Sampling alternative conformational states of transporters and receptors with AlphaFold2.

ABSTRACT: Equilibrium fluctuations and triggered conformational changes often underlie the functional cycles of membrane proteins. For example, transporters mediate the passage of molecules across cell membranes by alternating between inward- and outward-facing states, while receptors undergo intracellular structural rearrangements that initiate signaling cascades. Although the conformational plasticity of these proteins has historically posed a challenge for traditional de novo protein structure prediction pipelines, the recent success of AlphaFold2 (AF2) in CASP14 culminated in the modeling of a transporter in multiple conformations to high accuracy. Given that AF2 was designed to predict static structures of proteins, it remains unclear if this result represents an underexplored capability

SUBMITTER: Del Alamo D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9023059 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature