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Tapia-Arellano A, Cabrera P, Cortés-Adasme E, Riveros A, Hassan N, Kogan MJ. Tau- and α-synuclein-targeted gold nanoparticles: applications, opportunities, and future outlooks in the diagnosis and therapy of neurodegenerative diseases. J Nanobiotechnology 2024; 22:248. [PMID: 38741193 DOI: 10.1186/s12951-024-02526-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2024] [Accepted: 05/02/2024] [Indexed: 05/16/2024] Open
Abstract
The use of nanomaterials in medicine offers multiple opportunities to address neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. These diseases are a significant burden for society and the health system, affecting millions of people worldwide without sensitive and selective diagnostic methodologies or effective treatments to stop their progression. In this sense, the use of gold nanoparticles is a promising tool due to their unique properties at the nanometric level. They can be functionalized with specific molecules to selectively target pathological proteins such as Tau and α-synuclein for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, respectively. Additionally, these proteins are used as diagnostic biomarkers, wherein gold nanoparticles play a key role in enhancing their signal, even at the low concentrations present in biological samples such as blood or cerebrospinal fluid, thus enabling an early and accurate diagnosis. On the other hand, gold nanoparticles act as drug delivery platforms, bringing therapeutic agents directly into the brain, improving treatment efficiency and precision, and reducing side effects in healthy tissues. However, despite the exciting potential of gold nanoparticles, it is crucial to address the challenges and issues associated with their use in the medical field before they can be widely applied in clinical settings. It is critical to ensure the safety and biocompatibility of these nanomaterials in the context of the central nervous system. Therefore, rigorous preclinical and clinical studies are needed to assess the efficacy and feasibility of these strategies in patients. Since there is scarce and sometimes contradictory literature about their use in this context, the main aim of this review is to discuss and analyze the current state-of-the-art of gold nanoparticles in relation to delivery, diagnosis, and therapy for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, as well as recent research about their use in preclinical, clinical, and emerging research areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Tapia-Arellano
- Instituto Universitario de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDT), Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana, Santiago, Chile.
- Facultad de Cs. Qcas. y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
- Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDis), Santiago, Chile.
- Millenium Nucleus in NanoBioPhysics, Valparaíso, Chile.
| | - Pablo Cabrera
- Facultad de Cs. Qcas. y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDis), Santiago, Chile
| | - Elizabeth Cortés-Adasme
- Facultad de Cs. Qcas. y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDis), Santiago, Chile
| | - Ana Riveros
- Facultad de Cs. Qcas. y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDis), Santiago, Chile
| | - Natalia Hassan
- Instituto Universitario de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDT), Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana, Santiago, Chile.
- Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDis), Santiago, Chile.
- Millenium Nucleus in NanoBioPhysics, Valparaíso, Chile.
| | - Marcelo J Kogan
- Facultad de Cs. Qcas. y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
- Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases (ACCDis), Santiago, Chile.
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Muñoz-Santiburcio D, Marx D. Confinement-Controlled Aqueous Chemistry within Nanometric Slit Pores. Chem Rev 2021; 121:6293-6320. [PMID: 34006106 DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.0c01292] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
In this Focus Review, we put the spotlight on very recent insights into the fascinating world of wet chemistry in the realm offered by nanoconfinement of water in mechanically rather rigid and chemically inert planar slit pores wherein only monolayer and bilayer water lamellae can be hosted. We review the effect of confinement on different aspects such as hydrogen bonding, ion diffusion, and charge defect migration of H+(aq) and OH-(aq) in nanoconfined water depending on slit pore width. A particular focus is put on the strongly modulated local dielectric properties as quantified in terms of anisotropic polarization fluctuations across such extremely confined water films and their putative effects on chemical reactions therein. The stunning findings disclosed only recently extend wet chemistry in particular and solvation science in general toward extreme molecular confinement conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Muñoz-Santiburcio
- Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Chemie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany.,CIC nanoGUNE BRTA, Tolosa Hiribidea 76, 20018 San Sebastián, Spain
| | - Dominik Marx
- Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Chemie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
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Zheng S, Sajib MSJ, Wei Y, Wei T. Discontinuous Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Biomolecule Interfacial Behavior: Study of Ovispirin-1 Adsorption on a Graphene Surface. J Chem Theory Comput 2021; 17:1874-1882. [PMID: 33586958 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.0c01172] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Fundamental understanding of biomolecular interfacial behavior, such as protein adsorption at the microscopic scale, is critical to broad applications in biomaterials, nanomedicine, and nanoparticle-based biosensing techniques. The goal of achieving both computational efficiency and accuracy presents a major challenge for simulation studies at both atomistic and molecular scales. In this work, we developed a unique, accurate, high-throughput simulation method which, by integrating discontinuous molecular dynamics (DMD) simulations with the Go-like protein-surface interaction model, not only solves the dynamics efficiently, but also describes precisely the protein intramolecular and intermolecular interactions at the atomistic scale and the protein-surface interactions at the coarse-grained scale. Using our simulation method and in-house developed software, we performed a systematic study of α-helical ovispirin-1 peptide adsorption on a graphene surface, and our study focused on the effect of surface hydrophobic interactions and π-π stacking on protein adsorption. Our DMD simulations were consistent with full-atom molecular dynamics simulations and showed that a single ovispirin-1 peptide lay down on the flat graphene surface with randomized secondary structure due to strong protein-surface interactions. Peptide aggregates were formed with an internal hydrophobic core driven by strong interactions of hydrophobic residues in the bulk environment. However, upon adsorption, the hydrophobic graphene surface can break the hydrophobic core by denaturing individual peptide structures, leading to disassembling the aggregate structure and further randomizing the ovispirin-1 peptide's secondary structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Size Zheng
- College of Materials and Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan 610059, P. R. China
| | - Md Symon Jahan Sajib
- Chemical Engineering Department, Howard University, Washington, D.C. 20059, United States
| | - Yong Wei
- Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, Georgia 30597, United States
| | - Tao Wei
- Chemical Engineering Department, Howard University, Washington, D.C. 20059, United States
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Zheng S, Sahimi A, Shing KS, Sahimi M. Molecular Dynamics Study of Structure, Folding, and Aggregation of Poly-PR and Poly-GR Proteins. Biophys J 2021; 120:64-72. [PMID: 33253636 PMCID: PMC7820734 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2020.11.2258] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2020] [Revised: 10/30/2020] [Accepted: 11/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Poly-proline-arginine (poly-PR) and poly-glycine-arginine (poly-GR) proteins are believed to be the most toxic dipeptide repeat (DPR) proteins that are expressed by the hexanucleotide repeat expansion mutation in C9ORF72, which are associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diseases. Their structural information and mechanisms of toxicity remain incomplete, however. Using molecular dynamics simulation and all-atom model of proteins, we study folding and aggregation of both poly-PR and poly-GR. The results indicate formation of double-helix structure during the aggregation of poly-PR into dimers, whereas no stable aggregate is formed during the aggregation of poly-GR; the latter only folds into α-helix and double-helix structures that are similar to those formed in the folding of poly-glycine-alanine (poly-GA) protein. Our findings are consistent with the experimental data indicating that poly-PR and poly-GR are less likely to aggregate because of the hydrophilic arginine residues within their structures. Such characteristics could, however, in some respect facilitate migration of the DPR proteins between and within cells and, at the same time, give proline residues the benefits of activating the receptors that regulate ionotropic effect in neurons, resulting in death or malfunction of neurons because of the abnormal increase or decrease of the ion transmission. This may explain the neurotoxicities of poly-PR and poly-GR associated with many neurodegenerative diseases. To our knowledge, this is the first molecular dynamics simulation of the phenomena involving poly-PR and poly-GR proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Size Zheng
- College of Materials and Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China.
