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Is there an en route folding intermediate for cold shock proteins?
Author(s) -
Huang Lei,
Shakhnovich Eugene I.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
protein science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.353
H-Index - 175
eISSN - 1469-896X
pISSN - 0961-8368
DOI - 10.1002/pro.2053
Subject(s) - folding (dsp implementation) , protein folding , cold shock domain , chemistry , biophysics , physics , downhill folding , chemical physics , mechanism (biology) , phi value analysis , crystallography , biology , biochemistry , quantum mechanics , gene , engineering , rna , electrical engineering
Cold shock proteins (Csps) play an important role in cold shock response of a diverse number of organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. Numerous studies of the Csp from various species showed that a two‐state folding mechanism is conserved and the transition state (TS) appears to be very compact. However, the atomic details of the folding mechanism of Csp remain unclear. This study presents the folding mechanism of Csp in atomic detail using an all‐atom G o model‐based simulations. Our simulations predict that there may exist an en route intermediate, in which β strands 1‐2‐3 are well ordered and the contacts between β1 and β4 are almost developed. Such an intermediate might be too unstable to be detected in the previous fluorescence energy transfer experiments. The transition state ensemble has been determined from the P fold analysis and the TS appears even more compact than the intermediate state.