Cold unfolding of β-hairpins: A molecular-level rationalization

✍ Scribed by Angelo Riccio; Giuseppe Graziano

• Book ID: 105358229
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 169 KB
• Volume: 79
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-3585
• DOI: 10.1002/prot.22997

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Isolated β‐hairpins in water have a temperature dependence of their conformational stability qualitatively resembling that of globular proteins, showing both cold and hot unfolding transitions. It is shown that a molecular‐level rationalization of this cold unfolding can be provided extending the approach devised for globular proteins (Graziano G. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2010; 12:14245‐14252). The decrease in the solvent‐excluded volume upon folding, measured by the decrease in the solvent accessible surface area, produces a gain in configurational/translational entropy of water molecules that is the main stabilizing contribution of the folded conformation. This always stabilizing Gibbs energy contribution has a parabolic‐like temperature dependence in water and is exactly counterbalanced at two temperatures (i.e., the cold and hot unfolding temperatures) by the always destabilizing Gibbs energy contribution due to the loss in conformational degrees of freedom of the peptide chain. Proteins 2011; © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.