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Aguilar MI, Yarovsky I. Quest for New Generation Biocompatible Materials: Tailoring β-Peptide Structure and Interactions via Synergy of Experiments and Modelling. J Mol Biol 2024:168646. [PMID: 38848868 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2024.168646] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2024] [Revised: 06/03/2024] [Accepted: 06/03/2024] [Indexed: 06/09/2024]
Abstract
Peptide-based self-assembly has been used to produce a wide range of nanostructures. While most of these systems involve self-assembly of α-peptides, more recently β-peptides have also been shown to undergo supramolecular self-assembly, and have been used to produce materials for applications in tissue engineering, cell culture and drug delivery. In order to engineer new materials with specific structure and function, theoretical molecular modelling can provide significant insights into the collective balance of non-covalent interactions that drive the self-assembly and determine the structure of the resultant supramolecular materials under different conditions. However, this approach has only recently become feasible for peptide-based self-assembled nanomaterials, particularly those that incorporate non α-amino acids. This perspective provides an overview of the challenges associated with computational modelling of the self-assembly of β-peptides and the recent success using a combination of experimental and computational techniques to provide insights into the self-assembly mechanisms and fully atomistic models of these new biocompatible materials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie-Isabel Aguilar
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.
| | - Irene Yarovsky
- School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia.
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Lin YF, Yousef EN, Torres E, Truong L, Zahnow JM, Donald CB, Qin Y, Angel LA. Weak Acid-Base Interactions of Histidine and Cysteine Affect the Charge States, Tertiary Structure, and Zn(II)-Binding of Heptapeptides. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY 2019; 30:2068-2081. [PMID: 31332742 DOI: 10.1007/s13361-019-02275-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2019] [Revised: 06/10/2019] [Accepted: 06/18/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Zinc fingers are proteins that are characterized by the coordination of zinc ions by an amino acid sequence that commonly contains two histidines and two cysteines (2His-2Cys motif). Investigations of oligopeptides that contain the 2His-2Cys motif, e.g., acetyl-His1-Cys2-Gly3-Pro4-Tyr5-His6-Cys7, have discovered they exhibit pH-dependent Zn(II) chelation and have redox activities with Cu(I/II), forming a variety of metal complexes. To further understand how these 2His-2Cys oligopeptides bind these metal ions, we have undertaken a series of ion mobility-mass spectrometry and B3LYP/LanL2DZ computational studies of structurally related heptapeptides. Starting with the sequence above, we have modified the potential His, Cys, or C-terminus binding sites and report how these changes in primary structure affect the oligopeptides positive and negative charge states, conformational structure, collision-induced breakdown energies, and how effectively Zn(II) binds to these sequences. The results show evidence that the weak acid-base properties of Cys-His are intrinsically linked and can result in an intramolecular salt-bridged network that affects the oligopeptide properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yu-Fu Lin
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA
| | - Enas N Yousef
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA
| | - Efren Torres
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA
| | - Linh Truong
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA
| | - James M Zahnow
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA
| | - Cole B Donald
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA
| | - Ying Qin
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA
| | - Laurence A Angel
- Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal St, Commerce, TX, 75428, USA.
