How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.

Phosphorylation of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) can produce changes in structural and dynamical properties and thereby mediate critical biological functions. How phosphorylation effects intrinsically disordered proteins has been studied for an increasing number of IDPs, but a systematic...

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Main Authors: Fan Jin, Frauke Gräter
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021-05-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008939&type=printable
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author Fan Jin
Frauke Gräter
author_facet Fan Jin
Frauke Gräter
author_sort Fan Jin
collection DOAJ
description Phosphorylation of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) can produce changes in structural and dynamical properties and thereby mediate critical biological functions. How phosphorylation effects intrinsically disordered proteins has been studied for an increasing number of IDPs, but a systematic understanding is still lacking. Here, we compare the collapse propensity of four disordered proteins, Ash1, the C-terminal domain of RNA polymerase (CTD2'), the cytosolic domain of E-Cadherin, and a fragment of the p130Cas, in unphosphorylated and phosphorylated forms using extensive all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We find all proteins to show V-shape changes in their collapse propensity upon multi-site phosphorylation according to their initial net charge: phosphorylation expands neutral or overall negatively charged IDPs and shrinks positively charged IDPs. However, force fields including those tailored towards and commonly used for IDPs overestimate these changes. We find quantitative agreement of MD results with SAXS and NMR data for Ash1 and CTD2' only when attenuating protein electrostatic interactions by using a higher salt concentration (e.g. 350 mM), highlighting the overstabilization of salt bridges in current force fields. We show that phosphorylation of IDPs also has a strong impact on the solvation of the protein, a factor that in addition to the actual collapse or expansion of the IDP should be considered when analyzing SAXS data. Compared to the overall mild change in global IDP dimension, the exposure of active sites can change significantly upon phosphorylation, underlining the large susceptibility of IDP ensembles to regulation through post-translational modifications.
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spelling doaj.art-fbfd7ad1a1084ce993d2c73188725c542025-03-03T05:31:31ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582021-05-01175e100893910.1371/journal.pcbi.1008939How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.Fan JinFrauke GräterPhosphorylation of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) can produce changes in structural and dynamical properties and thereby mediate critical biological functions. How phosphorylation effects intrinsically disordered proteins has been studied for an increasing number of IDPs, but a systematic understanding is still lacking. Here, we compare the collapse propensity of four disordered proteins, Ash1, the C-terminal domain of RNA polymerase (CTD2'), the cytosolic domain of E-Cadherin, and a fragment of the p130Cas, in unphosphorylated and phosphorylated forms using extensive all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We find all proteins to show V-shape changes in their collapse propensity upon multi-site phosphorylation according to their initial net charge: phosphorylation expands neutral or overall negatively charged IDPs and shrinks positively charged IDPs. However, force fields including those tailored towards and commonly used for IDPs overestimate these changes. We find quantitative agreement of MD results with SAXS and NMR data for Ash1 and CTD2' only when attenuating protein electrostatic interactions by using a higher salt concentration (e.g. 350 mM), highlighting the overstabilization of salt bridges in current force fields. We show that phosphorylation of IDPs also has a strong impact on the solvation of the protein, a factor that in addition to the actual collapse or expansion of the IDP should be considered when analyzing SAXS data. Compared to the overall mild change in global IDP dimension, the exposure of active sites can change significantly upon phosphorylation, underlining the large susceptibility of IDP ensembles to regulation through post-translational modifications.https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008939&type=printable
spellingShingle Fan Jin
Frauke Gräter
How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.
PLoS Computational Biology
title How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.
title_full How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.
title_fullStr How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.
title_full_unstemmed How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.
title_short How multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins.
title_sort how multisite phosphorylation impacts the conformations of intrinsically disordered proteins
url https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008939&type=printable
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