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Abstract Background Protein interactions play a key role in life processes. Characterization of conformational properties of protein-protein interactions is important for understanding the mechanisms of protein association. The rapidly increasing amount of experimentally determined structures of proteins and protein-protein complexes provides foundation for research on protein interactions and complex formation. The knowledge of the conformations of the surface side chains is essential for modeling of protein complexes. The purpose of this study was to analyze and compare dihedral angle distribution functions of the side chains at the interface and non-interface areas in bound and unbound proteins. Results To calculate the dihedral angle distribution functions, the configuration space was divided into grid cells. Statistical analysis showed that the similarity between bound and unbound interface and non-interface surface depends on the amino acid type and the grid resolution. The correlation coefficients between the distribution functions increased with the grid spacing increase for all amino acid types. The Manhattan distance showing the degree of dissimilarity between the distribution functions decreased accordingly. Short residues with one or two dihedral angles had higher correlations and smaller Manhattan distances than the longer residues. Met and Arg had the slowest growth of the correlation coefficient with the grid spacing increase. The correlations between the interface and non-interface distribution functions had a similar dependence on the grid resolution in both bound and unbound states. The interface and non-interface differences between bound and unbound distribution functions, caused by biological protein-protein interactions or crystal contacts, disappeared at the 70° grid spacing for interfaces and 30° for non-interface surface, which agrees with an average span of the side-chain rotamers. Conclusions The two-fold difference in the critical grid spacing indicates larger conformational changes upon binding at the interface than at the rest of the surface. At the same time, transitions between rotamers induced by interactions across the interface or the crystal packing are rare, with most side chains having local readjustments that do not change the rotameric state. The analysis is important for better understanding of protein interactions and development of flexible docking approaches.

Background: Proteins play an important role in biological processes in living organisms. Many protein functions are based on interaction with other proteins. The structural information is important for adequate description of these interactions. Sets of protein structures determined in both bound and unbound states are essential for benchmarking of the docking procedures. However, the number of such proteins in PDB is relatively small. A radical expansion of such sets is possible if the unbound structures are computationally simulated., Results: The DOCKGROUND public resource provides data to improve our understanding of protein-protein interactions and to assist in the development of better tools for structural modeling of protein complexes, such as docking algorithms and scoring functions. A large set of simulated unbound protein structures was generated from the bound structures. The modeling protocol was based on 1 ns Langevin dynamics simulation. The simulated structures were validated on the ensemble of experimentally determined unbound and bound structures. The set is intended for large scale benchmarking of docking algorithms and scoring functions., Conclusions: A radical expansion of the unbound protein docking benchmark set was achieved by simulating the unbound structures. The simulated unbound structures were selected according to criteria from systematic comparison of experimentally determined bound and unbound structures. The set is publicly available at http://dockground.compbio.ku.edu.

As the sole viral antigen on the HIV-1-virion surface, trimeric Env is a focus of vaccine efforts. Here we present the structure of the ligand-free HIV-1-Env trimer, fix its conformation and determine its receptor interactions. Epitope analyses revealed trimeric ligand-free Env to be structurally compatible with broadly neutralizing antibodies but not poorly neutralizing ones. We coupled these compatibility considerations with binding antigenicity to engineer conformationally fixed Envs, including a 201C 433C (DS) variant specifically recognized by broadly neutralizing antibodies. DS-Env retained nanomolar affinity for the CD4 receptor, with which it formed an asymmetric intermediate: a closed trimer bound by a single CD4 without the typical antigenic hallmarks of CD4 induction. Antigenicity-guided structural design can thus be used both to delineate mechanism and to fix conformation, with DS-Env trimers in virus-like-particle and soluble formats providing a new generation of vaccine antigens.

The site on the HIV-1 gp120 glycoprotein that binds the CD4 receptor is recognized by broadly reactive antibodies, several of which neutralize over 90% of HIV-1 strains. To understand how antibodies achieve such neutralization, we isolated CD4-binding-site (CD4bs) antibodies and analyzed 16 co-crystal structures -8 determined here- of CD4bs antibodies from 14 donors. The 16 antibodies segregated by recognition mode and developmental ontogeny into two types: CDR H3-dominated and VH-gene-restricted. Both could achieve greater than 80% neutralization breadth, and both could develop in the same donor. Although paratope chemistries differed, all 16 gp120-CD4bs antibody complexes showed geometric similarity, with antibody-neutralization breadth correlating with antibody-angle of approach relative to the most effective antibody of each type. The repertoire for effective recognition of the CD4 supersite thus comprises antibodies with distinct paratopes arrayed about two optimal geometric orientations, one achieved by CDR H3 ontogenies and the other achieved by VH-gene-restricted ontogenies., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The RV144 clinical trial showed the partial efficacy of a vaccine regimen with an estimated vaccine efficacy (VE) of 31% for protecting low-risk Thai volunteers against acquisition of HIV-1. The impact of vaccine-induced immune responses can be investigated through sieve analysis of HIV-1 breakthrough infections (infected vaccine and placebo recipients). A V1/V2-targeted comparison of the genomes of HIV-1 breakthrough viruses identified two V2 amino acid sites that differed between the vaccine and placebo groups. Here we extended the V1/V2 analysis to the entire HIV-1 genome using an array of methods based on individual sites, k-mers and genes/proteins. We identified 56 amino acid sites or "signatures" and 119 k-mers that differed between the vaccine and placebo groups. Of those, 19 sites and 38 k-mers were located in the regions comprising the RV144 vaccine (Env-gp120, Gag, and Pro). The nine signature sites in Env-gp120 were significantly enriched for known antibody-associated sites (p = 0.0021). In particular, site 317 in the third variable loop (V3) overlapped with a hotspot of antibody recognition, and sites 369 and 424 were linked to CD4 binding site neutralization. The identified signature sites significantly covaried with other sites across the genome (mean = 32.1) more than did non-signature sites (mean = 0.9) (p < 0.0001), suggesting functional and/or structural relevance of the signature sites. Since signature sites were not preferentially restricted to the vaccine immunogens and because most of the associations were insignificant following correction for multiple testing, we predict that few of the genetic differences are strongly linked to the RV144 vaccine-induced immune pressure. In addition to presenting results of the first complete-genome analysis of the breakthrough infections in the RV144 trial, this work describes a set of statistical methods and tools applicable to analysis of breakthrough infection genomes in general vaccine efficacy trials for diverse pathogens.

Abs capable of effectively neutralizing HIV-1 generally exhibit very high levels of somatic hypermutation, both in their CDR and framework-variable regions. In many cases, full reversion of the Ab-framework mutations back to germline results in substantial to complete loss of HIV-1-neutralizing activity. However, it has been unclear whether all or most of the observed framework mutations would be necessary or whether a small subset of these mutations might be sufficient for broad and potent neutralization. To address this issue and to explore the dependence of neutralization activity on the level of somatic hypermutation in the Ab framework, we applied a computationally guided framework-reversion procedure to two broadly neutralizing anti-HIV-1 Abs, VRC01 and 10E8, which target two different HIV-1 sites of vulnerability. Ab variants in which up to 78% (38 of 49 for VRC01) and 89% (31 of 35 for 10E8) of framework mutations were reverted to germline retained breadth and potency within 3-fold of the mature Abs when evaluated on a panel of 21 diverse viral strains. Further, a VRC01 variant with an ∼50% framework-reverted L chain showed a 2-fold improvement in potency over the mature Ab. Our results indicate that only a small number of Ab-framework mutations may be sufficient for high breadth and potency of HIV-1 neutralization by Abs VRC01 and 10E8. Partial framework revertants of HIV-1 broadly neutralizing Abs may present advantages over their highly mutated counterparts as Ab therapeutics and as targets for immunogen design.

