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Virulence factors EfbC and Ehp from Staphylococcus aureus are potent inhibitors of complement activation. Both are excessively charged and bind to complement protein C3d at an acidic interface. We computationally generated single-alanine mutants of charged residues in the C3d-EfbC and C3d-Ehp complexes, and utilized electrostatic clustering and Poisson-Boltzmann free energy calculations to evaluate the role of electrostatics in association. Our results indicate that both interfacial electrostatic interactions and electrostatic potential distribution are crucial for C3d-EfbC and C3d-Ehp association. The results presented herein serve as a predictive tool in the selection of mutants with desired binding and immunological activity, and will narrow the search for viable candidates for further computational and experimental analyses. This study serves as the foundation for development of an inhibitor of the C3d-EfbC and C3d-Ehp interactions to combat bacterial infection and design of a complement inhibitor using EfbC and Ehp as a model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in proteins and dictate stability and function. In this review, we discuss several methods for the analysis of electrostatics in protein-protein interactions. We discuss alanine-scanning mutagenesis, Poisson-Boltzmann electrostatics, free energy calculations, electrostatic similarity distances, and hierarchical clustering of electrostatic potentials. Our recently developed computational framework, known as Analysis of Electrostatic Similarities Of Proteins (AESOP), incorporates these tools to efficiently elucidate the role of electrostatic potentials in protein interactions. We present the application of AESOP to several proteins and protein complexes, for which charge is purported to facilitate protein association. Specifically, we illustrate how recent work has shaped the formulation of electrostatic calculations, the correlation of electrostatic free energies and electrostatic potential clustering results with experimental binding and activity data, the pH dependence of protein stability and association, the design of mutant proteins with enhanced immunological activity, and how AESOP can expose deficiencies in structural models and experimental data. This integrative approach can be utilized to develop mechanistic models and to guide experimental studies by predicting mutations with desired physicochemical properties and function. Alteration of the electrostatic properties of proteins offers a basis for the design of proteins with optimized binding and activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]