Physical origins of remarkable thermostabilization by an octuple mutation for the adenosine A2a receptor

Abstract

It was experimentally showed that the thermal stability of a membrane protein, the adenosine A2a receptor, was remarkably enhanced by an octuple mutation. Here we theoretically prove that the energy decrease arising from the formation of protein intramolecular hydrogen bonds and the solvent-entropy gain upon protein folding are made substantially larger by the mutation, leading to the remarkable enhancement. The solvent is formed by hydrocarbon groups constituting nonpolar chains of the lipid bilayer within a membrane. The mutation modifies geometric characteristics of the structure so that the solvent crowding can be reduced to a larger extent when the protein folds.