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PubMed2006

A linear function for the approximation of accessible surface area of proteins.

Since the solvent accessible surface area of proteins has been utilized as an important factor in the prediction of their thermodynamic properties, a simple and analytical method for its determination would contribute to protein structure prediction and analysis methods. We report the development of a simple and analytical method for the estimation of the accessible surface area of protein, consisting of linear functions of distances between unified atoms. While our formulation was much simpler than previously developed methods, it showed comparable performance, with the mean relative error on total solvent accessible surface area of 0.49 and 2.16% for 89 denatured and native protein structures, respectively. Moreover, the partial derivatives of accessible surface area to the position of unified atoms could also be derived in a simpler form.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2001

Lipid and signal peptide-induced conformational changes within the C-domain of Escherichia coli SecA protein.

SecA ATPase is an essential component of the Sec-dependent protein translocation machinery. Upon interaction with the plasma membrane containing SecYE, preprotein, and ATP, SecA undergoes cycles of membrane insertion and retraction resulting in the translocation of segments of the preprotein to the trans side of the membrane. To study the structural basis of SecA function, we employed fluorescence spectroscopy along with collisional quenchers with a set of SecA proteins containing single tryptophan substitutions. Our data show that among the seven naturally occurring tryptophan residues of Escherichia coli SecA, only the three tryptophan residues contained within the C-domain contributed significantly to the fluorescence signal, and they occupied distinct local environments in solution: Trp723 and Trp775 were found to be relatively solvent accessible and inaccessible, respectively, while Trp701 displayed an intermediate level of solvent exposure. Exposure to increased temperature or interaction with model membranes or signal peptide elicited a similar conformational response from SecA based upon the fluorescence signals of the SecA-W775F and SecA-W723F mutant proteins. Specifically, Trp775 became more solvent exposed, while Trp723 became less solvent accessible under these conditions, indicating similarities in the overall conformational change of the C-domain promoted by temperature or translocation ligands. Only Trp701 did not respond in parallel to the different conditions, since its solvent accessibility changed only in the presence of signal peptide. These results provide the first detailed structural information about the C-domain of SecA and its response to translocation ligands, and they provide insight into the conformational changes within SecA that drive protein translocation.

Adenosine Triphosphatases↗

PubMed2006

Untangling influences of hydrophobicity on protein sequences and structures.

We perform a statistical analysis of solvent accessibility and hydrophobicity profiles of a representative set of proteins. The joint probability distribution is well fitted to a multivariable Gaussian, which takes a relatively simple form when expressed in terms of the Fourier transforms of the profiles. This allows us to quantify the asymmetric manner by which these profiles influence each other. For example, the alpha-helix periodicity in sequence hydrophobicity is dictated by the solvent accessibility of structures, and not vice versa, possibly indicating the faster evolution of sequences compared to structures. The decorrelated hydrophobicity and solvent accessibility profiles show distinct behaviors at long periods, where sequence hydrophobicity fluctuates less, while solvent accessibility fluctuates more than average. The correlations between the two profiles can be interpreted as the Boltzmann weight of the solvation energy at room temperature, consistent with earlier observations.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed1987

Interior and surface of monomeric proteins.

The solvent-accessible surface area (As) of 46 monomeric proteins is calculated using atomic co-ordinates from high-resolution and well-refined crystal structures. The As of these proteins can be determined to within 1 to 2% and that of their individual residues to within 10 to 20%. The As values of proteins are correlated with their molecular weight (Mr) in the range 4000 to 35,000: the power law As = 6.3 M0.73 predicts protein As values to within 4% on average. The average water-accessible surface is found to be 57% non-polar, 24% polar and 19% charged, with 5% root-mean-square variations. The molecular surface buried inside the protein is 58% non-polar, 39% polar and 4% charged. The buried surface contains more uncharged polar groups (mostly peptides) than the surface that remains accessible, but many fewer charged groups. On average, 15% of residues in small proteins and 32% in larger ones may be classed as "buried residues", having less than 5% of their surface accessible to the solvent. The accessibilities of most other residues are evenly distributed in the range 5 to 50%. Although the fraction of buried residues increases with molecular weight, the amino acid compositions of the protein interior and surface show no systematic variation with molecular weight, except for small proteins that are often very rich in buried cysteines. From amino acid compositions of protein surfaces and interiors we calculate an effective coefficient of partition for each type of residue, and derive an implied set of transfer free energy values. This is compared with other sets of partition coefficients derived directly from experimental data. The extent to which groups of residues (charged, polar and non-polar) are buried within proteins correlates well with their hydrophobicity derived from amino acid transfer experiments. Within these three groups, the correlation is low.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed2003

Protein surface mapping by chemical oxidation: structural analysis by mass spectrometry.

