Significance of Knotted Structures for Function of Proteins and Nucleic Acids
Poster Session I
7 – POS
Board 7
PR10 - Proteins with Cavities
Mateusz Chwastyk
1
, Mariusz Jaskólski
2,3
, Marek Cieplak
1
.
1
Institute of Physics PAS, Warsaw, Poland,
2
Center for Biocrystallographic Research, Poznań,
Poland,
3
Faculty of Chemistry, A. Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland.
We provide theoretical comparisons of the physical properties of eighteen proteins with the
pathogenesis-related proteins of class 10 (PR-10) fold, which is characterized by a large
hydrophobic cavity enclosed between a curved ß-sheet and a variable α-helix. Our novel
algorithm to calculate the volume of internal cavities within protein structures is used to
demonstrate that, although the sizes of the cavities of the investigated PR-10 proteins vary
significantly, their other physical properties, such as thermodynamic and mechanical parameters
or parameters related to folding, are very close. The largest variations (in the order of 20%) are
predicted for the optimal folding times. We show that, on squeezing, the PR-10 proteins behave
differently from typical virus capsids.
- 56 -
