Folding Free Energy Landscape of Ordered and Intrinsically Disordered Proteins.

ABSTRACT: Folding funnel is the essential concept of the free energy landscape for ordered proteins. How does this concept apply to intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs)? Here, we address this fundamental question through the explicit characterization of the free energy landscapes of the representative α-helical (HP-35) and β-sheet (WW domain) proteins and of an IDP (pKID) that folds upon binding to its partner (KIX). We demonstrate that HP-35 and WW domain indeed exhibit the steep folding funnel: the landscape slope for these proteins is ca. -50 kcal/mol, meaning that the free energy decreases by ~5 kcal/mol upon the formation of 10% native contacts. On the other hand, the landscape of pKID is funneled but considerably shallower (slope of -24 kcal/mol), which explains why pKID is disordered in f

SUBMITTER: Chong SH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6797787 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature