Redistribution of Flexibility in Stabilizing Antibody Fragment Mutants Follows Le Chatelier's Principle

Le Châtelier's principle is the cornerstone of our understanding of chemical equilibria. When a system at equilibrium undergoes a change in concentration or thermodynamic state (i.e., temperature, pressure, etc.), La Châtelier's principle states that an equilibrium shift will occur to offset the perturbation and a new equilibrium is established. We demonstrate that the effects of stabilizing mutations on the rigidity ⇔ flexibility equilibrium within the native state ensemble manifest themselves through enthalpy-entropy compensation as the protein structure adjusts to restore the global balance between the two. Specifically, we characterize the effects of mutation to single chain fragments of the anti-lymphotoxin-β receptor antibody using a computational Distance Constraint Model. Statistically significant changes in the distribution of both rigidity and flexibility within the molecular structure is typically observed, where the local perturbations often lead to distal shifts in flexibility and rigidity profiles. Nevertheless, the net gain or loss in flexibility of individual mutants can be skewed. Despite all mutants being exclusively stabilizing in this dataset, increased flexibility is slightly more common than increased rigidity. Mechanistically the redistribution of flexibility is largely controlled by changes in the H-bond network. For example, a stabilizing mutation can induce an increase in rigidity locally due to the formation of new H-bonds, and simultaneously break H-bonds elsewhere leading to increased flexibility distant from the mutation site via Le Châtelier. Increased flexibility within the VH β4/β5 loop is a noteworthy illustration of this long-range effect

Identification and Dynamics of a Heparin-Binding Site in Hepatocyte Growth Factor †

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a heparin-binding, multipotent growth factor that transduces a wide range of biological signals, including mitogenesis, motogenesis, and morphogenesis. Heparin or closely related heparan sulfate has profound effects on HGF signaling. A heparin-binding site in the N-terminal (N) domain of HGF was proposed on the basis of the clustering of surface positive charges [Zhou, H., Mazzulla, M. J., Kaufman, J. D., Stahl, S. J., Wingfield, P. T., Rubin, J. S., Bottaro, D. P., and Byrd, R. A. (1998) Structure 6, 109-116]. In the present study, we confirmed this binding site in a heparin titration experiment monitored by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and we estimated the apparent dissociation constant (K(d)) of the heparin-protein complex by NMR and fluorescence techniques. The primary heparin-binding site is composed of Lys60, Lys62, and Arg73, with additional contributions from the adjacent Arg76, Lys78, and N-terminal basic residues. The K(d) of binding is in the micromolar range. A heparin disaccharide analogue, sucrose octasulfate, binds with similar affinity to the N domain and to a naturally occurring HGF isoform, NK1, at nearly the same region as in heparin binding. (15)N relaxation data indicate structural flexibility on a microsecond-to-millisecond time scale around the primary binding site in the N domain. This flexibility appears to be dramatically reduced by ligand binding. On the basis of the NK1 crystal structure, we propose a model in which heparin binds to the two primary binding sites and the N-terminal regions of the N domains and stabilizes an NK1 dimer

Global Transcriptome and Deletome Profiles of Yeast Exposed to Transition Metals

A variety of pathologies are associated with exposure to supraphysiological concentrations of essential metals and to non-essential metals and metalloids. The molecular mechanisms linking metal exposure to human pathologies have not been clearly defined. To address these gaps in our understanding of the molecular biology of transition metals, the genomic effects of exposure to Group IB (copper, silver), IIB (zinc, cadmium, mercury), VIA (chromium), and VB (arsenic) elements on the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae were examined. Two comprehensive sets of metal-responsive genomic profiles were generated following exposure to equi-toxic concentrations of metal: one that provides information on the transcriptional changes associated with metal exposure (transcriptome), and a second that provides information on the relationship between the expression of ∼4,700 non-essential genes and sensitivity to metal exposure (deletome). Approximately 22% of the genome was affected by exposure to at least one metal. Principal component and cluster analyses suggest that the chemical properties of the metal are major determinants in defining the expression profile. Furthermore, cells may have developed common or convergent regulatory mechanisms to accommodate metal exposure. The transcriptome and deletome had 22 genes in common, however, comparison between Gene Ontology biological processes for the two gene sets revealed that metal stress adaptation and detoxification categories were commonly enriched. Analysis of the transcriptome and deletome identified several evolutionarily conserved, signal transduction pathways that may be involved in regulating the responses to metal exposure. In this study, we identified genes and cognate signaling pathways that respond to exposure to essential and non-essential metals. In addition, genes that are essential for survival in the presence of these metals were identified. This information will contribute to our understanding of the molecular mechanism by which organisms respond to metal stress, and could lead to an understanding of the connection between environmental stress and signal transduction pathways

Triplet state properties of tryptophan residues in complexes of mutated Escherichia coli single-stranded DNA binding proteins with single-stranded polynucleotides.

