Volume exclusion and soft interaction effects on protein stability under crowded conditions.

ABSTRACT: Most proteins function in nature under crowded conditions, and crowding can change protein properties. Quantification of crowding effects, however, is difficult because solutions containing hundreds of grams of macromolecules per liter often interfere with the observation of the protein being studied. Models for macromolecular crowding tend to focus on the steric effects of crowders, neglecting potential chemical interactions between the crowder and the test protein. Here, we report the first systematic, quantitative, residue-level study of crowding effects on the equilibrium stability of a globular protein. We used a system comprising poly(vinylpyrrolidone)s (PVPs) of varying molecular weights as crowding agents and chymotrypsin inhibitor 2 (CI2) as a small globular test protein. Stabilit

SUBMITTER: Miklos AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2927838 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature