The occurrence of C--H...O hydrogen bonds in alpha-helices and helix termini in globular proteins.

Abstract

A comprehensive database analysis of C--H...O hydrogen bonds in 3124 alpha-helices and their corresponding helix termini has been carried out from a nonredundant data set of high-resolution globular protein structures resolved at better than 2.0 A in order to investigate their role in the helix, the important protein secondary structural element. The possible occurrence of 5 --> 1 C--H...O hydrogen bond between the ith residue CH group and (i - 4)th residue C==O with C...O < or = 3.8 A is studied, considering as potential donors the main-chain Calpha and the side-chain carbon atoms Cbeta, Cgamma, Cdelta and Cepsilon. Similar analysis has been carried out for 4 --> 1 C--H...O hydrogen bonds, since the C--H...O hydrogen bonds found in helices are predominantly of type 5 --> 1 or 4 --> 1. A total of 17,367 (9310 of type 5 --> 1 and 8057 of type 4 --> 1) C--H...O hydrogen bonds are found to satisfy the selected criteria. The average stereochemical parameters for the data set suggest that the observed C--H...O hydrogen bonds are attractive interactions. Our analysis reveals that the Cgamma and Cbeta hydrogen atom(s) are frequently involved in such hydrogen bonds. A marked preference is noticed for aliphatic beta-branched residue Ile to participate in 5 --> 1 C--H...O hydrogen bonds involving methylene Cgamma 1 atom as donor in alpha-helices. This may be an enthalpic compensation for the greater loss of side-chain conformational entropy for beta-branched amino acids due to the constraint on side-chain torsion angle, namely, chi1, when they occur in helices. The preference of amino acids for 4 --> 1 C--H...O hydrogen bonds is found to be more for Asp, Cys, and for aromatic residues Trp, Phe, and His. Interestingly, overall propensity for C--H...O hydrogen bonds shows that a majority of the helix favoring residues such as Met, Glu, Arg, Lys, Leu, and Gln, which also have large side-chains, prefer to be involved in such types of weak attractive interactions in helices. The amino acid side-chains that participate in C--H...O interactions are found to shield the acceptor carbonyl oxygen atom from the solvent. In addition, C--H...O hydrogen bonds are present along with helix stabilizing salt bridges. A novel helix terminating interaction motif, X-Gly with Gly at C(cap) position having 5 --> 1 Calpha--H...O, and a chain reversal structural motif having 1 --> 5 Calpha-H...O have been identified and discussed. Our analysis highlights that a multitude of local C--H...O hydrogen bonds formed by a variety of amino acid side-chains and Calpha hydrogen atoms occur in helices and more so at the helix termini. It may be surmised that the main-chain Calpha and the side-chain CH that participate in C--H...O hydrogen bonds collectively augment the cohesive energy and thereby contribute together with the classical N--H...O hydrogen bonds and other interactions to the overall stability of helix and therefore of proteins.