title: Conformational effects of calcium release from parvalbumin: comparison of computational simulations with spectroscopic investigations.
abstract: The effect of Ca2+ binding to parvalbumin was monitored by probes of conformation including absorption, fluorescence, circular dichroism (CD), infrared (IR) spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. These experimental studies were compared with molecular dynamics computations on the structures of the Ca-bound and Ca-free forms of cod parvalbumin. The UV CD spectra show that removal of calcium results in a decrease in the alpha-helical content of the protein. The IR amide I' and III' regions are very much affected by Ca removal and are indicative of significant perturbation of secondary structure. The fluorescence of tryptophan, the IR markers, and UV ellipticity all show changes with temperature, pointing to a lowering of protein stability upon Ca removal. These results are consistent with the structures obtained for both the Ca-bound and Ca-free proteins after 200 ps of solvated molecular dynamics simulations which show a decrease in the secondary structure upon Ca removal.
authors.affiliation: Johnson Research Foundation, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laberge
authors.forename: W W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sudhakar
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Liebman
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Vanderkooi
mesh_terms: D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D002152:Calorimetry, Differential Scanning; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D003198:Computer Simulation; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010320:Parvalbumins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D011487:Protein Conformation; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence; D013053:Spectrophotometry; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013696:Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins; D010320:Parvalbumins; D002118:Calcium