Stability increased increasing proline residues

Glycine residues have more conformational freedom than any other amino acid, as discussed in Chapter 1. A glycine residue at a specific position in a protein has usually only one conformation in a folded structure but can have many different conformations in different unfolded structures of the same protein and thereby contribute to the diversity of unfolded conformations. Proline residues, on the other hand, have less conformational freedom in unfolded structures than any other residue since the proline side chain is fixed by an extra covalent bond to the main chain. Another way to decrease the number of possible unfolded structures of a protein, and hence stabilize the native structure, is, therefore, to mutate glycine residues to any other residue and to increase the number of proline residues. Such mutations can only be made at positions that neither change the conformation of the main chain in the folded structure nor introduce unfavorable, or cause the loss of favorable, contacts with neighboring side chains. 

Prolyl 4-hydroxylation is the most abundant posttranslational modification of collagens. 4-Hydroxylation of proline residues increases the stability of the triple helix and is a key element in the folding of the collagen triple helix. " In vertebrates, almost all the Yaa position prolines of the Gly-Xaa-Yaa repeat are modified to 4(I( )-hydroxylproline by the enzyme P4H (EC 1.14.11.2), a member of Fe(II)- and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases. This enzyme is an 0 2/ b2-type heterotetramer in which the / subunit is PDI (EC 5.3.4.1), which is a ubiquitous disulfide bond catalyst. The P4H a subunit needs the 13 subunit for solubility however, the 13 subunit, PDI, is soluble by itself and is present in excess in the ER. Three isoforms of the a subunit have been identified and shown to combine with PDI to form [a(I)]2/ 2) [< (II)]2/32> or [a(III)]2/32 tetramers, called the type... 

Rational methods are based on experimental evidence that the effect of single amino acid substitutions on protein stability can be well approximated as additive, distributed, and large independent interactions. Moreover, by comparison of homologous enzymes from thermophilic and nonthermophilic microorganisms, it is known that introduction of disulfide bridges as well as increased numbers of proline residues increase protein stability. 

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