayes and association rules, and takes advantage of the underlying topology in protein interaction networks and the structure of graphs in the Gene Ontology. We apply our method to proteins from the Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD) and show that, in comparison with other approaches, it predicts protein functions with significantly higher recall with no loss of precision. Specifically, it achieves 51% precis...

  10. Histone and RNA-binding protein interaction creates crosstalk network for regulation of alternative splicing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Yong-Eun; Park, Chungoo; Kim, Kyoon Eon; Kim, Kee K

    2018-04-30

    Alternative splicing is an essential process in eukaryotes, as it increases the complexity of gene expression by generating multiple proteins from a single pre-mRNA. However, information on the regulatory mechanisms for alternative splicing is lacking, because splicing occurs over a short period via the transient interactions of proteins within functional complexes of the spliceosome. Here, we investigated in detail the molecular mechanisms connecting alternative splicing with epigenetic mechanisms. We identified interactions between histone proteins and splicing factors such as Rbfox2, Rbfox3, and splicing factor proline and glutamine rich protein (SFPQ) by in vivo crosslinking and immunoprecipitation. Furthermore, we confirmed that splicing factors were bound to specific modified residues of histone proteins. Additionally, changes in histone methylation due to histone methyltransferase inhibitor treatment notably affected alternative splicing in selected genes. Therefore, we suggested that there may be crosstalk mechanisms connecting histone modifications and RNA-binding proteins that increase the local concentration of RNA-binding proteins in alternative exon loci of nucleosomes by binding specific modified histone proteins, leading to alternative splicing. This crosstalk mechanism may play a major role in epigenetic processes such as histone modification and the regulation of alternative splicing. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Towards a molecular interpretation of astringency: synthesis, 3D structure, colloidal state, and human saliva protein recognition of procyanidins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cala, Olivier; Fabre, Sandy; Pinaud, Noël; Dufourc, Erick J; Fouquet, Eric; Laguerre, Michel; Pianet, Isabelle

    2011-07-01

    Astringency is a sensation in the mouth used in judging the quality of red wine. The rough, dry, and puckering sensation called astringency is the result of an interaction between tannins and saliva proteins, mainly proline-rich proteins (PRP), which leads to the formation and precipitation of a complex. A dry and rough sensation is then perceived in the mouth. To get an insight into astringency at the molecular level we investigated: (i) An efficient and iterative method for 4-8 procyanidin synthesis, which gives rise to all possible 4-8 procyanidins up to the tetramer with total control of degree of oligomerization and stereochemistry. (ii) The 3D-structural preferences, which take into account their internal movements, using 2D NMR and molecular modeling. (iii) The self-association process in water or hydroalcoholic solutions using diffusion NMR spectroscopy that gives the active proportion of tannins able to fix proteins. (iv) A comprehensive description of the PRP-procyanidin complex formation to get information about stoichiometry, binding site localization, and affinity constants for different procyanidins. The data collected suggest that the interactions are controlled by both procyanidin conformational and colloidal state preferences. All these results provide new insights into the molecular interpretation of tannin astringency. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

  12. TranscriptomeBrowser 3.0: introducing a new compendium of molecular interactions and a new visualization tool for the study of gene regulatory networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lepoivre, Cyrille; Bergon, Aurélie; Lopez, Fabrice; Perumal, Narayanan B; Nguyen, Catherine; Imbert, Jean; Puthier, Denis