The solvent-accessible surface area of proteins is important in biological function for many reasons, including protein-protein interactions, protein folding, and catalytic sites. Here we present a chemical technique to oxidize amino acid side chains in a model protein, apomyoglobin, and subsequent elucidation of the effect of solvent accessibility on the sites of oxidation. Under conditions of low protein oxidation (zero to three oxygen atoms added per apomyoglobin molecule), we have positively identified five oxidation sites by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry and high-resolution Fourier transform mass spectrometry. Our results indicate that all oxidized amino acids, with the exception of methionine, have highly solvent-accessible side chains, but the rate of oxidation may not be dictated solely by solvent accessibility and amino acid identity.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Comparative study of some energetic and steric parameters of the wild type and mutants HIV-1 protease: a way to explain the viral resistance.

Because, in vivo, the HIV-1 PR ( HIV-1 protease) present a high mutation rate we performed a comparative study of the energetic behaviors of the wild type HIV-1 PR and four type of mutants: Val82/Asn; Val82/Asp; Gln7/Lys, Leu33/Ile, Leu63/Ile; Ala71/Thr, Val82/Ala. We suggest that the energetic fluctuation (electrostatic, van der Waals and torsion energy) of the mutants and the solvent accessible surface (SAS) values can be useful to explain the viral resistance process developed by HIV-1 PR. The number and localization of enzyme mutations induce important modifications of the van der Waals and torsional energy, while the electrostatic energy has an insignificant fluctuation. We showed that the viral resistance can be explored if the solvent accessible surfaces of the active site for the mutant structures are calculated. In this paper we have obtained the solvent accessible surface for a group of 15 mutants (11 mutants obtained by Protein Data Bank (PDB) file, 4 mutants modeled by CHARMM software) and for the wild type HIV-1 PR). Our study try to show that the number and localization of the mutations are factors which induce the HIV-1 PR viral resistance. The larger solvent accessible surface could be recorded for the point mutant Val 82/Phe.

Amino Acid Substitution↗

PubMed2001

Significance of MTD and other descriptors in lipophilicity models for chlorinated aromatic compounds.

The lipophilicity of chlorinated benzenes and 20 biphenyls has been modeled using the minimum topological difference method and MTD indices. The MTD descriptor has been optimized on its own or together with nCl (number of chlorine atoms per molecule), 2D- and 3D-descriptors such as van der Waals surface area and volume, solvent accessible surface area and solvent-accessible surface-bounded molecular volume, and the inter-planar angle of the substituted biphenyls. In lipophilicity models of chlorinated aromatic compounds the majority of descriptors, including MTD, contain essentially the information of nCl. MTD is a good lipophilicity descriptor of chlorinated aromatic compounds either alone or in association with other descriptors. For chlorobenzenes it gives r = 0.998, s = 0.069, F = 2281, and for the set of chlorinated biphenyls r = 0.974, s = 0.255, F = 338, a better result than gives the nCl descriptor (r = 0.967). The significance of MTD descriptor in different models is discussed. Beside nCl, the MTD index encodes ortho and para effects.

Benzene Derivatives↗

PubMed1988

Evaluation of various molecular parameters as predictors of bioconcentration in fish.

A reliable set of data on the bioconcentration factors (KB) of a diverse range of compounds in fish was selected from the literature. Using the structures of these compounds, the following molecular parameters were calculated: molecular weight (MW), solvent accessible molecular surface area (SASA), solvent accessible molecular volume (SAV), molar refraction (MR), largest principal moment of inertia (LPMI) and several molecular connectivity indices of the Randić type (1 chi, 2 chi, 3 chi, 1 chi vr, 3 chi c). The relationships between these parameters and log KB were evaluated for all compounds and the following subgroups: chlorinated hydrocarbons (CHC), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and CHC and PAH combined. These relationships indicated that SASA, SAV, and MR were good predictors of log KB for the CHC and PAH combined or alone and the other parameters were less satisfactory with these groups. In addition with the CHC, the log of these parameters displayed an improved correlation with log KB due to apparent nonlinearity in the log to linear relationship. Thus, with these groups of compounds, calculated values of SASA, SAV, and MR provide a satisfactory means of estimating log KB without measured data.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Accessibility of nitroxide side chains: absolute Heisenberg exchange rates from power saturation EPR.

