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On the mechanism of human stefin B folding: II. Folding from GuHCl unfolded, TFE denatured, acid denatured, and acid intermediate states

✍ Scribed by Eva Žerovnik; Roman Jerala; Richard Virden; Louise Kroon Žitko; Vito Turk; Jonathan P. Waltho


Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Year
1998
Tongue
English
Weight
153 KB
Volume
32
Category
Article
ISSN
0887-3585

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✦ Synopsis


It has been shown that human stefin B exhibits molten globule intermediates when denatured by acid or GuHCl. In the presence of TFE, it transforms into a highly helical state. In our first study on its folding mechanism (Z ˇerovnik et al., Proteins 32:296-303), the kinetics measured by circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence were correlated. In the present work the kinetics of folding were monitored by tyrosine fluorescence, ANS fluorescence, and, for certain reactions, far ultraviolet (UV) CD. The folding was started from the unfolded state in 3.45 M GuHCl, the acid denatured state at pH 1.8 ؎ 0.2, an acid molten globule intermediate I 1 (pH 3.3 ؎ 0.1, low salt), a more structured acid molten globule intermediate I 2 (pH 3.3 ؎ 0.1, 0.42 M NaCl), and the TFE state (pH 3.3 ؎ 0.1, 42% TFE). It has been found that all denatured states, including GuHCl, TFE, acid denatured and acid molten globule intermediate I 1 , fold with the same kinetics, provided that the final conditions are identical. This does not apply to the second acid molten globule intermediate I 2, which demonstrates a higher rate of folding by a factor of 270. Different energy of activation and pH dependence were found for folding from states I 1 or I 2 .