화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol.114, No.22, 7609-7619, 2010
Near Native-State Conformational Landscape of Psychrophilic and Mesophilic Enzymes: Probing the Folding Funnel Model
In recent years, increased interest has been directed to the study of enzyme adaptation to low temperatures. In particular, a peculiar folding funnel model was proposed for the free energy landscape of a psychrophilic a-amylase and other cold-adapted enzymes. In the present contribution, the comparison between the near native-state dynamics and conformational landscape in the essential subspace of different cold-adapted enzymes with their mesophilic counterparts, as obtained by more than 0.1 mu s molecular dynamics simulations at different temperatures, allows the folding funnel model to be probed. Common characteristics were highlighted in the near native-state dynamics of psychrophilic enzymes belonging to different enzymatic families when compared to the mesophilic counterparts. According to the model, a cold-adapted enzyme in its native-state consists of a large population of conformations which can easily interconvert and result in high structural flexibility.