Analysis of 13Calpha and 13Cbeta chemical shifts of cysteine and cystine residues in proteins: a quantum chemical approach.

Cysteines possess a unique property among the 20 naturally occurring amino acids: it can be present in proteins in either the reduced or oxidized form, and can regulate the activity of some proteins. Consequently, to augment our previous treatment of the other types of residues, the 13Calpha and 13Cbeta chemical shifts of 837 cysteines in disulfide-bonded cystine from a set of seven non-redundant proteins, determined by X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy, were computed at the DFT level of theory. Our results indicate that the errors between observed and computed 13Calpha chemical shifts of such oxidized cysteines can be attributed to several effects such as: (a) the quality of the NMR-determined models, as evaluated by the conformational-average (ca) rmsd value; (b) the existence of high B-factor or crystal-packing effects for the X-ray-determined structures; (c) the dynamics of the disulfide bonds in solution; and (d) the differences in the experimental conditions under which the observed 13Calpha chemical shifts and the protein models were determined by either X-ray crystallography or NMR-spectroscopy. These quantum-chemical-based calculations indicate the existence of two, almost non-overlapped, basins for the oxidized and reduced -SH 13Cbeta, but not for the 13Calpha, chemical shifts, in good agreement with the observation of 375 13Calpha and 337 13Cbeta resonances from 132 proteins by Sharma and Rajarathnam (2000). Overall, our results indicate that explicit consideration of the disulfide bonds is a necessary condition for an accurate prediction of 13Calpha and 13Cbeta chemical shifts of cysteines in cystines.

Three-dimensional studies of pathogenic peptides from the c-terminal of Trypanosoma cruzi ribosomal P proteins and their interaction with a monoclonal antibody structural model.

The acidic C-terminal peptides from Trypanosoma cruzi ribosomal P proteins are the major target of the antibody response in patients suffering Chagas chronic heart disease. It has been proposed that the disease is triggered by the cross-reaction of these antibodies with the second extra cellular loop of the beta1-adrenoreceptor, brought about by the molecular mimicry between the acidic C-terminal peptides and the receptor's loop. To improve the understanding of the structural basis of the autoimmune response against heart receptors, the 3-dimensional structure of the C-terminal peptides of Trypanosoma cruzi ribosomal proteins P0 (EDDDDDFGMGALF) and P2beta (EEEDDDMGFGLFD) were solved using the Electrostaticaly Driven MonteCarlo method. Their structures were compared with the second extra-cellular loop of our homology model of human rhodopsin and the existing experimental NMR structures of the C-terminal peptides from human P0 (EESDDDMGFGLFD) and from Leishmania braziliensis P0 (EEADDDMGFGLFD). Docking of Trypanosoma cruzi peptides P0, P2beta and human rhodopsin loop into our anti-P2beta monoclonal antibody homology model allowed to explore their interactions.The solution structure of peptides P0 and P2beta can be briefly described as a bend. Although the global conformations of the peptides are not identical they shared a common region of four residues (3 to 6) that have a similar structure. The structural alignment of the five peptides also showed a surprising conformational similarity for the same residues. The antibody model and docking studies revealed a most remarkable feature in the active site, a positively charged, narrow and deep cavity where the acidic residues 3 to 6 were accommodated. These results suggest that the most important elements in the molecular peptide recognition by the antibody may be the shape of the loop and the presence of negative charges in positions 3-5 (P0, P2beta) or a negative charge in position 4 (rhodopsin loop). This work describes clearly the interactions of the structural elements involved in the autoimmune mechanism of anti-P auto-antibodies cross-reaction and stimulation of the beta1-adrenoreceptor and the visual pigment rhodopsin. Results from this study could lead eventually to the development of treatments to abolish receptor mediated symptoms in Chagas. PACS code: 87.15.-v.

Predicting 13Calpha chemical shifts for validation of protein structures.

The (13)C(alpha) chemical shifts for 16,299 residues from 213 conformations of four proteins (experimentally determined by X-ray crystallography and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance methods) were computed by using a combination of approaches that includes, but is not limited to, the use of density functional theory. Initially, a validation test of this methodology was carried out by a detailed examination of the correlation between computed and observed (13)C(alpha) chemical shifts of 10,564 (of the 16,299) residues from 139 conformations of the human protein ubiquitin. The results of this validation test on ubiquitin show agreement with conclusions derived from computation of the chemical shifts at the ab initio Hartree-Fock level. Further, application of this methodology to 5,735 residues from 74 conformations of the three remaining proteins that differ in their number of amino acid residues, sequence and three-dimensional structure, together with a new scoring function, namely the conformationally averaged root-mean-square-deviation, enables us to: (a) offer a criterion for an accurate assessment of the quality of NMR-derived protein conformations; (b) examine whether X-ray or NMR-solved structures are better representations of the observed (13)C(alpha) chemical shifts in solution; (c) provide evidence indicating that the proposed methodology is more accurate than automated predictors for validation of protein structures; (d) shed light as to whether the agreement between computed and observed (13)C(alpha) chemical shifts is influenced by the identity of an amino acid residue or its location in the sequence; and (e) provide evidence confirming the presence of dynamics for proteins in solution, and hence showing that an ensemble of conformations is a better representation of the structure in solution than any single conformation.

Effects of side-chain orientation on the 13C chemical shifts of antiparallel beta-sheet model peptides.

The dependence of the (13)C chemical shift on side-chain orientation was investigated at the density functional level for a two-strand antiparallel beta-sheet model peptide represented by the amino acid sequence Ac-(Ala)(3)-X-(Ala)(12)-NH(2) where X represents any of the 17 naturally occurring amino acids, i.e., not including alanine, glycine and proline. The dihedral angles adopted for the backbone were taken from, and fixed at, observed experimental values of an antiparallel beta-sheet. We carried out a cluster analysis of the ensembles of conformations generated by considering the side-chain dihedral angles for each residue X as variables, and use them to compute the (13)C chemical shifts at the density functional theory level. It is shown that the adoption of the locally-dense basis set approach for the quantum chemical calculations enabled us to reduce the length of the chemical-shift calculations while maintaining good accuracy of the results. For the 17 naturally occurring amino acids in an antiparallel beta-sheet, there is (i) good agreement between computed and observed (13)C(alpha) and (13)C(beta) chemical shifts, with correlation coefficients of 0.95 and 0.99, respectively; (ii) significant variability of the computed (13)C(alpha) and (13)C(beta) chemical shifts as a function of chi(1) for all amino acid residues except Ser; and (iii) a smaller, although significant, dependence of the computed (13)C(alpha) chemical shifts on chi(xi) (with xi > or = 2) compared to chi(1) for eleven out of seventeen residues. Our results suggest that predicted (13)C(alpha) and (13)C(beta) chemical shifts, based only on backbone (phi,psi) dihedral angles from high-resolution X-ray structure data or from NMR-derived models, may differ significantly from those observed in solution if the dihedral-angle preferences for the side chains are not taken into account.