| | - Ali Sahimi
- Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
| | - Katherine S Shing
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
| | - Muhammad Sahimi
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
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Taylor MP, Prunty TM, O'Neil CM. All-or-none folding of a flexible polymer chain in cylindrical nanoconfinement. J Chem Phys 2020; 152:094901. [PMID: 33480730 DOI: 10.1063/1.5144818] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Geometric confinement of a polymer chain results in a loss of conformational entropy. For a chain that can fold into a compact native state via a first-order-like transition, as is the case for many small proteins, confinement typically provides an entropic stabilization of the folded state, thereby shifting the location of the transition. This allows for the possibility of confinement (entropy) driven folding. Here, we investigate such confinement effects for a flexible square-well-sphere N-mer chain (monomer diameter σ) confined within a long cylindrical pore (diameter D) or a closed cylindrical box (height H = D). We carry out Wang-Landau simulations to construct the density of states, which provides access to the complete thermodynamics of the system. For a wide pore, an entropic stabilization of the folded state is observed. However, as the pore diameter approaches the size of the folded chain (D ∼ N1/3σ), we find a destabilization effect. For pore diameters smaller than the native ground-state, the chain folds into a different, higher energy, ground state ensemble and the T vs D phase diagram displays non-monotonic behavior as the system is forced into different ground states for different ranges of D. In this regime, isothermal reduction of the confinement dimension can induce folding, unfolding, or crystallite restructuring. For the cylindrical box, we find a monotonic stabilization effect with decreasing D. Scaling laws for the confinement free energy in the athermal limit are also investigated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark P Taylor
- Department of Physics, Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio 44234, USA
| | - Troy M Prunty
- Department of Physics, Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio 44234, USA
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Zheng S, Sahimi A, Shing KS, Sahimi M. Molecular dynamics study of structure, folding, and aggregation of poly-glycine-alanine (Poly-GA). J Chem Phys 2019; 150:144307. [PMID: 30981220 DOI: 10.1063/1.5081867] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Poly-glycine-alanine (poly-GA) proteins are widely believed to be one of the main toxic dipeptide repeat molecules associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia diseases. Using discontinuous molecular dynamics simulation and an all-atom model of the proteins, we study folding, stability, and aggregation of poly-GA. The results demonstrate that poly-GA is an aggregation-prone protein that, after a long enough time, forms β-sheet-rich aggregates that match recent experiment data and that two unique helical structures are formed very frequently, namely, β-helix and double-helix. The details of the two structures are analyzed. The analysis indicates that such helical structures are stable and share the characteristics of both α-helices and β-sheets. Molecular simulations indicate that identical phenomena also occur in the aggregation of poly-glycine-arginine (poly-GR). Therefore, we hypothesize that proteins of type (GX)n in which X may be any non-glycine amino acid and n is the repeat length may share the same folding structures of β-helix and double-helix and that it is the glycine in the repeat that contributes the most to this characteristic. Molecular dynamics simulation with continuous interaction potentials and explicit water molecules as the solvent supports the hypothesis. To our knowledge, this is the first molecular dynamics simulation of the phenomena involving poly-GA and poly-GR proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Size Zheng
- College of Materials and Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan 610059, People's Republic of China
| | - Ali Sahimi
- Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90033-1425, USA
| | - Katherine S Shing
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
| | - Muhammad Sahimi
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
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Wang C, Piroozan N, Javidpour L, Sahimi M. Effect of the geometry of confining media on the stability and folding rate of α -helix proteins. J Chem Phys 2018; 148:194305. [PMID: 30307193 DOI: 10.1063/1.5020841] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Protein folding in confined media has attracted wide attention over the past 15 years due to its importance to both in vivo and in vitro applications. It is generally believed that protein stability increases by decreasing the size of the confining medium, if the medium's walls are repulsive, and that the maximum folding temperature in confinement is in a pore whose size D 0 is only slightly larger than the smallest dimension of a protein's folded state. Until recently, the stability of proteins in pores with a size very close to that of the folded state has not received the attention it deserves. In a previous paper [L. Javidpour and M. Sahimi, J. Chem. Phys. 135, 125101 (2011)], we showed that, contrary to the current theoretical predictions, the maximum folding temperature occurs in larger pores for smaller α-helices. Moreover, in very tight pores, the free energy surface becomes rough, giving rise to a new barrier for protein folding close to the unfolded state. In contrast to unbounded domains, in small nanopores proteins with an α-helical native state that contain the β structures are entropically stabilized implying that folding rates decrease notably and that the free energy surface becomes rougher. In view of the potential significance of such results to interpretation of many sets of experimental data that could not be explained by the current theories, particularly the reported anomalously low rates of folding and the importance of entropic effects on proteins' misfolded states in highly confined environments, we address the following question in the present paper: To what extent the geometry of a confined medium affects the stability and folding rates of proteins? Using millisecond-long molecular dynamics simulations, we study the problem in three types of confining media, namely, cylindrical and slit pores and spherical cavities. Most importantly, we find that the prediction of the previous theories that the dependence of the maximum folding temperature T f on the size D of a confined medium occurs in larger media for larger proteins is correct only in spherical geometry, whereas the opposite is true in the two other geometries that we study. Also studied is the effect of the strength of the interaction between the confined media's walls and the proteins. If the walls are only weakly or moderately attractive, a complex behavior emerges that depends on the size of the confining medium.
