Abstract
Top-down symmetric deconstruction (TDSD) is a joint experimental and computational approach to generate a highly stable, functionally benign protein scaffold for intended application in subsequent functional design studies. By focusing on symmetric protein folds, TDSD can leverage the dramatic reduction in sequence space achieved by applying a primary structure symmetric constraint to the design process. Fundamentally, TDSD is an iterative symmetrization process, in which the goal is to maintain or improve properties of thermodynamic stability and folding cooperativity inherent to a starting sequence (the “proxy”). As such, TDSD does not attempt to solve the inverse protein folding problem directly, which is computationally intractable. The present chapter will take the reader through all of the primary steps of TDSD—selecting a proxy, identifying potential mutations, establishing a stability/folding cooperativity screen—relying heavily on a successful TDSD solution for the common β-trefoil fold.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Longo LMB, Blaber M (2012) Protein design—a vast unexploited resource. J Protein Proteonomics 3:78–83
Yue K, Dill KA (1992) Inverse protein folding problem: designing polymer sequences. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 89:4163–4167
Koga N, Tatsumi-Koga R, Liu G, Xiao R, Acton TB, Montelione GT et al (2012) Principles for designing ideal protein structures. Nature 491:222–227
Blaber M, Lee J (2012) Designing proteins from simple motifs: opportunities in top-down symmetric deconstruction. Curr Opin Struct Biol 22:442–450
Lee J, Blaber SI, Dubey VK, Blaber M (2011) A polypeptide “building block” for the ß-trefoil fold identified by “top-down symmetric deconstruction”. J Mol Biol 407:744–763
Fleishman SJ, Whitehead TA, Ekiert DC, Dreyfus C, Corn JE, Strauch E-M et al (2011) Computational design of proteins targeting the conserved stem region of influenza hemagglutinin. Science 332:816–821
Jung J, Lee B (2001) Circularly permuted proteins in the protein structure database. Protein Sci 10:1881–1886
Levy Y, Cho SS, Shen T, Onuchic JN, Wolynes PG (2005) Symmetry and frustration in protein energy landscapes: a near degeneracy resolves the Rop dimer-folding mystery. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102:2373–2378
Seitz T, Bocola M, Claren J, Sterner R (2007) Stabilization of a (beta-alpha)8-barrel protein designed from identical half barrels. J Mol Biol 372:114–129
Fortenberry C, Bowman EA, Proffitt W, Dorr B, Combs S, Harp J et al (2011) Exploring symmetry as an avenue to the computational design of large protein domains. J Am Chem Soc 133:18026–18029
Yadid I, Tawfik DS (2011) Functional β-propeller lectins by tandem duplications of repetitive units. Protein Eng Des Sel 24:185–195
Lee J, Blaber M (2011) Experimental support for the evolution of symmetric protein architecture from a simple peptide motif. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108:126–130
Brych SR, Dubey VK, Bienkieicz E, Lee J, Logan TM, Blaber M (2004) Symmetric primary and tertiary structure mutations within a symmetric superfold: a solution, not a constraint, to achieve a foldable polypeptide. J Mol Biol 344:769–780
Broom A, Doxey AC, Lobsanov YD, Berthin LG, Rose DR, Howell PL et al (2012) Modular evolution and the origins of symmetry: reconstruction of a three-fold symmetric globular protein. Structure 20:161–171
Fukuchi S, Nishikawa K (2001) Protein surface amino acid compositions distinctively differ between thermophilic and mesophilic bacteria. J Mol Biol 309:835–843
Kumar S, Tsai CJ, Nussinov R (2000) Factors enhancing protein thermostability. Protein Eng 13:179–191
Fukuchi S, Yoshimune K, Wakayama M, Moriguchi M, Nishikawa K (2003) Unique amino acid composition of proteins in halophilic bacteria. J Mol Biol 327:347–357
Oren A, Larimer F, Richardson P, Lapidus A, Csonka LN (2005) How to be moderately halophilic with broad salt tolerance: clues from the genome of Chromohalobacter salexigens. Extremophiles 9:275–279
Kennedy SP, Ng WV, Salzberg SL, Hood L, DasSarma S (2001) Understanding the adaptation of Halobacterium species NRC-1 to its extreme environment through computational analysis of its genome sequence. Genome Res 11:1641–1650
