Rational design of a ligand-controlled protein conformational switch
- Authors
- Dagliyan, O., Shirvanyants, D., Karginov, A.V., Ding, F., Fee, L., Chandrasekaran, S.N., Freisinger, C.M., Smolen, G.A., Huttenlocher, A., Hahn, K.M., and Dokholyan, N.V.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-130418-6
- Date
- 2013
- Source
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110(17): 6800-4 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Huttenlocher, Anna
- Keywords
- spatiotemporal control, cell motility, endothelial-mesenchymal transition
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Computational Biology/methods
- Enzyme Activation/physiology*
- Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition/physiology*
- HeLa Cells
- Humans
- Ligands
- Models, Molecular*
- Protein Conformation*
- Protein Engineering/methods*
- Proteins/chemistry*
- Thermodynamics
- Zebrafish
- src-Family Kinases/metabolism
- PubMed
- 23569285 Full text @ Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
Design of a regulatable multistate protein is a challenge for protein engineering. Here we design a protein with a unique topology, called uniRapR, whose conformation is controlled by the binding of a small molecule. We confirm switching and control ability of uniRapR in silico, in vitro, and in vivo. As a proof of concept, uniRapR is used as an artificial regulatory domain to control activity of kinases. By activating Src kinase using uniRapR in single cells and whole organism, we observe two unique phenotypes consistent with its role in metastasis. Activation of Src kinase leads to rapid induction of protrusion with polarized spreading in HeLa cells, and morphological changes with loss of cell–cell contacts in the epidermal tissue of zebrafish. The rational creation of uniRapR exemplifies the strength of computational protein design, and offers a powerful means for targeted activation of many pathways to study signaling in living organisms.