| 1. |
- Li, Yuan, et al.
(författare)
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When a foreign gene meets its native counterpart : computational biophysics analysis of two PgiC loci in the grass Festuca ovina
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Duplicative horizontal gene transfer may bring two previously separated homologous genes together, which may raise questions about the interplay between the gene products. One such gene pair is the “native” PgiC1 and “foreign” PgiC2 in the perennial grass Festuca ovina. Both PgiC1 and PgiC2 encode cytosolic phosphoglucose isomerase, a dimeric enzyme whose proper binding is functionally essential. Here, we use biophysical simulations to explore the inter-monomer binding of the two homodimers and the heterodimer that can be produced by PgiC1 and PgiC2 in F. ovina. Using simulated native-state ensembles, we examine the structural properties and binding tightness of the dimers. In addition, we investigate their ability to withstand dissociation when pulled by a force. Our results suggest that the inter-monomer binding is tighter in the PgiC2 than the PgiC1 homodimer, which could explain the more frequent occurrence of the foreign PgiC2 homodimer in dry habitats. We further find that the PgiC1 and PgiC2 monomers are compatible with heterodimer formation; the computed binding tightness is comparable to that of the PgiC1 homodimer. Enhanced homodimer stability and capability of heterodimer formation with PgiC1 are properties of PgiC2 that may contribute to the retaining of the otherwise redundant PgiC2 gene.
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| 2. |
- Petrlova, Jitka, et al.
(författare)
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Conformational and aggregation properties of the 1-93 fragment of apolipoprotein A-I
- 2014
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Ingår i: Protein Science. - : Wiley. - 1469-896X .- 0961-8368. ; 23:11, s. 71-1559
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several disease-linked mutations of apolipoprotein A-I, the major protein in high-density lipoprotein (HDL), are known to be amyloidogenic, and the fibrils often contain N-terminal fragments of the protein. Here, we present a combined computational and experimental study of the fibril-associated disordered 1-93 fragment of this protein, in wild-type and mutated (G26R, S36A, K40L, W50R) forms. In atomic-level Monte Carlo simulations of the free monomer, validated by circular dichroism spectroscopy, we observe changes in the position-dependent β-strand probability induced by mutations. We find that these conformational shifts match well with the effects of these mutations in thioflavin T fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy experiments. Together, our results point to molecular mechanisms that may have a key role in disease-linked aggregation of apolipoprotein A-I.
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| 3. |
- Bille, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Local Unfolding and Aggregation Mechanisms of SOD1: A Monte Carlo Exploration.
- 2013
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Ingår i: The Journal of Physical Chemistry Part B. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1520-5207 .- 1520-6106. ; 117:31, s. 9194-9202
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Copper, zinc superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) is a ubiquitous homodimeric enzyme, whose misfolding and aggregation play a potentially key role in the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). SOD1 aggregation is thought to be preceded by dimer dissociation and metal loss, but the mechanisms by which the metal-free monomer aggregates remain incompletely understood. Here we use implicit solvent all-atom Monte Carlo (MC) methods to investigate the local unfolding dynamics of the β-barrel-forming SOD1 monomer. Although event-to-event variations are large, on average, we find clear differences in dynamics among the eight strands forming the β-barrel. Most dynamic is the eighth strand, β8, which is located in the dimer interface of native SOD1. For the four strands in or near the dimer interface (β1, β2, β7, and β8), we perform aggregation simulations to assess the propensity of these chain segments to self-associate. We find that β1 and β2 readily self-associate to form intermolecular parallel β-sheets, whereas β8 shows a very low aggregation propensity.
