Circular dichroism and UV-resonance Raman investigation of the temperature dependence of the conformations of linear and cyclic elastin

Development of truncated elastin-like peptide analogues with improved temperature-response and self-assembling properties

Functional peptides, which are composed of proteinogenic natural amino acids, are expected to be used as biomaterials with minimal environmental impact. Synthesizing a functional peptide with a shorter amino acid sequence while retaining its function is a easy and economical strategy. Furthermore, shortening functional peptides helps to elucidate the mechanism of their functional core region. Truncated elastin-like peptides (ELPs) are peptides consisting of repetitive sequences, derived from the elastic protein tropoelastin, that show the thermosensitive formation of coacervates. In this study, to obtain shortened ELP analogues, we synthesized several (Phe-Pro-Gly-Val-Gly)_n (FPGVG)_n analogues with one or two amino acid residues deleted from each repeat sequence, such as the peptide analogues consisting of FPGV and/or FPG sequences. Among the novel truncated ELP analogues, the 16-mer (FPGV)₄ exhibited a stronger coacervation ability than the 25-mer (FPGVG)₅. These results indicated that the coacervation ability of truncated ELPs was affected by the amino acid sequence and not by the peptide chain length. Based on this finding, we prepared Cd²⁺-binding sequence-conjugated ELP analogue, AADAAC-(FPGV)₄, and found that it could capture Cd²⁺. These results indicated that the 16-mer (FPGV)₄ only composed of proteinogenic amino acids could be a new biomaterial with low environmental impact.

Periodontal Pathogens' strategies disarm neutrophils to promote dysregulated inflammation

Periodontitis is an irreversible, chronic inflammatory disease where inflammophilic pathogenic microbial communities accumulate in the gingival crevice. Neutrophils are a major component of the innate host response against bacterial challenge, and under homeostatic conditions, their microbicidal functions typically protect the host against periodontitis. However, a number of periodontal pathogens developed survival strategies to evade neutrophil microbicidal functions while promoting inflammation, which provides a source of nutrients for bacterial growth. Research on periodontal pathogens has largely focused on a few established species: Tannerella forsythia, Treponema denticola, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, and Porphyromonas gingivalis. However, advances in culture-independent techniques have facilitated the identification of new bacterial species in periodontal lesions, such as the two Gram-positive anaerobes, Filifactor alocis and Peptoanaerobacter stomatis, whose characterization of pathogenic potential has not been fully described. Additionally, there is not a full understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms used against neutrophils by organisms that are abundant in periodontal lesions. This presents a substantial barrier to the development of new approaches to prevent or ameliorate the disease. In this review, we first summarize the neutrophil functions affected by the established periodontal pathogens listed above, denoting unknown areas that still merit a closer look. Then, we review the literature on neutrophil functions and the emerging periodontal pathogens, F. alocis and P. stomatis, comparing the effects of the emerging microbes to that of established pathogens, and speculate on the contribution of these putative pathogens to the progression of periodontal disease.

Temperature-Induced Collapse of Elastin-like Peptides Studied by 2DIR Spectroscopy

Elastin-like peptides are hydrophobic biopolymers that exhibit a reversible coacervation transition when the temperature is raised above a critical point. Here, we use a combination of linear infrared spectroscopy, two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations to study the structural dynamics of two elastin-like peptides. Specifically, we investigate the effect of the solvent environment and temperature on the structural dynamics of a short (5-residue) elastin-like peptide and of a long (450-residue) elastin-like peptide. We identify two vibrational energy transfer processes that take place within the amide I' band of both peptides. We observe that the rate constant of one of the exchange processes is strongly dependent on the solvent environment and argue that the coacervation transition is accompanied by a desolvation of the peptide backbone where up to 75% of the water molecules are displaced. We also study the spectral diffusion dynamics of the valine(1) residue that is present in both peptides. We find that these dynamics are relatively slow and indicative of an amide group that is shielded from the solvent. We conclude that the coacervation transition of elastin-like peptides is probably not associated with a conformational change involving this residue.

