Changes in structure and in interactions of heat-treated bovine beta-lactoglobulin.

Heat stress on structure and ligand binding of beta-LG has been studied by fluorescence, circular dichroism and gel electrophoresis at pH 6.5. Native PAGE gel electrophoresis shows that denaturation of beta-LG is reversible up to 75 degrees C then it becomes irreversible due to aggregation of beta-LG. Formation of aggregated beta-LG is completed at 95 degrees C. Circular dichroism results indicate that formation of aggregated beta-LG is accompanied by the scrambling of disulfide bonds (creation of new intramolecular and intermolecular disulfide bridges and rearrangement of old intramolecular disulfide bridges). Addition of ethanolic retinol causes a change in polarity of the solution and favors transformation of the beta<-->alpha structure. In the presence of retinol, the alpha-helix content of the secondary structure of heat-treated beta-LG is increased and the major portion of its secondary structure is helical. Fluorescence results show that heat-treated beta-LG at 95 degrees C can still bind retinol. The refolding of the tertiary structure of beta-LG heat-denatured at 95 degrees C may recreate a retinol binding site. Surprisingly, the affinity of the new site for retinol is higher than that of native beta-LG; however, the apparent molar ratio is lower than one. The binding properties of beta-LG for terpenoids have been measured after its heat treatment at 20, 75 and 95 degrees C. The intensity of tryptophan emission at 330 nm was changed only in the case of the interaction with beta-ionone. Other ligands probably cannot bind to beta-LG or they bind in a binding site far from the tryptophan residues, hence not affecting its fluorescence.

Ethanol effect on the structure of beta-lactoglobulin b and its ligand binding.

The changes of structure and ligand binding properties of beta-LG B have been studied by fluorescence and circular dichroism spectroscopy in ethanolic solutions. Fluorescence measurements of retinol/beta-LG interactions at 480 nm in various ethanol concentrations show that the maximal fluorescence intensity induced by this interaction between retinol and beta-LG is observed around 20% v/v of ethanol. It is reduced to zero at 40% and 50% of ethanol. These results suggest that there are two distinct structural changes in beta-LG occurring between 20% and 30% and around 40% of ethanol. The first transition, which increases affinity and the apparent number of binding sites for retinol, may be related or similar to the Tanford transition. The strong quenching of retinol emission at 480 nm in 40% of ethanol indicates the radical transformation of beta-LG tertiary structure and the release of retinol. CD spectra at the aromatic region show that secondary and tertiary structures of beta-LG are not significantly affected between 0% and 20% of ethanol. In 30% of ethanol, beta-sheet percentage of beta-LG decreases with respect to native beta-LG (from 55% to 46%). beta-Sheet percentage in beta-LG increases in 40% and 50% alcohol (51% and 53%) relative to 30% of ethanol, which also indicates the strong rearrangement of the secondary structure of beta-LG, while its tertiary structure and beta-LG interactions are radically changed.

Beta-lactoglobulin structure and retinol binding changes in presence of anionic and neutral detergents.

Bovine beta-lactoglobulin (beta-LG) in vivo (in milks) has been found in complexes with lipids such as butyric and oleic acids. To elucidate the still unknown structure-function relationship in this protein, the structural changes of beta-lactoglobulin variant A (beta-LG A) in the presence of anionic surfactant such as sodium n-dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and in the presence of nonionic surfactant such as Triton X-100 have been investigated. Subsequently, the retinol binding by beta-LG has been investigated in the presence of various amounts of these surfactants as its binding indicator. The results of UV-vis and fluorescence studies show a higher denaturating effect of SDS at acid pH that can be due to greater positive charges of beta-LG at this pH indicating also the nonspecific hydrophobic interactions of Triton X-100 with beta-LG at all studied pHs. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) measurements indicate the endothermic nature of beta-LG/SDS interactions and the exothermic nature of Triton X-100/beta-LG interactions. The analysis of the binding data demonstrates the absence of considerable changes in retinol binding properties of beta-LG in the presence of various amounts of these surfactants. This implies that surfactant binding does not change the conformation of beta-LG in the regions defining the retinol-binding site.

Energetics of the interactions of human serum albumin with cationic surfactant.

The heat capacity changes for interaction of human serum albumin (HSA) and a cationic surfactant-cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), were studied at conditions close to physiological (50mM HEPES or phosphate buffer, pH 7.4 and 160mM NaCl) carrying out isothermal calorimetric titrations (ITC) at various temperatures (20-40 degrees C). ITC measurements indicated that the small endothermic changes associated with CPC demicellization were temperature independent at these conditions. Surprisingly, important enthalpy changes associated with binding of CPC to HSA were exothermic and temperature independent at lower concentrations (below 0.022mM) of CPC and endothermic and temperature dependent at higher concentrations of CPC. The values of heat capacity changes were obtained for each studied concentration of CPC from the plot of enthalpy changes vs temperature. The obtained results demonstrate the temperature independence of heat capacity changes at entire range of studied CPC concentrations. Both enthalpograms and heat capacity curves indicate the two-step mechanism of HSA folding changes due to its interactions with CPC. The first step corresponds to transition from native state to partially unfolded state and the second to unfolding and to the loss of tertiary structure. The analysis of the results indicates that predominant cooperative unfolding occurs at CPC/HSA molar ratio region between 25 and 30. Such information could not be extracted from thermograms and describes the role of heat capacity as a major thermodynamic quantity giving insight on physical, mechanistic and even atomic-level into how HSA may unfold and interact with CPC. The effect of CPC binding on HSA intrinsic fluorescence, UV-Vis and CD spectra were also examined. Hence, the analysis of spectral data confirms the ITC results about the biphasic mechanism of HSA folding changes induced by CPC. The CD measurement also represents the conservation of considerable secondary structure of HSA due to interaction with CPC.

Analysis of ligand binding curves on basis of mean intrinsic thermodynamic quantities.

The mean intrinsic thermodynamic quantity can be defined by considering the relative population of complex species in the solution and the value of intrinsic thermodynamic quantity corresponds to each step of ligation. In the present study a new method is introduced for analysis of experimental ligand binding data on basis of mean intrinsic thermodynamic quantities. In this regard, a deviation parameter was defined by comparing the non-interacting system with the cooperative interactive one. This parameter can be calculated just by estimation of the first binding constant. A set of relations between this deviation parameter and other binding characteristics, such as mean intrinsic Gibbs free energy of binding and mean Gibbs free energy of site-site interaction, have been developed. This model presents binding mechanism in a unified way that is simple, yet stringent, more straightforward, more reliable and informative. This analyzing method has been successfully applied for evaluation of various systems such as oxygen binding to hemoglobin, laurate and warfarin binding to human serum albumin, and reveals some new biological features of these binding systems.