    2012-01-31

    Deciphering gene regulatory networks by in silico approaches is a crucial step in the study of the molecular perturbations that occur in diseases. The development of regulatory maps is a tedious process requiring the comprehensive integration of various evidences scattered over biological databases. Thus, the research community would greatly benefit from having a unified database storing known and predicted molecular interactions. Furthermore, given the intrinsic complexity of the data, the development of new tools offering integrated and meaningful visualizations of molecular interactions is necessary to help users drawing new hypotheses without being overwhelmed by the density of the subsequent graph. We extend the previously developed TranscriptomeBrowser database with a set of tables containing 1,594,978 human and mouse molecular interactions. The database includes: (i) predicted regulatory interactions (computed by scanning vertebrate alignments with a set of 1,213 position weight matrices), (ii) potential regulatory interactions inferred from systematic analysis of ChIP-seq experiments, (iii) regulatory interactions curated from the literature, (iv) predicted post-transcriptional regulation by micro-RNA, (v) protein kinase-substrate interactions and (vi) physical protein-protein interactions. In order to easily retrieve and efficiently analyze these interactions, we developed In-teractomeBrowser, a graph-based knowledge browser that comes as a plug-in for Transcriptome-Browser. The first objective of InteractomeBrowser is to provide a user-friendly tool to get new insight into any gene list by providing a context-specific display of putative regulatory and physical interactions. To achieve this, InteractomeBrowser relies on a "cell compartments-based layout" that makes use of a subset of the Gene Ontology to map gene products onto relevant cell compartments. This layout is particularly powerful for visual integration of heterogeneous biological information

  13. Topology of molecular interaction networks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Winterbach, W.; Van Mieghem, P.; Reinders, M.; Wang, H.; De Ridder, D.

    2013-01-01

    Molecular interactions are often represented as network models which have become the common language of many areas of biology. Graphs serve as convenient mathematical representations of network models and have themselves become objects of study. Their topology has been intensively researched over

  14. Exploration of the dynamic properties of protein complexes predicted from spatially constrained protein-protein interaction networks.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eric A Yen

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Protein complexes are not static, but rather highly dynamic with subunits that undergo 1-dimensional diffusion with respect to each other. Interactions within protein complexes are modulated through regulatory inputs that alter interactions and introduce new components and deplete existing components through exchange. While it is clear that the structure and function of any given protein complex is coupled to its dynamical properties, it remains a challenge to predict the possible conformations that complexes can adopt. Protein-fragment Complementation Assays detect physical interactions between protein pairs constrained to ≤8 nm from each other in living cells. This method has been used to build networks composed of 1000s of pair-wise interactions. Significantly, these networks contain a wealth of dynamic information, as the assay is fully reversible and the proteins are expressed in their natural context. In this study, we describe a method that extracts this valuable information in the form of predicted conformations, allowing the user to explore the conformational landscape, to search for structures that correlate with an activity state, and estimate the abundance of conformations in the living cell. The generator is based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation that uses the interaction dataset as input and is constrained by the physical resolution of the assay. We applied this method to an 18-member protein complex composed of the seven core proteins of the budding yeast Arp2/3 complex and 11 associated regulators and effector proteins. We generated 20,480 output structures and identified conformational states using principle component analysis. We interrogated the conformation landscape and found evidence of symmetry breaking, a mixture of likely active and inactive conformational states and dynamic exchange of the core protein Arc15 between core and regulatory components. Our method provides a novel tool for prediction and

  15. Probing the molecular forces involved in binding of selected volatile flavour compounds to salt-extracted pea proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Kun; Arntfield, Susan D

    2016-11-15

    Molecular interactions between heterologous classes of flavour compounds with salt-extracted pea protein isolates (PPIs) were determined using various bond disrupting agents followed by GC/MS analysis. Flavour bound by proteins decreased in the order: dibutyl disulfide>octanal>hexyl acetate>2-octanone=benzaldehyde. Benzaldehyde, 2-octanone and hexyl acetate interacted non-covalently with PPIs, whereas octanal bound PPIs via covalent and non-covalent forces. Dibutyl disulfide reacted with PPIs covalently, as its retention was not diminished by urea and guanidine hydrochloride. Using propylene glycol, H-bonding and ionic interactions were implicated for hexyl acetate, benzaldehyde, and 2-octanone. A protein-destabilising salt (Cl3CCOONa) reduced bindings for 2-octanone, hexyl acetate, and benzaldehyde; however, retention for octanal and dibutyl disulfide increased. Conversely, a protein-stabilising salt (Na2SO4) enhanced retention for benzaldehyde, 2-octanone, hexyl acetate and octanal. Formation of a volatile flavour by-product, 1-butanethiol, from dibutyl disulfide when PPIs were treated with dithiothreitol indicated occurrence of sulfhydryl-disulfide interchange reactions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Energetics of the protein-DNA-water interaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marabotti Anna