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| 4. |
- Bille, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Stability and Local Unfolding of SOD1 in the Presence of Protein Crowders
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Physical Chemistry B. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1520-6106 .- 1520-5207. ; 123:9, s. 1920-1930
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using NMR and Monte Carlo (MC) methods, we investigate the stability and dynamics of superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) in homogeneous crowding environments, where either bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) or the B1 domain of streptococcal protein G (PGB1) serves as a crowding agent. By NMR, we show that both crowders, and especially BPTI, cause a drastic loss in the overall stability of SOD1 in its apo monomeric form. Additionally, we determine chemical shift perturbations indicating that SOD1 interacts with the crowder proteins in a residue-specific manner that further depends on the identity of the crowding protein. Furthermore, the specificity of SOD1-crowder interactions is reciprocal: chemical shift perturbations on BPTI and PGB1 identify regions that interact preferentially with SOD1. By MC simulations, we investigate the local unfolding of SOD1 in the absence and presence of the crowders. We find that the crowders primarily interact with the long flexible loops of the folded SOD1 monomer. The basic mechanisms by which the SOD1 β-barrel core unfolds remain unchanged when adding the crowders. In particular, both with and without the crowders, the second β-sheet of the barrel is more dynamic and unfolding-prone than the first. Notably, the MC simulations (exploring the early stages of SOD1 unfolding) and the NMR experiments (under equilibrium conditions) identify largely the same set of PGB1 and BPTI residues as prone to form SOD1 contacts. Thus, contacts stabilizing the unfolded state of SOD1 in many cases appear to form early in the unfolding reaction.
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| 5. |
- Mitternacht, Simon, et al.
(författare)
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Comparing the folding free-energy landscapes of Abeta42 variants with different aggregation properties.
- 2010
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Ingår i: Proteins. - : Wiley. - 0887-3585 .- 1097-0134. ; 78:12, s. 2600-2608
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The properties of the amyloid-beta peptide that lead to aggregation associated with Alzheimer's disease are not fully understood. This study aims at identifying conformational differences among four variants of full-length Abeta42 that are known to display very different aggregation properties. By extensive all-atom Monte Carlo simulations, we find that a variety of beta-sheet structures with distinct turns are readily accessible for full-length Abeta42. In the simulations, wild type (WT) Abeta42 preferentially populates two major classes of conformations, either extended with high beta-sheet content or more compact with lower beta-sheet content. The three mutations studied alter the balance between these classes. Strong mutational effects are observed in a region centered at residues 23-26, where WT Abeta42 tends to form a turn. The aggregation-accelerating E22G mutation associated with early onset of Alzheimer's disease makes this turn region conformationally more diverse, whereas the aggregation-decelerating F20E mutation has the reverse effect, and the E22G/I31E mutation reduces the turn population. Comparing results for the four Abeta42 variants, we identify specific conformational properties of residues 23-26 that might play a key role in aggregation. Proteins 2010. (c) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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| 6. |
- Mitternacht, Simon, et al.
(författare)
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Monte Carlo Study of the Formation and Conformational Properties of Dimers of Aβ42 Variants.
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Molecular Biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1089-8638 .- 0022-2836. ; 410:2, s. 357-367
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Small soluble oligomers, as well as dimers in particular, of the amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) are believed to play an important pathological role in Alzheimer's disease. Here, we investigate the spontaneous dimerization of Aβ42, with 42 residues, by implicit solvent all-atom Monte Carlo simulations, for the wild-type peptide and the mutants F20E, E22G and E22G/I31E. The observed dimers of these variants share many overall conformational characteristics but differ in several aspects at a detailed level. In all four cases, the most common type of secondary structure is intramolecular antiparallel β-sheets. Parallel, in-register β-sheet structure, as in models for Aβ fibrils, is rare. The primary force driving the formation of dimers is hydrophobic attraction. The conformational differences that we do see involve turns centered in the 20-30 region. The probability of finding turns centered in the 25-30 region, where there is a loop in Aβ fibrils, is found to increase upon dimerization and to correlate with experimentally measured rates of fibril formation for the different Aβ42 variants. Our findings hint at reorganization of this part of the molecule as a potentially critical step in Aβ aggregation.
