title: Minimum information content and formation of interacting ribonuclease fragment complexes.
abstract: The degree to which amino acid sequence can be simplified with retention of conformational and functional properties has been investigated by semisynthesis using non-covalent fragment complexes of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease as test cases. Based on the ribonuclease S system, a set of synthetic model sequences was defined for the S-peptide (1-20) region which interacted productively with native S-protein (21-124). The most simple sequence, an eicosapeptide containing helix-favoring Ala residues at all positions except Glu 1 and 14, Phe 8, His 12, and Met 13, effected at least 15% of ribonuclease catalytic activity (versus native ribonuclease S) when added to S-protein in saturating amounts. The data for model S-peptides define an alpha-helical framework and specific side chains at positions 8, 12, and 13 as the core of sequence information necessary for S-peptide to effect a productive non-covalent complex with S-protein. Previous ribonuclease fragment studies also were used as a basis for making the productive, non-overlapping complex, (1-15):(21-111):(116-124). Addition of synthetic (1-15) and (116-124) to (21-111) led to a 3 degrees increase in Tm and 4% (versus ribonuclease A) catalytic activity. The three-fragment complex, with the beta-bend residues 112-115 deleted, exhibited significantly lower stability to thermal denaturation than did related two-fragment complexes. The potential use of three-fragment complexes related to the above is discussed for semi-synthetic sequence modeling concomitantly in the N- and C-terminal regions of ribonuclease.
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D010446:Peptide Fragments; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011489:Protein Denaturation; D012260:Ribonucleases; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D010446:Peptide Fragments; D012260:Ribonucleases