In site-directed spin labeling, the relative solvent accessibility of spin-labeled side chains is taken to be proportional to the Heisenberg exchange rate (W(ex)) of the nitroxide with a paramagnetic reagent in solution. In turn, relative values of W(ex) are determined by continuous wave power saturation methods and expressed as a proportional and dimensionless parameter Pi. In the experiments presented here, NiEDDA is characterized as a paramagnetic reagent for solvent accessibility studies, and it is shown that absolute values of W(ex) can be determined from Pi, and that the proportionality constant relating them is independent of the paramagnetic reagent and mobility of the nitroxide. Based on absolute exchange rates, an accessibility factor is defined (0 < rho < 1) that serves as a quantitative measure of side-chain solvent accessibility. The accessibility factors for a nitroxide side chain at 14 different sites in T4 lysozyme are shown to correlate with a structure-based accessibility parameter derived from the crystal structure of the protein. These results provide a useful means for relating crystallographic and site-directed spin labeling data, and hence comparing crystal and solution structures.

Bacteriophage T4↗

PubMed1995

The conformation of the active site of myosin probed using mant-nucleotides.

Changes in the conformation of the active site of myosin subfragment-1 (S1) may be linked to the production of force during the powerstroke. We probed the conformation of the nucleotide pocket by measuring the solvent accessibility of bound mant-nucleotides. Solvent accessibility was determined by measuring the quenching of fluorescence produced by the solvent phase quencher acrylamide. The fluorescent mant moiety is attached to the ribose and is located near the outside of the pocket where it is likely to be sensitive to opening of the pocket. MantADP was highly protected from the quencher when bound to the active site of S1. A similar degree of protection was also observed for mantATP during steady-state hydrolysis by S1, and for mantADP bound to acto-S1 or to myosin in myofibrils. Assuming that S1-mantATP and actoS1-mantADP represent states at the beginning and the end of the powerstroke, respectively, we conclude that the myosin nucleotide pocket does not undergo a large conformational change during the powerstroke. However, the high degree of protection seen for mant-nucleotides is not easily explained by the open structure of the nucleotide pocket in the S1-nucleotide complex observed by x-ray diffraction.

Acrylamide↗

PubMed1989

Conformational states of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor from Torpedo californica induced by the binding of agonists, antagonists, and local anesthetics. Equilibrium measurements using tritium-hydrogen exchange.

The tritium-hydrogen exchange kinetics of Torpedo californica AChR, in native membrane vesicles at pH 7.4 and 0 degrees C, have been analyzed in the presence of agonists, partial agonists, local anesthetics, and competitive antagonists. The agonists carbamylcholine (10 microM-1 mM) and suberyldicholine (10 microM) and the partial agonists decamethonium (25 microM and 1 mM) and hexamethonium (1 mM) have no effect on the exchange kinetics, although at lower concentration carbamylcholine may slightly accelerate exchange. Nondesensitizing local anesthetics do affect the exchange behavior, dependent on concentration. Procaine at 500 microM moderately retards exchange while procaine at 10 mM and tetracaine at 5 mM slightly accelerate exchange. The competitive antagonist alpha-bungarotoxin retards exchange significantly, as does d-tubocurarine although to a lesser extent. These results suggest that the resting and desensitized conformations of the AChR are very similar in overall solvent accessibility and that at lower concentrations noncompetitive blockers such as procaine may stabilize a less solvent-accessible state of the AChR. The competitive antagonists alpha-bungarotoxin and d-tubocurare also stabilize a dynamically restricted, less solvent-accessible conformation of the acetylcholine receptor, demonstrating that a large conformational change accompanies binding of these toxins. Any change in conformation which may accompany desensitization is very different from these effects.

Animals↗

PubMed2004

Molecular dynamics simulations and oxidation rates of methionine residues of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor at different pH values.

