title: Electrostatic contributions to the stability of a thermophilic cold shock protein.
abstract: The thermophilic Bacillus caldolyticus cold shock protein (Bc-Csp) differs from the mesophilic Bacillus subtilis cold shock protein B (Bs-CspB) in 11 of the 66 residues. Stability measurements of Schmid and co-workers have implicated contributions of electrostatic interactions to the thermostability. To further elucidate the physical basis of the difference in stability, previously developed theoretical methods that treat electrostatic effects in both the folded and the unfolded states were used in this paper to study the effects of mutations, ionic strength, and temperature. For 27 mutations that narrow the difference in sequence between Bc-Csp and Bs-CspB, calculated changes in unfolding free energy (Delta G) and experimental results have a correlation coefficient of 0.98. Bc-Csp appears to use destabilization of the unfolded state by unfavorable charge-charge interactions as a mechanism for increasing stability. Accounting for the effects of ionic strength and temperature on the electrostatic free energies in both the folded and the unfolded states, explanations for two important experimental observations are presented. The disparate ionic strength dependences of Delta G for Bc-Csp and Bs-CspB were attributed to the difference in the total charges (-2e and -6e, respectively). A main contribution to the much higher unfolding entropy of Bs-CspB was found to come from the less favorable electrostatic interactions in the folded state. These results should provide insight for understanding the thermostability of other thermophilic proteins.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Institute of Molecular Biophysics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA. hxzhou@csit.fsu.edu
authors.forename: Huan-Xiang
authors.initials: HX
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dong
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001407:Bacillus / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003461:Crystallography / Q000379:methods*; D004355:Drug Stability; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011489:Protein Denaturation; D017510:Protein Folding; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D021122:Protein Subunits; D013045:Species Specificity; D055672:Static Electricity; D013696:Temperature; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D021122:Protein Subunits; C407094:cold shock protein, Bacillus; D014867:Water