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Affiliation(s)
- Congyue Wang
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
| | - Nariman Piroozan
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
| | - Leili Javidpour
- Departments of Energy Engineering and Physics, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran 15875-4413, Iran
| | - Muhammad Sahimi
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
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Cheng C, Wu J, Liu G, Shi S, Chen T. Effects of Non-native Interactions on Frustrated Proteins Folding under Confinement. J Phys Chem B 2018; 122:7654-7667. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.8b04147] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Chenqian Cheng
- Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecular Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, P. R. China
| | - Jing Wu
- Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecular Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, P. R. China
| | - Gaoyuan Liu
- Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecular Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, P. R. China
| | - Suqing Shi
- Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecular Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, P. R. China
| | - Tao Chen
- Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecular Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, P. R. China
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Zheng S, Shing KS, Sahimi M. Dynamics of proteins aggregation. II. Dynamic scaling in confined media. J Chem Phys 2018; 148:104305. [PMID: 29544316 DOI: 10.1063/1.5008543] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/21/2023] Open
Abstract
In this paper, the second in a series devoted to molecular modeling of protein aggregation, a mesoscale model of proteins together with extensive discontinuous molecular dynamics simulation is used to study the phenomenon in a confined medium. The medium, as a model of a crowded cellular environment, is represented by a spherical cavity, as well as cylindrical tubes with two aspect ratios. The aggregation process leads to the formation of β sheets and eventually fibrils, whose deposition on biological tissues is believed to be a major factor contributing to many neuro-degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis diseases. Several important properties of the aggregation process, including dynamic evolution of the total number of the aggregates, the mean aggregate size, and the number of peptides that contribute to the formation of the β sheets, have been computed. We show, similar to the unconfined media studied in Paper I [S. Zheng et al., J. Chem. Phys. 145, 134306 (2016)], that the computed properties follow dynamic scaling, characterized by power laws. The existence of such dynamic scaling in unconfined media was recently confirmed by experiments. The exponents that characterize the power-law dependence on time of the properties of the aggregation process in spherical cavities are shown to agree with those in unbounded fluids at the same protein density, while the exponents for aggregation in the cylindrical tubes exhibit sensitivity to the geometry of the system. The effects of the number of amino acids in the protein, as well as the size of the confined media, have also been studied. Similarities and differences between aggregation in confined and unconfined media are described, including the possibility of no fibril formation, if confinement is severe.
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Affiliation(s)
- Size Zheng
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
| | - Katherine S Shing
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
| | - Muhammad Sahimi
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
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Li L, Cao Q, Zuo C. Effect of Counterion Valence on Conformational Behavior of Spherical Polyelectrolyte Brushes Confined between Two Parallel Walls. Polymers (Basel) 2018; 10:E363. [PMID: 30966398 PMCID: PMC6415134 DOI: 10.3390/polym10040363] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2018] [Revised: 03/21/2018] [Accepted: 03/22/2018] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
We study the conformational behavior of spherical polyelectrolyte brushes in the presence of monovalent and trivalent counterions in a confined environment. The confinement is exerted by two parallel walls on the brushes. The enhancement of the confinement induces the extension of grafted chains. For the monovalent case, the increase of the charge fraction leads to extended brush conformation for different slit width (distance between two walls) but collapsed brush in the presence of trivalent counterions is observed. The confinement does not affect electrostatic correlation between trivalent counterions and charged monomers. However, it was found that narrow slit width contributes to stronger electrostatic correlation for the monovalent case. This is because more monovalent counterions are inside the brush at strong confinement, but almost all trivalent counterions are trapped into the brush independently of the slit width. The diffusion of counterions under the confinement is related to the electrostatic correlation. Our simulations also reveal that the brush thickness depends on the slit width nonlinearly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lujuan Li
- College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China.
- China-Australia Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China.
| | - Qianqian Cao
- College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China.
| | - Chuncheng Zuo
- College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark P. Taylor
- Department of Physics, Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio 44234, United States
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Zheng S, Javidpour L, Shing KS, Sahimi M. Dynamics of proteins aggregation. I. Universal scaling in unbounded media. J Chem Phys 2017; 145:134306. [PMID: 27782447 DOI: 10.1063/1.4962837] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
It is well understood that in some cases proteins do not fold correctly and, depending on their environment, even properly-folded proteins change their conformation spontaneously, taking on a misfolded state that leads to protein aggregation and formation of large aggregates. An important factor that contributes to the aggregation is the interactions between the misfolded proteins. Depending on the aggregation environment, the aggregates may take on various shapes forming larger structures, such as protein plaques that are often toxic. Their deposition in tissues is a major contributing factor to many neuro-degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and prion. This paper represents the first part in a series devoted to molecular simulation of protein aggregation. We use the PRIME, a meso-scale model of proteins, together with extensive discontinuous molecular dynamics simulation to study the aggregation process in an unbounded fluid system, as the first step toward MD simulation of the same phenomenon in crowded cellular environments. Various properties of the aggregates have been computed, including dynamic evolution of aggregate-size distribution, mean aggregate size, number of peptides that contribute to the formation of β sheets, number of various types of hydrogen bonds formed in the system, radius of gyration of the aggregates, and the aggregates' diffusivity. We show that many of such quantities follow dynamic scaling, similar to those for aggregation of colloidal clusters. In particular, at long times the mean aggregate size S(t) grows with time as, S(t) ∼ tz, where z is the dynamic exponent. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the qualitative similarity between aggregation of proteins and colloidal aggregates has been pointed out.
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Affiliation(s)
- Size Zheng
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
| | - Leili Javidpour
- School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran 19395-5531, Iran
| | - Katherine S Shing
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
| | - Muhammad Sahimi
- Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1211, USA
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Yu Y, Wang J, Liu J, Ling D, Xia J. Functional assembly of protein fragments induced by spatial confinement. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0122101. [PMID: 25875003 PMCID: PMC4398348 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0122101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2014] [Accepted: 02/17/2015] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Natural proteins are often confined within their local microenvironments, such as three-dimensional confinement in organelles or two-dimensional confinement in lipid rafts on cytoplasmic membrane. Spatial confinement restricts proteins' entropic freedom, forces their lateral interaction, and induces new properties that the same proteins lack at the soluble state. So far, the phenomenon of environment-induced protein functional alteration still lacks a full illustration. We demonstrate here that engineered protein fragments, although being non-functional in solution, can be re-assembled within the nanometer space to give the full activity of the whole protein. Specific interaction between hexahistidine-tag (His-tag) and NiO surface immobilizes protein fragments on NiO nanoparticles to form a self-assembled protein "corona" on the particles inside the nanopores of mesoporous silica. Site-specific assembly forces a shoulder-by-shoulder orientation and promotes fragment-fragment interaction; this interaction together with spatial confinement of the mesopores results in functional re-assembly of the protein half fragments. To our surprise, a single half fragment of luciferase (non-catalytic in solution) exhibited luciferase activity when immobilized on NiO in the mesopores, in the absence of the complimentary half. This shows for the first time that spatial confinement can induce the folding of a half fragment, reconstitute the enzyme active site, and re-gain the catalytic capability of the whole protein. Our work thereby highlights the under-documented notion that aside from the chemical composition such as primary sequence, physical environment of a protein also determines its function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongsheng Yu
- Department of Chemistry, Center of Novel Biomaterials, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China
| | - Jianpeng Wang
- Department of Chemistry, Center of Novel Biomaterials, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China
| | - Jiahui Liu
- Department of Chemistry, Center of Novel Biomaterials, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China
| | - Daishun Ling
- Institute of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
| | - Jiang Xia
- Department of Chemistry, Center of Novel Biomaterials, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China
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Mannige RV. Two modes of protein sequence evolution and their compositional dependencies. PHYSICAL REVIEW. E, STATISTICAL, NONLINEAR, AND SOFT MATTER PHYSICS 2013; 87:062714. [PMID: 23848722 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.87.062714] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2013] [Revised: 05/10/2013] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
Protein sequence evolution has resulted in a vast repertoire of molecular functionality crucial to life. Despite the central importance of sequence evolution to biology, our fundamental understanding of how sequence composition affects evolution is incomplete. This report describes the utilization of lattice model simulations of directed evolution, which indicate that, on average, peptide and protein evolvability is strongly dependent on initial sequence composition. The report also discusses two distinct regimes of sequence evolution by point mutation: (a) the "classical" mode where sequences "crawl" over free energy barriers towards acquiring a target fold, and (b) the "quantum" mode where sequences appear to "tunnel" through large energy barriers generally insurmountable by means of a crawl. Finally, the simulations indicate that oily and charged peptides are the most efficient substrates for evolution at the "classical" and "quantum" regimes, respectively, and that their respective response to temperature is commensurate with analogies made to barrier crossing in classical and quantum systems. On the whole, these results show that sequence composition can tune both the evolvability and the optimal mode of evolution of peptides and proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ranjan V Mannige
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
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Pattanasiri B, Li YW, Landau DP, Wüst T, Triampo W. Conformational transitions of a confined lattice protein: A Wang-Landau study. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2012. [DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/402/1/012048] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
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Koutsioubas A, Lairez D, Combet S, Fadda GC, Longeville S, Zalczer G. Crowding effect on helix-coil transition: Beyond entropic stabilization. J Chem Phys 2012; 136:215101. [DOI: 10.1063/1.4723871] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
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