title: Barstar is electrostatically optimized for tight binding to barnase.
abstract: We used a novel charge optimization technique to study the small ribonuclease barnase and to analyze its interaction with a natural tight binding inhibitor, the protein barstar. The approach uses a continuum model to explicitly determine the charge distributions that lead to the most favorable electrostatic contribution to binding when competing desolvation and interaction effects are included. Given its backbone fold, barstar is electrostatically optimized for tight binding to barnase when compared with mutants where residues have been substituted with one of the 20 common amino acids. Natural proteins thus appear to use optimization of electrostatic interactions as one strategy for achieving tight binding.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: L P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tidor
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D001665:Binding Sites; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D008958:Models, Molecular; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation; D012260:Ribonucleases / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D055672:Static Electricity; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; C057438:barstar protein, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens; D012260:Ribonucleases; C019760:Bacillus amyloliquefaciens ribonuclease