To understand the connection between the conformation of a protein molecule and the oxidation of its methionine residues, we measured the rates of oxidation of methionine residues by H(2)O(2) in granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) as a function of pH and also studied the structural properties of this protein as a function of pH via molecular dynamics simulations. We found that each of the four methionine groups in G-CSF have significant and different rates of oxidation as a function of pH. Moreover, Met(1), in the unstructured N-terminal region, has a rate of oxidation as low as half that of free methionine. The structural properties of G-CSF as a function of pH are evaluated in terms of properties such as hydrogen bonding, deviations from X-ray structure, helical/helical packing, and the atomic covariance fluctuation matrix of alpha-carbons. We found that dynamics (structural fluctuations) are essential in explaining oxidation and that a static picture, such as that resulting from X-ray data, fails in this regard. Moreover, the simulation results also indicate that the solvent-accessible area, traditionally used to measure solvent accessibility of a protein site, of the sulfur atom of methionine residues does not correlate well with the rate of oxidation. Instead, we identified a structural property, average two-shell water coordination number, that correlates well with measured oxidation rates.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed2001

Structure and dynamics of the alpha-lactalbumin molten globule: fluorescence studies using proteins containing a single tryptophan residue.

The fluorescence properties of three variants of alpha-lactalbumin (alpha-LA) containing a single tryptophan residue were investigated under native, molten globule, and unfolded conditions. These proteins have levels of secondary structure and stability similar to those of the wild type. The fluorescence signal in the native state is dominated by that of W104, with the signal of W60 and W118 significantly quenched by the disulfide bonds in their vicinity. In the molten globule state, the magnitude of the fluorescence signal of W60 and W118 increases, due to the loss of rigid, specific side chain packing. In contrast, the magnitude of the signal of W104 decreases in the molten globule state, perhaps due to the protonation of H107 or quenching by D102 or K108. The solvent accessibilities of individual tryptophan residues were investigated by their fluorescence emission maximum and by acrylamide quenching studies. In the native state, the order of solvent accessibility is as follows: W118 > W60 > W104. This order changes to W60 > W104 > W118 in the molten globule state. Remarkably, the solvent accessibility of W118 in the alpha-LA molten globule is lower than that in the native state. The dynamic properties of the three tryptophan residues were examined by time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy decay studies. The overall rotation of the molecule can be observed in both the native and molten globule states. In the molten globule state, there is an increase in the extent of local backbone fluctuations with respect to the native state. However, the fluctuation is not sufficient to result in complete motional averaging. The three tryptophan residues in the native and molten globule states have different degrees of motional freedom, reflecting the folding pattern and dynamic heterogeneity of these states. Taken together, these studies provide new insight into the structure and dynamics of the alpha-LA molten globule, which serves as a prototype for partially folded proteins.

Amino Acid Substitution↗

PubMed2001

Environmental features are important in determining protein secondary structure.

We have investigated amino acid features that determine secondary structure: (1) the solvent accessibility of each side chain, and (2) the interaction of each side chain with others one to four residues apart. Solvent accessibility is a simple model that distinguishes residue environment. The pairwise interactions represent a simple model of local side chain to side chain interactions. To test the importance of these features we developed an algorithm to separate alpha-helices, beta-strands, and "other" structure. Single residue and pairwise probabilities were determined for 25,141 samples from proteins with <30% homology. Combining the features of solvent accessibility with pairwise probabilities allows us to distinguish the three structures after cross validation at the 82.0% level. We gain 1.4% to 2.0% accuracy by optimizing the propensities, demonstrating that probabilities do not necessarily reflect propensities. Optimization of residue exposures, weights of all probabilities, and propensities increased accuracy to 84.0%.

Algorithms↗

PubMed1999

Measures of residue density in protein structures.

A hierarchy of residue density assessments and packing properties in protein structures are contrasted, including a regular density, a variety of charge densities, a hydrophobic density, a polar density, and an aromatic density. These densities are investigated by alternative distance measures and also at the interface of multiunit structures. Amino acids are divided into nine structural categories according to three secondary structure states and three solvent accessibility levels. To take account of amino acid abundance differences across protein structures, we normalize the observed density by the expected density defining a density index. Solvent accessibility levels exert the predominant influence in determinations of the regular residue density. Explicitly, the regular density values vary approximately linearly with respect to solvent accessibility levels, the linearity parameters depending on the amino acid. The charge index reveals pronounced inequalities between lysine and arginine in their interactions with acidic residues. The aromatic density calculations in all structural categories parallel the regular density calculations, indicating that the aromatic residues are distributed as a random sample of all residues. Moreover, aromatic residues are found to be over-represented in the neighborhood of all amino acids. This result might be attributed to nucleation sites and protein stability being substantially associated with aromatic residues.

Amino Acids↗

PubMed2006

Molecular dynamics study of the molecular weight dependence of surface tensions of normal alkanes and methyl methacrylate oligomers.