Schreiber G, Buckle AM, Fersht AR (1994) Stability and function: two constraints in the evolution of barstar and other proteins. Structure 2:945–951
Shoichet BK, Baase WA, Kuroki R, Matthews BW (1995) A relationship between protein stability and protein function. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 92:452–456
Longo L, Lee J, Blaber M (2012) Experimental support for the foldability-function tradeoff hypothesis: segregation of the folding nucleus and functional regions in FGF-1. Protein Sci 21:1911–1920
Capraro DT, Gosavi S, Roy M, Onuchic JN, Jennings PA (2012) Folding circular permutants of IL-1beta: route selection driven by functional frustration. PLoS One 7:e38512
Gosavi S, Chavez LL, Jennings PA, Onuchic JN (2006) Topological frustration and the folding of interleukin-1β. J Mol Biol 357: 986–996
Gosavi S, Whitford PC, Jennings PA, Onuchic JN (2008) Extracting function from a beta-trefoil folding motif. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 105:10384–10389
Serrano L, Matouschek A, Fersht AR (1992) The folding of an enzyme. III. Structure of the transition state for unfolding of barnase analysed by a protein engineering procedure. J Mol Biol 224:805–818
Lowe AR, Itzhaki LS (2007) Rational redesign of the folding pathway of a modular protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104(8):2679–2684
Liu C, Gaspar JA, Wong HJ, Meiering EM (2002) Conserved and nonconserved features of the folding pathway of hisactophilin, a β-trefoil protein. Protein Sci 11:669–679
Richter M, Bosnali M, Carstensen L, Seitz T, Durchschlag H, Blanquart S et al (2010) Computational and experimental evidence for the evolution of a (βα)8-barrel protein from an ancestral quarter-barrel stabilized by disulfide bonds. J Mol Biol 398:763–773
Carstensen L, Sperl JM, Bocola M, List F, Schmid FX, Sterner R (2012) Conservation of the folding mechanism between designed primordial (βα)8-barrel proteins and their modern descendant. J Am Chem Soc 134:12786–12791
Yadid I, Tawfik DS (2007) Reconstruction of functional β-propeller lectins via homo-oligomeric assembly of shorter fragments. J Mol Biol 365:10–17
Pace CN, Trevino S, Prabhakaran E, Scholtz JM (2004) Protein structure, stability and solubility in water and other solvents. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 359:1225–1234, discussion 1234–1225
Barrick D (2009) What have we learned from the studies of two-state folders, and what are the unanswered questions about two-state protein folding? Phys Biol 6:015001
Lee J, Blaber M (2009) The interaction between thermostability and buried free cysteines in regulating the functional half-life of fibroblast growth factor-1. J Mol Biol 393: 113–127
Blaber SI, Culajay JF, Khurana A, Blaber M (1999) Reversible thermal denaturation of human FGF-1 induced by low concentrations of guanidine hydrochloride. Biophys J 77:470–477
Copeland RA, Halfpenny AJ, Williams RW, Thompson KC, Herber WK et al (1991) The structure of human acidic fibroblast growth factor and its interaction with heparin. Arch Biochem Biophys 289:53–61
Larson SM, Ruczinski I, Davidson AR, Baker D, Plaxco KW (2002) Residues participating in the protein folding nucleus do not exhibit preferential evolutionary conservation. J Mol Biol 316:225–233
Nickson AA, Clarke J (2010) What lessons can be learned from studying the folding of homologous proteins? Methods 52:38–50
Beadle BM, Shoichet BK (2002) Structural basis of stability–function tradeoffs in enzymes. J Mol Biol 321:285–296
Rubini M, Lepthie S, Golbik R, Budisa N (2006) Aminotryptophan-containing barstar: structure-function tradeoff in protein design and engineering with an expanded genetic code. Biochim Biophys Acta 1764:1147–1158
Steipe B, Schiller B, Pluckthun A, Steinbacher S (1994) Sequence statistics reliably predict stabilizing mutations in a protein domain. J Mol Biol 240:188–192
Lehmann M, Kostrewa D, Wyss M, Brugger R, D’Arcy A, Pasamontes L et al (2000) From DNA sequence to improved functionality: using protein sequence comparisons to rapidly design a thermostable consensus phytase. Protein Eng 13:49–57
