Self-organized criticality in proteins: Hydropathic roughening profiles of G-protein-coupled receptors

Abstract

Proteins appear to be the most dramatic natural example of self-organized criticality (SOC), a concept that explains many otherwise apparently unlikely phenomena. Protein conformational functionality is often dominated by long-range hydrophobic or hydrophilic interactions which both drive protein compaction and mediate protein-protein interactions. Superfamily transmembrane G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of proteins in the human genome; their amino acid sequences form the largest database for protein-membrane interactions. While there are now structural data on the heptad transmembrane structures of representatives of several heptad families, here we show how fresh insights into global and some local chemical trends in GPCR properties can be obtained accurately from sequences alone, especially by algebraically separating the extracellular and cytoplasmic loops from transmembrane segments. The global mediation of long-range water-protein interactions occurs in conjunction with modulation of these interactions by roughened interfaces. Hydropathic roughening profiles are defined here solely in terms of amino acid sequences, and knowledge of protein coordinates is not required. Roughening profiles both for GPCR and some simpler protein families display accurate and transparent connections to protein functionality, and identify natural length scales for protein functionality.