Paper Citing NAMD - Abstract
Homouz, Dirar; Perham, Michael; Samiotakis, Antonios; Cheung, Margaret S.; Wittung-Stafshede, Pernilla
Crowded, cell-like environment induces shape changes in aspherical protein
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 105:11754-11759, AUG 19 2008
How the crowded environment inside cells affects the structures of proteins with aspherical shapes is a vital question because many proteins and protein-protein complexes in vivo adopt anisotropic shapes. Here we address this question by combining computational and experimental studies of a football-shaped protein (i.e., Borrelia burgdorferi VIsE) in crowded, cell-like conditions. The results show that macromolecular crowding affects protein-folding dynamics as well as overall protein shape. In crowded milieus, distinct conformational changes in VIsE are accompanied by secondary structure alterations that lead to exposure of a hidden antigenic region. Our work demonstrates the malleability of "native" proteins and implies that crowding-induced shape changes may be important for protein function and malfunction in vivo.
