Sequence heuristics to encode phase behaviour in intrinsically disordered protein polymers.

ABSTRACT: Proteins and synthetic polymers that undergo aqueous phase transitions mediate self-assembly in nature and in man-made material systems. Yet little is known about how the phase behaviour of a protein is encoded in its amino acid sequence. Here, by synthesizing intrinsically disordered, repeat proteins to test motifs that we hypothesized would encode phase behaviour, we show that the proteins can be designed to exhibit tunable lower or upper critical solution temperature (LCST and UCST, respectively) transitions in physiological solutions. We also show that mutation of key residues at the repeat level abolishes phase behaviour or encodes an orthogonal transition. Furthermore, we provide heuristics to identify, at the proteome level, proteins that might exhibit phase behaviour and to design

SUBMITTER: Quiroz FG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4618764 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature