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Conformational Dynamics and Cooperativity Drive the Specificity of a Protein-Ligand Interaction
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Conformational Dynamics and Cooperativity Drive the Specificity of a Protein-Ligand Interaction

Xu Liu, Lisa C. Golden, Josue A. Lopez, Tyson R. Shepherd, Liping Yu and Ernesto J. Fuentes
Biophysical journal, Vol.116(12), pp.2314-2330
06/18/2019
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2019.05.008
PMCID: PMC6588728
PMID: 31146922
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2019.05.008View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Molecular recognition is critical for the fidelity of signal transduction in biology. Conversely, the disruption of protein-protein interactions can lead to disease. Thus, comprehension of the molecular determinants of specificity is essential for understanding normal biological signaling processes and for the development of precise therapeutics. Although high-resolution structures have provided atomic details of molecular interactions, much less is known about the influence of cooperativity and conformational dynamics. Here, we used the Tiam2 PSD-95/Dlg/ZO-1 (PDZ) domain and a quadruple mutant (QM), engineered by swapping the identity of four residues important for specificity in the Tiam1 PDZ into the Tiam2 PDZ domain, as a model system to investigate the role of cooperativity and dynamics in PDZ ligand specificity. Surprisingly, equilibrium binding experiments found that the ligand specificity of the Tiam2 QM was switched to that of the Tiam1 PDZ. NMR-based studies indicated that Tiam2 QM PDZ, but not other mutants, had extensive microsecond to millisecond motions distributed throughout the entire domain suggesting structural cooperativity between the mutated residues. Thermodynamic analyses revealed energetic cooperativity between residues in distinct specificity subpockets that was dependent upon the identity of the ligand, indicating a context-dependent binding mechanism. Finally, isothermal titration calorimetry experiments showed distinct entropic signatures along the mutational trajectory from the Tiam2 wild-type to the QM PDZ domain. Collectively, our studies provide unique insights into how structure, conformational dynamics, and thermodynamics combine to modulate ligand-binding specificity and have implications for the evolution, regulation, and design of protein-ligand interactions.
Biophysics Life Sciences & Biomedicine Science & Technology

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