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background To understand the energetics of the interaction between protein and DNA we analyzed 39 crystallographically characterized complexes with the HINT (Hydropathic INTeractions computational model. HINT is an empirical free energy force field based on solvent partitioning of small molecules between water and 1-octanol. Our previous studies on protein-ligand complexes demonstrated that free energy predictions were significantly improved by taking into account the energetic contribution of water molecules that form at least one hydrogen bond with each interacting species. Results An initial correlation between the calculated HINT scores and the experimentally determined binding free energies in the protein-DNA system exhibited a relatively poor r2 of 0.21 and standard error of ± 1.71 kcal mol-1. However, the inclusion of 261 waters that bridge protein and DNA improved the HINT score-free energy correlation to an r2 of 0.56 and standard error of ± 1.28 kcal mol-1. Analysis of the water role and energy contributions indicate that 46% of the bridging waters act as linkers between amino acids and nucleotide bases at the protein-DNA interface, while the remaining 54% are largely involved in screening unfavorable electrostatic contacts. Conclusion This study quantifies the key energetic role of bridging waters in protein-DNA associations. In addition, the relevant role of hydrophobic interactions and entropy in driving protein-DNA association is indicated by analyses of interaction character showing that, together, the favorable polar and unfavorable polar/hydrophobic-polar interactions (i.e., desolvation mostly cancel.

  17. Use of Host-like Peptide Motifs in Viral Proteins Is a Prevalent Strategy in Host-Virus Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tzachi Hagai

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Viruses interact extensively with host proteins, but the mechanisms controlling these interactions are not well understood. We present a comprehensive analysis of eukaryotic linear motifs (ELMs in 2,208 viral genomes and reveal that viruses exploit molecular mimicry of host-like ELMs to possibly assist in host-virus interactions. Using a statistical genomics approach, we identify a large number of potentially functional ELMs and observe that the occurrence of ELMs is often evolutionarily conserved but not uniform across virus families. Some viral proteins contain multiple types of ELMs, in striking similarity to complex regulatory modules in host proteins, suggesting that ELMs may act combinatorially to assist viral replication. Furthermore, a simple evolutionary model suggests that the inherent structural simplicity of ELMs often enables them to tolerate mutations and evolve quickly. Our findings suggest that ELMs may allow fast rewiring of host-virus interactions, which likely assists rapid viral evolution and adaptation to diverse environments.

  18. Binding Interactions Between alpha-glucans from Lactobacillus reuteri and Milk Proteins Characterised by Surface Plasmon Resonance

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Diemer, Silja K.; Svensson, Birte; Babol, Linnea N.; Cockburn, Darrell; Grijpstra, Pieter; Dijkhuizen, Lubbert; Folkenberg, Ditte M.; Garrigues, Christel; Ipsen, Richard H.

    Interactions between milk proteins and alpha-glucans at pH 4.0-5.5 were investigated by use of surface plasmon resonance. The alpha-glucans were synthesised with glucansucrase enzymes from Lactobacillus reuteri strains ATCC-55730, 180, ML1 and 121. Variations in the molecular characteristics of the

  19. In vivo interactions between the proteins of infectious bursal disease virus: capsid protein VP3 interacts with the RNA dependent polymerase VP1

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tacken, M.G.J.; Rottier, P.J.M.; Gielkens, A.L.J.; Peeters, B.P.H.

    2000-01-01

    Little is known about the intermolecular interactions between the viral proteins of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV). By using the yeast two-hybrid system, which allows the detection of protein-protein interactions in vivo, all possible interactions were tested by fusing the viral proteins to

  20. Interactions in vivo between the proteins of infectious bursal disease virus: capsid protein VP3 interacts with the RNA-dependent polymerase, VP1

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tacken, M.G.J.; Rottier, P.J.M.; Gielkens, A.L.J.; Peeters, B.P.H.

    2000-01-01

    Little is known about the intermolecular interactions between the viral proteins of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV). By using the yeast two-hybrid system, which allows the detection of protein-protein interactions in vivo, all possible interactions were tested by fusing the viral proteins to