期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1991
卷号:88
期号:7
页码:2859-2863
DOI:10.1073/pnas.88.7.2859
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:The method given earlier for predicting the thermodynamics of protein unfolding from the x-ray structure of a protein is applied here to the poly(L-alanine) helix. First, the fitting parameters derived earlier from a data base of 10 proteins were used to predict the unfolding thermodynamics of 4 other proteins. The agreement between the observed and predicted values is comparable to that found for the 10 proteins studied initially. Next, the temperature dependences of the Gibbs energy and enthalpy changes for unfolding of bacteriophage T4 lysozyme were predicted and compared with data in the literature. The predicted and observed temperature dependences are similar and the predicted results indicate that cold denaturation should be observed at low temperatures, as observed recently for a T4 lysozyme mutant. The fitting parameters derived from thermodynamic data for protein unfolding and for hydration of model compounds were used to predict the unfolding thermodynamics of the poly(L-alanine) helix. The results predict that helix formation is enthalpy-driven, and the predicted enthalpy change for unfolding (0.86 kcal per mol per residue) is close to the value found in a recent calorimetric study of a 50-residue alanine-rich helix.