Sullivan BJ, Nguyen T, Durani V, Mathur D, Rojas S, Thomas M et al (2012) Stabilizing proteins from sequence statistics: the interplay of conservation and correlation in triosephosphate isomerase stability. J Mol Biol 420:384–399
Lee J, Dubey VK, Longo LM, Blaber M (2008) A logical OR redundancy with the Asx-Pro-Asx-Gly type I β-turn motif. J Mol Biol 377:1251–1264
Karpusas M, Baase WA, Matsumura M, Matthews BW (1989) Hydrophobic packing in T4 lysozyme probed by cavity-filling mutants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 86:8237–8241
Lassalle MW, Yamada H, Morii H, Ogata K, Sarai A, Akasaka K (2001) Filling a cavity dramatically increases pressure stability of the c-Myb R2 subdomain. Proteins 45:96–101
Bernett MJ, Somasundaram T, Blaber M (2004) An atomic resolution structure for human fibroblast growth factor 1. Proteins 57:626–634
Brych SR, Blaber SI, Logan TM, Blaber M (2001) Structure and stability effects of mutations designed to increase the primary sequence symmetry within the core region of a β-trefoil. Protein Sci 10:2587–2599
Ponder JW, Richards FM (1987) Tertiary templates for proteins—use of packing criteria in the enumeration of allowed sequences for different structural classes. J Mol Biol 193: 775–791
Lesk AM, Branden CL, Chothia C (1989) Structural principles of alpha/beta barrel proteins: the packing of the interior of the sheet. Proteins 5:139–148
Sandberg WS, Terwilliger TC (1991) Energetics of repacking a protein interior. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 88:1706–1710
Ross SA, Sarisky CA, Su A, Mayo SL (2001) Designed protein g core variants fold to native-like structures: sequence selection by orbit tolerates variation in backbone specification. Protein Sci 10:450–454
Zou J, Saven JG (2000) Statistical theory of combinatorial libraries of folding proteins: energetic discrimination of a target structure. J Mol Biol 296:281–294
Dantas G, Corrent C, Reichow SL, Havranek JJ, Eletr ZM, Isern NG et al (2007) High-resolution structural and thermodynamic analysis of extreme stabilization of human procarboxypeptidase by computational protein design. J Mol Biol 366:1209–1221
Pokala N, Handel TM (2004) Energy functions for protein design i: efficient and accurate continuum electrostatics and solvation. Protein Sci 13:925–936
Wisz MS, Hellinga HW (2003) An empirical model for electrostatic interactions in proteins incorporating multiple geometry-dependent dielectric constants. Proteins 51:360–377
Jain T, Cerutti DS, McCammon JA (2006) Configurational-bias sampling technique for predicting side-chain conformations in proteins. Protein Sci 15:2029–2039
Shaw KL, Scholtz JM, Pace CN, Grimsley GR (2009) Determining the conformational stability of a protein using urea denaturation curves. Methods Mol Biol 490:41–55
Myers JK, Pace CN, Scholtz JM (1995) Denaturant m values and heat capacity changes: relation to changes in accessible surface areas of protein unfolding. Protein Sci 4: 2138–2148
Sanchez IE, Kiefhaber T (2003) Evidence of sequential barriers and obligatory intermediates in apparent two-state protein folding. J Mol Biol 325:367–376
Sanchez IE, Kiefhaber T (2003) Hammond behavior versus ground state effects in protein folding: evidence for narrow free energy barriers and residual structure in unfolded states. J Mol Biol 327:867–884
Aksel T, Majumdar A, Barrick D (2011) The contribution of entropy, enthalpy, and hydrophobic desolvation to cooperativity in repeat-protein folding. Structure 19:349–360
Chowdhry BZ, Cole SC (1989) Differential scanning calorimetry: applications in biotechnology. Trends Biotechnol 7:11–18
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Longo, L.M., Blaber, M. (2014). Symmetric Protein Architecture in Protein Design: Top-Down Symmetric Deconstruction. In: Köhler, V. (eds) Protein Design. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1216. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1486-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1486-9_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-1485-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-1486-9
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols