Ribonuclease folding

The fact that ribonuclease folded in vitro to yield full activity indicated that the biosynthetic machinery is not required to direct the folding process for this protein. 

Many extracellular proteins like immunoglobulins, protein hormones, serum albumin, pepsin, trypsin, ribonuclease, and others contain one or more indigenous disulfide bonds. For functional and structural studies of proteins, it is often necessary to cleave these disulfide bridges. Disulfide bonds in proteins are commonly reduced with small, soluble mercaptans, such as DTT, TCEP, 2-mercaptoethanol, thioglycolic acid, cysteine, etc. High concentrations of mercaptans (molar excess of 20- to 1,000-fold) are usually required to drive the reduction to completion. 

F. X. Schmid, A native-like intermediate on the ribonuclease A folding pathway. 1. Detection by tyrosine fluorescence changes, Eur. J. Biochem. 114, 105-109 (1981). 

H. Krebs, F. X. Schmid, and R. Jaenicke, Native-like folding intermediates of homologous ribonucleases, Biochemistry 24, 3846-3852 (1985). 

E. Haas, G. T. Montelione, C. A. McWherter, and H. A. Scheraga, Local structure in a tryptic fragment of performic acid oxidized ribonuclease A corresponding to a proposed polypeptide chain-folding initiation site detected by tyrosine fluorescence lifetime and proton magnetic resonance measurements, Biochemistry 26, 1672-1683 (1987). 

An example of this effect is provided by ribonuclease A (RNase A). At pH 8 and 37°, the rate of deamidation of Asn67 was more than 30-fold lower in the native than in the unfolded protein [111]. Deamidation of the native RNase A was also ca. 30-fold slower than of an octapeptide whose sequence is similar to that of the deamidation site, although the reaction mechanisms were similar [108][123],... 

Studies of proteolytic fragments of staphylococcal nuclease (Tan-iuchi and Anfinsen, 1969) and RNase A (Taniuchi, 1970) seemed to support this view. Taniuchi (1970), in summary remarks, said Thus, the minimum information of the specific folding of a protein requiring almost the entire amino acid sequence is observed with both staph-yloccocal nuclease and bovine pancreatic ribonuclease. ... 

Papain is readily inactivated by PAN (at 115 ppm for 40 min), provided that it is in the sulfhydryl form. The reaction of sulfhydryl groups of hemoglobin with PAN is very similar to the reaction with p-mercuricbenzoate there is more reaction at a pH of 4.5 than at a pH of 7. However, there is one striking difference between PAN and classic compounds that react with sulfhydryl groups egg albumen is resistant to reaction with PAN. Thus, enzymes that have no free sulfhydryl groups should be quite resistant to PAN. This is the case with pancreatic ribonuclease the native enzyme was not affected by a 300-fold molar excess of PAN. 

We are now in a position to ask a more sophisticated question related to protein structure what is the three-dimensional structure of the protein This question assumes something that is by no means obvious that a protein has a unique three-dimensional structure. Think of the protein ribonuclease A as 124 beads on a string. You can imagine that it could fold up in a great many ways, just like you can fold up a string of beads in a great many ways. 

Many secretory proteins—e. g., pancreatic ribonuclease (RNAse see p. 74)—contain several disulfide bonds that are only formed oxidatively from SH groups after translation. The eight cysteine residues of the RNAse can in principle form 105 different pairings, but only the combination of the four disulfide bonds shown on p. 75 provides active enzyme. Incorrect pairings can block further folding or lead to unstable or insoluble conformations. The enzyme protein disulfide iso-merase [1] accelerates the equilibration between paired and unpaired cysteine residues, so that incorrect pairs can be quickly split before the protein finds its final conformation. 

The smallest member of a new family of prolyl iso-merases (unrelated to the cyclophilins or the FK-506 binding proteins) that catalyzes the proline-limited folding of a variant of ribonuclease T1 with a KJK value of 30,000 M s With the tetrapeptide succinyl-Ala-Leu-Pro-Phe-4-nitroanilide as a substrate in parvulin-catalyzed prolyl isomerization, this parameter is 1.1 x 10 M s Parvulin also accelerates its own refolding in an autocatalytic fashion. 

This classic experiment, carried out by Christian Anfinsen in the 1950s, provided the first evidence that the amino acid sequence of a polypeptide chain contains all the information required to fold the chain into its native, three-dimensional structure. Later, similar results were obtained using chemically synthesized, catalyti-cally active ribonuclease. This eliminated the possibility that some minor contaminant in Anfinsen s purified ribonuclease preparation might have contributed to the renaturation of the enzyme, thus dispelling any remaining doubt that this enzyme folds spontaneously. 

Self-splicing KNA. The precursor to the 26S rRNA of Tetrahymena contains a 413-nucleotide intron, which was shown by Cedi and coworkers to be selfsplicing, i.e., not to require a protein catalyst for maturation.581 582 This pre-rRNA is a ribozyme with true catalytic properties (Chapter 12). It folds into a complex three-dimensional structure which provides a binding site for free guanosine whose 3-OH attacks the phosphorus at the 5 end of the intron as shown in Fig. 28-18A, step a. The reaction is a simple displacement on phosphorus, a transesterification similar to that in the first step of pancreatic ribonuclease action (Eq. 12-25). The resulting free 3-OH then attacks the phosphorus atom at the other end of the intron (step b) to accomplish the splicing and to release the intron as a linear polynucleotide. The excised intron undergoes... 

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