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Christofferson AJ, Al-Garawi ZS, Todorova N, Turner J, Del Borgo MP, Serpell LC, Aguilar MI, Yarovsky I. Identifying the Coiled-Coil Triple Helix Structure of β-Peptide Nanofibers at Atomic Resolution. ACS NANO 2018; 12:9101-9109. [PMID: 30157375 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.8b03131] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/08/2023]
Abstract
Peptide self-assembly represents a powerful bottom-up approach to the fabrication of nanomaterials. β3-Peptides are non-natural peptides composed entirely of β-amino acids, which have an extra methylene in the backbone, and we reported fibers derived from the self-assembly of β3-peptides that adopt 14-helical structures. β3-Peptide assemblies represent a class of stable nanomaterials that can be used to generate bio- and magneto-responsive materials with proteolytic stability. However, the three-dimensional structure of many of these materials remains unknown. To develop structure-based criteria for the design of β3-peptide-based biomaterials with tailored function, we investigated the structure of a tri-β3-peptide nanoassembly by molecular dynamics simulations and X-ray fiber diffraction analysis. Diffraction data was collected from aligned fibrils formed by Ac-β3[LIA] in water and used to inform and validate the model structure. Models with 3-fold radial symmetry resulted in stable fibers with a triple-helical coiled-coil motif and measurable helical pitch and periodicity. The fiber models revealed a hydrophobic core and twist along the fiber axis arising from a maximization of contacts between hydrophobic groups of adjacent tripeptides on the solvent-exposed fiber surface. These atomic structures of macroscale fibers derived from β3-peptide-based materials provide valuable insight into the effects of the geometric placement of the side chains and the influence of solvent on the core fiber structure which is perpetuated in the superstructure morphology.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Zahraa S Al-Garawi
- School of Life Sciences , University of Sussex , Falmer , East Sussex BN1 9QG , U.K
- Chemistry Department , Mustansiriyah University , Baghdad Iraq
| | - Nevena Todorova
- School of Engineering , RMIT University , Melbourne , Victoria 3001 , Australia
| | - Jack Turner
- School of Life Sciences , University of Sussex , Falmer , East Sussex BN1 9QG , U.K
| | - Mark P Del Borgo
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Biomedicine Discovery Institute , Monash University , Melbourne , Victoria 3800 , Australia
| | - Louise C Serpell
- School of Life Sciences , University of Sussex , Falmer , East Sussex BN1 9QG , U.K
| | - Marie-Isabel Aguilar
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Biomedicine Discovery Institute , Monash University , Melbourne , Victoria 3800 , Australia
| | - Irene Yarovsky
- School of Engineering , RMIT University , Melbourne , Victoria 3001 , Australia
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Kaur H, Sasidhar YU. Environmental polarity induces conformational transitions in a helical peptide sequence from bacteriophage T4 lysozyme and its tandem duplicate: a molecular dynamics simulation study. J Mol Model 2015; 21:88. [PMID: 25773700 DOI: 10.1007/s00894-015-2621-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/20/2014] [Accepted: 02/15/2015] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Our recent molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of an insertion/duplication mutant 'L20' of bacteriophage T4 lysozyme demonstrated a solvent induced α→β transition in a loosely held duplicate helical region, while α-helical conformation in the parent region was relatively stabilized by its tertiary interactions with the neighboring residues. The solution NMR of the parent helical sequence, sans its protein context, showed no inherent tendency to adopt a particular secondary structure in pure water but showed α-helical propensity in TFE/water and SDS micelles. In this study we investigate the conformational preference of the 'parent' and 'duplicate' sequences, sans the protein context, in pure water and an apolar TFE/water solution. Apolar TFE/water solution is a model for non-polar protein context. We performed MD simulations of the two peptides, in explicit water and 80% (v/v) TFE/water, using GROMOS 53a6 force field, at 300 K and 1 bar (under NPT conditions). We show that in TFE/water mixture, salt bridges are stabilized by apolar TFE molecules and main chain-main chain hydrogen bonds promote the α-helical conformation, particularly in the duplicate peptide. Solvent exposure, in pure water, resulted in an α→β transition to form a triple stranded β-sheet structure in the 'duplicate' sequence, with a rare psi-loop topology, while a mixture of turn/bend conformations were adopted by the 'parent' sequence. Thus the differences in conformational preference of the parent and duplicate sequence sans protein context, in pure water and TFE/water, implicate the importance of the environment polarity in dictating the peptide conformation. Mechanism of folding of the observed psi-loop in the duplicate sequence gives insights into folding of this rare β-sheet topology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Harpreet Kaur
- Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India
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Huang W, Hansen N, van Gunsteren WF. On the Use of a Supramolecular Coarse-Grained Model for the Solvent in Simulations of the Folding Equilibrium of an Octa-β-peptide in MeOH and H2O. Helv Chim Acta 2014. [DOI: 10.1002/hlca.201400219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
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