Conformational fluctuations affect protein alignment in dilute liquid crystal media.

TY - JOUR

T1 - Conformational fluctuations affect protein alignment in dilute liquid crystal media.

AU - Louhivuori, M.

AU - Otten, R.

AU - Lindorff-Larsen, Kresten

AU - Annila, A.

PY - 2006

Y1 - 2006

N2 - The discovery of dilute liquid crystalline media to align biological macromolecules has opened many new possibilities to study protein and nucleic acid structures by NMR spectroscopy. We inspect the basic alignment phenomenon for an ensemble of protein conformations to deduce relative contributions of each member to the residual dipolar coupling signals. We find that molecular fluctuations can affect the alignment and discover a resulting emphasis of certain conformations. However, the internal fluctuations are largely uncorrelated with those of the alignment, implying that proteins have liquidlike molecular surfaces. Furthermore, we consider the implications of a dynamic bias to structure determination using data from the weak alignment method.

AB - The discovery of dilute liquid crystalline media to align biological macromolecules has opened many new possibilities to study protein and nucleic acid structures by NMR spectroscopy. We inspect the basic alignment phenomenon for an ensemble of protein conformations to deduce relative contributions of each member to the residual dipolar coupling signals. We find that molecular fluctuations can affect the alignment and discover a resulting emphasis of certain conformations. However, the internal fluctuations are largely uncorrelated with those of the alignment, implying that proteins have liquidlike molecular surfaces. Furthermore, we consider the implications of a dynamic bias to structure determination using data from the weak alignment method.

U2 - 10.1021/ja0576334

DO - 10.1021/ja0576334

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0002-7863

VL - 128

SP - 4371

EP - 4376

JO - Journal of the American Chemical Society

JF - Journal of the American Chemical Society

IS - 13

ER -