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American Chemical Society, Journal of Physical Chemistry B (Soft Condensed Matter and Biophysical Chemistry), 16(113), p. 5657-5660, 2009

DOI: 10.1021/jp9004746

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Loss of Dispersion Energy Changes the Stability and Folding/Unfolding Equilibrium of the Trp-Cage Protein

Journal article published in 2009 by Jiří Cerny ORCID, Jiří Černý, Jiří Vondrášek, Pavel Hobza
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

The structure of proteins as well as their folding/unfolding equilibrium are commonly attributed to H-bonding and hydrophobic interactions. We have used the molecular dynamic simulations in an explicit water environment based on the standard empirical potential as well as more accurately (and thus also more reliably) on the QM/MM potential. The simulations where the dispersion term was suppressed have led to a substantial change of the tryptophan-cage protein structure (unfolded structure). This structure cannot fold without the dispersion energy term, whereas, if it is covered fully, the system finds its native structure relatively quickly. This implies that after such physical factors as temperature and pH, the dispersion energy is an important factor in protein structure determination as well as in the protein folding/unfolding equilibrium. The loss of dispersion also affected the R-helical structure. On the other hand, weakening the electrostatic interactions (and thus H-bonding) affected the R-helical structure only to a minor extent.