LCST Behavior is Manifested in a Single Molecule: Elastin-Like polypeptide (VPGVG)n

The physical origin of the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior of a variety of fluids, including elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs), has been studied for the past few decades. As is the case for polymer solutions, LCST behavior of ELPs is invariably reported for large systems of molecules and is considered evidence for collective behavior. In contrast, we find evidence for properties changes associated with LCST behavior in a single molecule by performing long atomic-level molecular dynamics simulation on the ELP sequences (Val-Pro-Gly-Val-Gly)n for four different length peptides over a wide range of temperatures. We observe a sharp transition in the number of hydrogen bonds between peptide and water and in the number of water molecules within the first hydration shell as temperature rises; this is used to locate the transition temperature. The dependence of the transition temperatures of ELPs on their lengths agrees well with experiments in that both have the same power law exponents. Our simulations reveal that the tendency for pentamers (VPGVG) in ELPs of all lengths to lose H-bonds with water or to gain H-bonds with themselves as temperature rises is independent of the length of the chain in which they are embedded. Thus, the transition temperature of ELPs in pure water is determined by two factors: the hydrogen bonding tendency of the pentamers and the number of pentamers per ELP. Moreover, the hydrogen bonding tendency of pentamers depends only on their sequences, not on the ELP chain length.

Genetically programmable thermoresponsive plasmonic gold/silk-elastin protein core/shell nanoparticles

The design and development of future molecular photonic/electronic systems pose the challenge of integrating functional molecular building blocks in a controlled, tunable, and reproducible manner. The modular nature and fidelity of the biosynthesis method provides a unique chemistry approach to one-pot synthesis of environmental factor-responsive chimeric proteins capable of energy conversion between the desired forms. In this work, facile tuning of dynamic thermal response in plasmonic nanoparticles was facilitated by genetic engineering of the structure, size, and self-assembly of the shell silk-elastin-like protein polymers (SELPs). Recombinant DNA techniques were implemented to synthesize a new family of SELPs, S4E8Gs, with amino acid repeats of [(GVGVP)4(GGGVP)(GVGVP)3(GAGAGS)4] and tunable molecular weight. The temperature-reversible conformational switching between the hydrophilic random coils and the hydrophobic β-turns in the elastin blocks were programmed to between 50 and 60 °C by site-specific glycine mutation, as confirmed by variable-temperature proton NMR and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, to trigger the nanoparticle aggregation. The dynamic self-aggregation/disaggregation of the Au-SELPs nanoparticles was regulated in size and pattern by the β-sheet-forming, thermally stable silk blocks, as revealed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The thermally reversible, shell dimension dependent, interparticle plasmon coupling was investigated by both variable-temperature UV-vis spectroscopy and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD)-based simulations. Good agreement between the calculated and measured spectra sheds light on design and synthesis of responsive plasmonic nanostructures by independently tuning the refractive index and size of the SELPs through genetic engineering.

Octreotide used for probing the type-II' β-turn CD and Raman markers

Octreotide, a potent somatostatin (SST) analogue, is used as an antiproliferative drug in numerous endocrine tumors. Previous NMR investigations, basically performed in DMSO, had evidenced a type-II' β-turn structure for this cyclic peptide. However, apart a few incomplete studies by circular dichroism, a systematic analysis of the structural behavior of octreotide in aqueous solution as a function of concentration and ionic strength was still lacking. Here, we report the chemical synthesis and purification of octreotide for optical spectroscopic purposes accompanied by its structural analysis. Furthermore, we have used octreotide as a short size, well-defined model compound for analyzing the CD and Raman markers of a type-II' β-turn. CD data collected in the 25-250 μM range revealed the general trend of octreotide to undergo a disordered toward ordered structural transition upon increasing concentration. Especially, the β-turn CD markers could be characterized above 50 μM by a negative band at ~202 nm flanked by a shoulder at ~218 nm. On the basis of Raman spectra recorded as a function of concentration (1-20 mM), we could assign the markers at ~1678 and ~1650 cm(-1) in the amide I region, and at ~1303, ~1288, and ~1251 cm(-1) in the amide III region, to the type-II' β-turn structure. The stability of the intermolecular antiparallel β-sheet formed in octreotide could be confirmed by the rigidity of the disulfide bridge which adopts a preferential gauche-gauche-gauche rotamer along the -Cβ-S-S-Cβ- moiety of the linked cysteines. The present analysis permits a better understanding of the differences between the structural features of SST-14 and its routinely used analogue, octreotide.