Physicochemical description of numerous cell processes is fundamentally based on the energy landscapes of protein molecules involved. Although the whole energy landscape is difficult to reconstruct, increased attention to particular targets has provided enough structures for mapping functionally important subspaces associated with the unbound and bound protein structures. The subspace mapping produces a discrete representation of the landscape, further called energy spectrum. We compiled and characterized ensembles of bound and unbound conformations of six small proteins and explored their spectra in implicit solvent. First, the analysis of the unbound-to-bound changes points to conformational selection as the binding mechanism for four proteins. Second, results show that bound and unbound spectra often significantly overlap. Moreover, the larger the overlap the smaller the root mean square deviation (RMSD) between the bound and unbound conformational ensembles. Third, the center of the unbound spectrum has a higher energy than the center of the corresponding bound spectrum of the dimeric and multimeric states for most of the proteins. This suggests that the unbound states often have larger entropy than the bound states. Fourth, the exhaustively long minimization, making small intrarotamer adjustments (all-atom RMSD ≤ 0.7 Å), dramatically reduces the distance between the centers of the bound and unbound spectra as well as the spectra extent. It condenses unbound and bound energy levels into a thin layer at the bottom of the energy landscape with the energy spacing that varies between 0.8-4.6 and 3.5-10.5 kcal/mol for the unbound and bound states correspondingly. Finally, the analysis of protein energy fluctuations showed that protein vibrations itself can excite the interstate transitions, including the unbound-to-bound ones., (© 2013 The Protein Society.)

Conformational changes in the side chains are essential for protein-protein binding. Rotameric states and unbound- to-bound conformational changes in the surface residues were systematically studied on a representative set of protein complexes. The side-chain conformations were mapped onto dihedral angles space. The variable threshold algorithm was developed to cluster the dihedral angle distributions and to derive rotamers, defined as the most probable conformation in a cluster. Six rotamer libraries were generated: full surface, surface noninterface, and surface interface-each for bound and unbound states. The libraries were used to calculate the probabilities of the rotamer transitions upon binding. The stability of amino acids was quantified based on the transition maps. The noninterface residues' stability was higher than that of the interface. Long side chains with three or four dihedral angles were less stable than the shorter ones. The transitions between the rotamers at the interface occurred more frequently than on the noninterface surface. Most side chains changed conformation within the same rotamer or moved to an adjacent rotamer. The highest percentage of the transitions was observed primarily between the two most occupied rotamers. The probability of the transition between rotamers increased with the decrease of the rotamer stability. The analysis revealed characteristics of the surface side-chain conformational transitions that can be utilized in flexible docking protocols., (Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Structure fluctuations and conformational changes accompany all biological processes involving macromolecules. The paper presents a classification of protein residues based on the normalized equilibrium fluctuations of the residue centers of mass in proteins and a statistical analysis of conformation changes in the side-chains upon binding. Normal mode analysis and an elastic network model were applied to a set of protein complexes to calculate the residue fluctuations and develop the residue classification. Comparison with a classification based on normalized B-factors suggests that the B-factors may underestimate protein flexibility in solvent. Our classification shows that protein loops and disordered fragments are enriched with highly fluctuating residues and depleted with weakly fluctuating residues. Strategies for engineering thermostable proteins are discussed. To calculate the dihedral angles distribution functions, the configuration space was divided into cells by a cubic grid. The effect of protein association on the distribution functions depends on the amino acid type and a grid step in the dihedral angles space. The changes in the dihedral angles increase from the near-backbone dihedral angle to the most distant one, for most residues. On average, one fifth of the interface residues change the rotamer state upon binding, whereas the rest of the interface residues undergo local readjustments within the same rotamer.

Conformational changes upon protein-protein association are the key element of the binding mechanism. The study presents a systematic large-scale analysis of such conformational changes in the side chains. The results indicate that short and long side chains have different propensities for the conformational changes. Long side chains with three or more dihedral angles are often subject to large conformational transition. Shorter residues with one or two dihedral angles typically undergo local conformational changes not leading to a conformational transition. A relationship between the local readjustments and the equilibrium fluctuations of a side chain around its unbound conformation is suggested. Most of the side chains undergo larger changes in the dihedral angle most distant from the backbone. The frequencies of the core-to-surface interface transitions of six nonpolar residues and Tyr are larger than the frequencies of the opposite surface-to-core transitions. The binding increases both polar and nonpolar interface areas. However, the increase of the nonpolar area is larger for all considered classes of protein complexes, suggesting that the protein association perturbs the unbound interfaces to increase the hydrophobic contribution to the binding free energy. To test modeling approaches to side-chain flexibility in protein docking, conformational changes in the X-ray set were compared with those in the docking decoy sets. The results lead to a better understanding of the conformational changes in proteins and suggest directions for efficient conformational sampling in docking protocols., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)