Abstract
The unordered secondary structural content of an intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) is susceptible to conformational changes induced by many different external factors, such as the presence of organic solvents, removal of water, changes in temperature, binding to partner molecules, and interaction with lipids and/or other ligands. In order to characterize the high-flexibility nature of an IDP, circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is a particularly useful method due to its capability of monitoring both subtle and remarkable changes in different environments, relative ease in obtaining measurements, the small amount of sample required, and the capability for sample recovery (sample not damaged) and others. Using synchrotron radiation as the light source for CD spectroscopy represents the state-of-the-art version of this technique with feasibility of accessing the lower wavelength UV region, and therefore presenting a series of advantages over conventional circular dichroism (cCD) to monitor a protein conformational behavior, check protein stability, detect ligand binding, and many others. In this paper, we have performed a comparative study using cCD and SRCD methods for investigating the secondary structure and the conformational behavior of natively unfolded proteins: MEG-14 and soybean trypsin inhibitor. We show that the SRCD technique greatly improves the analysis and accuracy of the studies on the conformations of IDPs.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.