Published in

Wiley, Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics, 1(77), p. 133-138, 2009

DOI: 10.1002/prot.22425

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Nonadditive effects of mixed crowding on protein stability

Journal article published in 2009 by Jyotica Batra, Ke Xu, Huan-Xiang Zhou ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The crowded environments inside cells can have significant effects on the folding stability and other biophysical properties of proteins. In this study on how macromolecular crowding affects protein folding, we took a significant step toward realistically mimicking intracellular environments by using a mixture of two crowding agents, Ficoll and dextran. We found that the mixed crowding exerts a greater stabilizing effect than the sum of the two individual crowding agents. Therefore, the composition of crowders, not just the total concentration, has a significant influence on the effects of crowding on protein folding. Since the composition of intracellular macromolecules varies within the lifetime of a cell, our finding may provide an explanation for age being an important risk factor for protein aggregation-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.