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It has been recently shown that in some proteins, tertiary‐structure dynamics occur surprisingly fast, that is on the microsecond or sub‐millisecond time scales. In this State of the Art Review, we discuss how such ultrafast domain motions relate to the function of caseinolytic peptidase B (ClpB), a AAA+ disaggregation machine. ClpB is a large hexameric protein that collaborates with cellular chaperone machinery to rescue protein chains from aggregates. We used single‐molecule FRET spectroscopy to capture the dynamics of essential structural elements within this machine. It was found that the middle domain of ClpB, known to act as its activator, toggles between two states much faster than the overall activity cycle of the protein, suggesting a novel mode of continuous, tunable switching. Motions of the N‐terminal domain were observed to restrict the conformational space of the M domain in the absence of a substrate protein, thereby preventing it from tilting and spuriously activating ClpB. Finally, microsecond dynamics of pore loops responsible for substrate pulling through ClpB's central channel, together with their response to specific perturbations, point to a Brownian‐ratchet mechanism for protein translocation. Based on our findings, we propose a two‐time‐scale model for the activity of ClpB, in which fast conformational dynamics affect slower functional steps, determined by ATP hydrolysis time. Future work on this and other proteins is likely to shed further light on the role of ultrafast dynamics on protein function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-resolved photoelectron imaging was used to investigate the dynamical evolution of the initially prepared S1 (ππ*) excited state of phenol (hydroxybenzene), catechol (1,2-dihydroxybenzene), resorcinol (1,3-dihydroxybenzene), and hydroquinone (1,4-dihydroxybenzene) following excitation at 267 nm. Our analysis was supported by ab initio calculations at the coupled-cluster and CASSCF levels of theory. In all cases, we observe rapid (<1 ps) intramolecular vibrational redistribution on the S1 potential surface. In catechol, the overall S1 state lifetime was observed to be 12.1 ps, which is 1-2 orders of magnitude shorter than in the other three molecules studied. This may be attributed to differences in the H atom tunnelling rate under the barrier formed by a conical intersection between the S1 state and the close lying S2 (πσ*) state, which is dissociative along the O-H stretching coordinate. Further evidence of this S1/S2 interaction is also seen in the time-dependent anisotropy of the photoelectron angular distributions we have observed. Our data analysis was assisted by a matrix inversion method for processing photoelectron images that is significantly faster than most other previously reported approaches and is extremely quick and easy to implement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aggregation of the protein α-synuclein (αS) underlies a range of increasingly common neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson's disease. One widely explored therapeutic strategy for these conditions is the use of antibodies to target aggregated αS, although a detailed molecular-level mechanism of the action of such species remains elusive. Here, we characterize αS aggregation in vitro in the presence of two αS-specific single-domain antibodies (nanobodies), NbSyn2 and NbSyn87, which bind to the highly accessible C-terminal region of αS. Results: We show that both nanobodies inhibit the formation of αS fibrils. Furthermore, using single-molecule fluorescence techniques, we demonstrate that nanobody binding promotes a rapid conformational conversion from more stable oligomers to less stable oligomers of αS, leading to a dramatic reduction in oligomer-induced cellular toxicity. Conclusions: The results indicate a novel mechanism by which diseases associated with protein aggregation can be inhibited, and suggest that NbSyn2 and NbSyn87 could have significant therapeutic potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]