Temperature dependence of fast dynamics in proteins. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The temperature dependence of the internal dynamics of recombinant human ubiquitin has been measured using solution NMR relaxation techniques. Nitrogen-15 relaxation has been employed to obtain a measure of the amplitude of subnanosecond motion at amide N-H sites in the protein. Deuterium relaxation has been used to obtain a measure of the amplitude of motion of methyl-groups in amino-acid side chains. Data was obtained between 5 and 55 degrees C. The majority of amide N-H and methyl groups show a roughly linear (R(2)>0.75) temperature dependence of the associated Lipari-Szabo model-free squared generalized-order parameter (O(2)) describing the amplitude of motion. Interestingly, for those sites showing a linear response, the temperature dependence of the backbone is distinct from that of the methyl-bearing side chains with the former being characterized by a significantly larger Lambda-value, where Lambda is defined as d ln(1 - O)/d lnT. These results are comparable to the sole previous such study of the temperature dependence of protein motion obtained for a calmodulin-peptide complex. This suggests that the distinction between the main chain and methyl-bearing side chains may be general. Insight into the temperature dependence is gathered from a simple two-state step potential model.

published proceedings

  • Biophys J

altmetric score

  • 3

author list (cited authors)

  • Song, X., Flynn, P. F., Sharp, K. A., & Wand, A. J.

citation count

  • 35

complete list of authors

  • Song, Xiang-jin||Flynn, Peter F||Sharp, Kim A||Wand, A Joshua

publication date

  • March 2007