Surface tensions (gamma) of normal alkanes and methyl methacrylate (MMA) oligomers at various molecular weights in the low molecular weight range were computed using a newly proposed molecular dynamics (MD) simulation strategy which was developed based on the definition of gamma = ( partial differential U/ partial differential sigma)n,V,S. The MD simulations, even with the use of a generic force field, reproduced the experimentally observed molecular weight dependence of gamma (i.e., gamma proportional Mn(-2/3), where Mn is the number-average molecular weight) for both series of oligomers. Analysis of the data reveals that solvent accessible surface area, one of the key input variables used for the calculation of gamma, exhibits an Mn(2/3) (rather than Mn(1)) dependence. The reason for such dependence is that solvent accessible surface area formed by the chainlike small molecules depends, to a larger extent, on their orientations rather than their size. However, this is not the case for high molecular weight molecules as solvent accessible surface area of such surfaces are determined by the orientations of their segments which are determined by the conformations of the molecules. This may explain why surface tension of polymers experimentally exhibits an Mn(-1) dependence. It is inferred that the corresponding molecular weight dependence of the entropy changes associated with molecules in the low and high molecular weight ranges would be different.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1996

Reduced surface: an efficient way to compute molecular surfaces.

Because of their wide use in molecular modeling, methods to compute molecular surfaces have received a lot of interest in recent years. However, most of the proposed algorithms compute the analytical representation of only the solvent-accessible surface. There are a few programs that compute the analytical representation of the solvent-excluded surface, but they often have problems handling singular cases of self-intersecting surfaces and tend to fail on large molecules (more than 10,000 atoms). We describe here a program called MSMS, which is shown to be fast and reliable in computing molecular surfaces. It relies on the use of the reduced surface that is briefly defined here and from which the solvent-accessible and solvent-excluded surfaces are computed. The four algorithms composing MSMS are described and their complexity is analyzed. Special attention is given to the handling of self-intersecting parts of the solvent-excluded surface called singularities. The program has been compared with Connolly's program PQMS [M.L. Connolly (1993) Journal of Molecular Graphics, Vol. 11, pp. 139-141] on a set of 709 molecules taken from the Brookhaven Data Base. MSMS was able to compute topologically correct surfaces for each molecule in the set. Moreover, the actual time spent to compute surfaces is in agreement with the theoretical complexity of the program, which is shown to be O[n log(n)] for n atoms. On a Hewlett-Packard 9000/735 workstation, MSMS takes 0.73 s to produce a triangulated solvent-excluded surface for crambin (1 crn, 46 residues, 327 atoms, 4772 triangles), 4.6 s for thermolysin (3tln, 316 residues, 2437 atoms, 26462 triangles), and 104.53 s for glutamine synthetase (2gls, 5676 residues, 43632 atoms, 476665 triangles).

Chemistry, Physical↗

PubMed2004

Fast accurate evaluation of protein solvent exposure.

Protein solvation energies are often taken to be proportional to solvent-accessible surface areas. Computation of these areas is numerically demanding and may become a bottleneck for folding and design applications. Fast graph-based methods, such as dead-end elimination (DEE), become possible if all energies, including solvation energies, are expressed as single-residue and pair-residue terms. To this end, Street and Mayo originated a pair-residue approximation for solvent-accessible surface areas (Street AG, Mayo SL. Pairwise calculation of protein solvent accessible surface areas. Fold Des 1998;3:253-258). The dominant source of error in this method is the overlapping burial of side-chain surfaces in the protein core. Here we report a new pair-residue approximation, which greatly reduces this overlap error by the use of optimized generic side-chains. We have tested the generic-side-chain method for the ten proteins studied by Street and Mayo and for 377 single-domain proteins from the CATH database (Orengo CA, Michie AD, Jones S, Jones DT, Swindells MB, Thornton JM. CATH-A hierarchic classification of protein domain structures. Structure 1997;5:1093-1108). With little additional cost in computation, the new method consistently reduces error for total areas and residue-by-residue areas by more than a factor of two. For example, the residue-by-residue error (for buried area) is reduced from 7.42 A(2) to 3.70 A(2). This difference translates into a solvation energy difference of approximately 0.2 kcal/mol per residue, amounting to a reduction in root-mean-square energy error of 2 kcal/mol for a 100 residue chain, a potentially critical difference for both protein folding and design applications.

Computational Biology↗