高等学校化学学报 ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (3): 20210838.doi: 10.7503/cjcu20210838

• 物理化学 • 上一篇    

自由能计算揭示苏氨酸对抗冻蛋白与冰晶结合能力的影响

崔韶丽1, 张维佳1, 邵学广1,2(), 蔡文生1()   

  1. 1.南开大学分析科学研究中心, 有机新物质创造前沿科学中心, 化学学院, 天津市生物传感与分子识别重点实验室
    2.药物化学生物学国家重点实验室, 天津 300071
  • 收稿日期:2021-12-17 出版日期:2022-03-10 发布日期:2022-01-11
  • 通讯作者: 邵学广,蔡文生 E-mail:xshao@nankai.edu.cn;wscai@nankai.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金(22073050);天津市自然科学基金(20JCYBJC01480);南开大学有机新物质创造前沿科学中心专项资金(63181206)

Revealing the Effect of Threonine on the Binding Ability of Antifreeze Proteins with Ice Crystals by Free-energy Calculations

CUI Shaoli1, ZHANG Weijia1, SHAO Xueguang1,2(), CAI Wensheng1()   

  1. 1.Research Center for Analytical Sciences,the Frontiers Science Center for New Organic Matter, College of Chemistry,Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition
    2.State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology,Nankai University,Tianjin 300071,China
  • Received:2021-12-17 Online:2022-03-10 Published:2022-01-11
  • Contact: SHAO Xueguang,CAI Wensheng E-mail:xshao@nankai.edu.cn;wscai@nankai.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    the National Natural Science Foundation of China(22073050);the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin, China(20JCYBJC01480);the Frontiers Science Center for New Organic Matter, Nankai University, China(63181206)

摘要:

采用分子动力学模拟和自由能计算研究了中等活性黑麦草抗冻蛋白(Lolium perenne antifreeze protein, LpAFP)冰结合位点(Ice-binding site, IBS)上苏氨酸(Thr)含量对其吸附冰晶能力的影响. 构建了一系列LpAFP突变体结构, 使其IBS上苏氨酸含量逐步增加, 其中包括一个对IBS上11个位点的突变, 使每个β片段均具有Thr-x-Thr基序(x是非保守的氨基酸, 主要是疏水氨基酸). 利用重要性采样算法(WTM-eABF)计算了LpAFP及其突变体与冰晶结合过程的自由能变化, 该算法结合了Well-tempering metadynamics的“填谷”和扩展拉格朗日自适应偏置力方法的“削峰”的优点, 显著提高了算法的采样效率. 结果表明, LpAFP突变体的IBS苏氨酸含量越高, 其与冰的结合在能量上越有利. 当突变体具有重复Thr-x-Thr基序时, 其与冰的结合能力最强. 进一步分析表明, 苏氨酸含量越高, IBS结合的液态水分子越多, 与冰晶结合时锚定包合水稳定存在的时间就越长, 抗冻蛋白的IBS与冰面之间的氢键网络也越稳定, 从而提高了抗冻蛋白与冰的结合能力. 增加苏氨酸残基的含量是提高中等活性抗冻蛋白抗冻活性的方法.

关键词: 抗冻蛋白, 自由能计算, 冰晶, 结合亲和力, 氢键

Abstract:

The effect of the threonine content at the ice-binding site(IBS) of moderately active Lolium perenne antifreeze protein(LpAFP) on its binding ability to ice crystals was investigated, employing molecular dynamics simulations and free-energy calculations. A series of mutants of LpAFP were constructed by gradually increasing the amount of threonine on the IBS, including a mutation of eleven sites to make each β-strand have a Thr-x-Thr motif(x is a nonconserved amino acid, mostly a hydrophobic residue). An importance-sampling algorithm, WTM-eABF, was used to explore the free-energy profile characterizing the adsorption process for LpAFP and its different mutants. WTM-eABF merges the key features of well-tempered metadynamics?“flooding valleys” and an extended Lagrangian variant of adaptive biasing force?“shaving barriers”(WTM-eABF), which greatly improves the sampling efficiency of the algorithm. The free-energy calculation results indicate that the higher the threonine content of the IBS, the energetically more favorable for binding of AFPs to ice crystals. The mutant with a repeating sequence Thr-x-Thr motif on its flat β-sheet region has the strongest binding affinity to ice. Further analysis showed that the higher the content of threonine, the more ordered water molecules around the IBS, the longer the existence of the anchored clathrate water, and the more stable hydrogen bond network between the IBS and ice surface, thus improving the association strength of AFPs with ice. Overall, increasing the content of threonine residues could significantly enhance the binding ability to ice, which constitutes an approach to improve the antifreeze activity of antifreeze proteins with moderate activity.

Key words: Antifreeze protein, Free-energy calculation, Ice crystal, Binding affinity, Hydrogen bond

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