Complexes of point-mutated E. coli single-stranded DNA-binding protein (Eco SSB) with homopolynucleotides have been investigated by optical detection of magnetic resonance (ODMR) of the triplet state of tryptophan (Trp) residues. Investigation of the individual sublevel kinetics of the lowest triplet state of Trp residues 40 and 54 in the poly (dT) complex of Eco SSB-W88F,W135F (a mutant protein whose Trp residues at positions 88 and 135 have been substituted by Phe) shows that Trp 54 is the most affected residue upon stacking with thymine bases, confirming previous results based on SSB mutants having single Trp----Phe substitutions. (Zang, L. H., A. H. Maki, J. B. Murphy, and J. W. Chase. 1987. Biophys. J. 52:867-872). The Tx sublevel of Trp 54 shows a fourfold increase in the decay rate constant, as well as an increase in its populating rate constant by selective spin-orbit coupling. The two nonradiative sublevels show no change in lifetime, relative to unstacked Trp. For Trp 40, a weaker perturbation of Tx by thymine results in a sublevel lifetime about one-half that of normal Trp. Trp54 displays a 2[E]transition of negative polarity in the double mutant SSB complex with Poly (dT), but gives a vanishingly weak [D] - [E] signal, thus implying that the steady-state sublevel populations of Tx and Tz are nearly equal in this residue. Poly (5-BrU) induces the largest red-shift of the Eco SSB-W88F,W135F Trp phosphorescence 0,0-band of all polynucleotides investigated. Its phosphorescence decay fits well to two exponential components of 1.02 and 0.12 s, with no contribution from long-lived Trp residues. This behavior provides convincing evidence that both Trp 40 and 54 are perturbed by stacking with brominated uridine. The observed decrease in the Trp [D] values further confirms the stacking of the Trp residues with 5-BrU. Wave-length-selected ODMR experiments conducted on the [D[ + [E] transition of Eco SSB-W88F,W135F complexed with poly(5HgU) indicate the presence of multiple heavy atom-perturbed sites. Measurements made on poly (5-HgU) which each of its 4 Trp residues has been replaced in turn by Phe demonstrate that Trp 40 and 54 are the only Trp residues undergoing stacking with nucleotide bases, as previously proposed

Rigidity Emerges during Antibody Evolution in Three Distinct Antibody Systems: Evidence from QSFR Analysis of Fab Fragments

<div><p>The effects of somatic mutations that transform polyspecific germline (GL) antibodies to affinity mature (AM) antibodies with monospecificity are compared among three GL-AM Fab pairs. In particular, changes in conformational flexibility are assessed using a Distance Constraint Model (DCM). We have previously established that the DCM can be robustly applied across a series of antibody fragments (VL to Fab), and subsequently, the DCM was combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to similarly characterize five thermostabilizing scFv mutants. The DCM is an ensemble based statistical mechanical approach that accounts for enthalpy/entropy compensation due to network rigidity, which has been quite successful in elucidating conformational flexibility and Quantitative Stability/Flexibility Relationships (QSFR) in proteins. Applied to three disparate antibody systems changes in QSFR quantities indicate that the VH domain is typically rigidified, whereas the VL domain and CDR L2 loop become more flexible during affinity maturation. The increase in CDR H3 loop rigidity is consistent with other studies in the literature. The redistribution of conformational flexibility is largely controlled by nonspecific changes in the H-bond network, although certain Arg to Asp salt bridges create highly localized rigidity increases. Taken together, these results reveal an intricate flexibility/rigidity response that accompanies affinity maturation.</p></div

Molecular dynamics trajectories.

<p>FA, CA and EA represent anti-fluorescein, Anti-CD3 and esterase catalytic antibodies, respectively. (A) Root mean square deviations (RMSDs) of Cα are provided each of the molecular dynamics trajectories. The FA(GL) and FA(AM) exhibit larger RMSDs than other antibodies due to change of domain-domain reorientation. (B) Global RMSDs of for the full FA(GL) Fab and individual RMSDs for each domain. All the four domains (VH, VL, CH and CL) show much lower RMSDs than global RMSDs. The small fluctuations within the domains highlight that the global fluctuations are caused by slippage along the domain interface, where the four domains are continually rearranging relative to each other. (C) The slippage along the domain interfaces is indicated in panel (B), where different colors represent snapshots occurring at: 20 ns (red), 40 ns (blue), and 80 ns (green).</p