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| 7. |
- Irbäck, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Using quantum annealing to design lattice proteins
- 2024
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Ingår i: Physical Review Research. - 2643-1564. ; 6:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Quantum annealing has shown promise for finding solutions to difficult optimization problems, including protein folding. Recently, we used the D-Wave Advantage quantum annealer to explore the folding problem in a coarse-grained lattice model, the HP model, in which amino acids are classified into two broad groups: hydrophobic (H) and polar (P). Using a set of 22 HP sequences with up to 64 amino acids, we demonstrated the fast and consistent identification of the correct HP model ground states using the D-Wave hybrid quantum-classical solver. An equally relevant biophysical challenge, called the protein design problem, is the inverse of the above, where the task is to predict protein sequences that fold to a given structure. Here, we approach the design problem by a two-step procedure implemented and executed on a D-Wave machine. In the first step, we perform a pure sequence-space search by varying the type of amino acid at each sequence position, and seek sequences which minimize the HP-model energy of the target structure. After mapping this task onto an Ising spin-glass representation, we employ a hybrid quantum-classical solver to deliver energy-optimal sequences for structures with 30–64 amino acids, with a 100% success rate. In the second step, we filter the optimized sequences from the first step according to their ability to fold to the intended structure. In addition, we try solving the sequence optimization problem using only the quantum processing unit (QPU), which confines us to sizes ≤20, due to exponentially decreasing success rates. To shed light on the pure QPU results, we investigate the effects of control errors caused by an imperfect implementation of the intended Hamiltonian on the QPU, by numerically analyzing the Schrödinger equation. We find that the simulated success rates in the presence of control noise semiquantitatively reproduce the modest pure QPU results for larger chains.
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| 8. |
- Jonsson, Sigurdur, et al.
(författare)
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Monte Carlo studies of protein aggregation
- 2012
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Ingår i: Physics Procedia. - : Elsevier BV. - 1875-3892. ; 34, s. 49-54
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The disease-linked amyloid beta (A beta) and alpha-synuclein (alpha S) proteins are both fibril-forming and natively unfolded in free monomeric form. Here, we discuss two recent studies, where we used extensive implicit solvent all-atom Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to elucidate the conformational ensembles sampled by these proteins. For alpha S, we somewhat unexpectedly observed two distinct phases, separated by a clear free-energy barrier. The presence of the barrier makes alpha S, with 140 residues, a challenge to simulate. By using a two-step simulation procedure based on flat-histogram techniques, it was possible to alleviate this problem. The barrier may in part explain why fibril formation is much slower for alpha S than it is for A beta.
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| 9. |
- Bille, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Equilibrium simulation of trp-cage in the presence of protein crowders.
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Chemical Physics. - : AIP Publishing. - 0021-9606 .- 1089-7690. ; 143:17
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While steric crowders tend to stabilize globular proteins, it has been found that protein crowders can have an either stabilizing or destabilizing effect, where a destabilization may arise from nonspecific attractive interactions between the test protein and the crowders. Here, we use Monte Carlo replica-exchange methods to explore the equilibrium behavior of the miniprotein trp-cage in the presence of protein crowders. Our results suggest that the surrounding crowders prevent trp-cage from adopting its global native fold, while giving rise to a stabilization of its main secondary-structure element, an α-helix. With the crowding agent used (bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor), the trp-cage-crowder interactions are found to be specific, involving a few key residues, most of which are prolines. The effects of these crowders are contrasted with those of hard-sphere crowders.
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| 10. |
- Bille, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Peptide folding in the presence of interacting protein crowders
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Chemical Physics. - : AIP Publishing. - 0021-9606 .- 1089-7690. ; 144:17
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using Monte Carlo methods, we explore and compare the effects of two protein crowders, BPTI and GB1, on the folding thermodynamics of two peptides, the compact helical trp-cage and the β-hairpin-forming GB1m3. The thermally highly stable crowder proteins are modeled using a fixed backbone and rotatable side-chains, whereas the peptides are free to fold and unfold. In the simulations, the crowder proteins tend to distort the trp-cage fold, while having a stabilizing effect on GB1m3. The extent of the effects on a given peptide depends on the crowder type. Due to a sticky patch on its surface, BPTI causes larger changes than GB1 in the melting properties of the peptides. The observed effects on the peptides stem largely from attractive and specific interactions with the crowder surfaces, and differ from those seen in reference simulations with purely steric crowder particles.
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