Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

A Single Amino Acid Substitution Alters ClpS Binding Specificity

Published

Author(s)

Christina Bergonzo, Jennifer A. Tullman, Kunal Dharmadhikari, Emily Samuels, Makenzie Christensen

Abstract

ClpS is a small protein currently under development as a probe for detecting specific N-terminal amino acids of peptides. In order for ClpS to be used in this manner, it is important to understand the structural reasons for how and why ClpS recognizes specific residues. To understand the specificity of the recognition mechanism of ClpS, all atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were conducted on wild type (WT) ClpS, and ClpS mutants predicted to increase solubility by the Protein Repair One Stop Shop (PROSS) algorithm. Per-residue binding free energies were used to predict that Leu to Asn substitution at position 9 will confer specificity for an N-terminal tyrosine over the preferred phenylalanine. Experimental validation of the L9N mutant using yeast-display assay validated the predicted outcome, showing an increase in tyrosine binding over phenylalanine. Predicting other mutations that can stabilize binding for different N-terminal amino acid combinations will enable engineering artificial protein- interaction networks, and the methods used to conduct this study are transferable and useful in drug delivery problems.
Citation
Journal of Molecular Biology
Volume
88
Issue
9

Keywords

molecular dynamics, binding energies, N-terminal

Citation

Bergonzo, C. , Tullman, J. , Dharmadhikari, K. , Samuels, E. and Christensen, M. (2020), A Single Amino Acid Substitution Alters ClpS Binding Specificity, Journal of Molecular Biology, [online], https://doi.org/10.1002/prot.25890 (Accessed March 29, 2024)
Created March 27, 2020, Updated March 23, 2022