title: Abundance of intrinsic disorder in protein associated with cardiovascular disease.
abstract: Evidence that many protein regions and even entire proteins lacking stable tertiary and/or secondary structure in solution (i.e., intrinsically disordered proteins) might be involved in protein-protein interactions, regulation, recognition, and signal transduction is rapidly accumulating. These signaling proteins play a crucial role in the development of several pathological conditions, including cancer. To test a hypothesis that intrinsic disorder is also abundant in cardiovascular disease (CVD), a data set of 487 CVD-related proteins was extracted from SWISS-PROT. CVD-related proteins are depleted in major order-promoting residues (Trp, Phe, Tyr, Ile, and Val) and enriched in some disorder-promoting residues (Arg, Gln, Ser, Pro, and Glu). The application of a neural network predictor of natural disordered regions (PONDR VL-XT) together with cumulative distribution function (CDF) analysis, charge-hydropathy plot (CH plot) analysis, and alpha-helical molecular recognition feature (alpha-MoRF) indicator revealed that CVD-related proteins are enriched in intrinsic disorder. In fact, the percentage of proteins with 30 or more consecutive residues predicted by PONDR VL-XT to be disordered was 57 +/- 4% for CVD-associated proteins. This value is close that described earlier for signaling proteins (66 +/- 6%) and is significantly larger than the content of intrinsic disorder in eukaryotic proteins from SWISS-PROT (47 +/- 4%) and in nonhomologous protein segments with a well-defined three-dimensional structure (13 +/- 4%). Furthermore, CDF and CH-plot analyses revealed that 120 and 36 CVD-related proteins, respectively, are wholly disordered. This high level of intrinsic disorder could be important for the function of CVD-related proteins and for the control and regulation of processes associated with cardiovascular disease. In agreement with this hypothesis, 198 alpha-MoRFs were predicted in 101 proteins from the CVD data set. A comparison of disorder predictions with the experimental structural and functional data for a subset of the CVD-associated proteins indicated good agreement between predictions and observations. Thus, our data suggest that intrinsically disordered proteins might play key roles in cardiovascular disease.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Kinetics, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana 46268, USA.
authors.forename: Yugong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Tanguy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: LeGall
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Oldfield
authors.forename: A Keith
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Dunker
authors.forename: Vladimir N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Uversky
mesh_terms: D015105:3',5'-Cyclic-AMP Phosphodiesterases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000378:metabolism*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D054703:Cyclic Nucleotide Phosphodiesterases, Type 4; D030562:Databases, Protein; D005340:Fibrinogen / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D006629:Hirudins / Q000494:pharmacology; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D011487:Protein Conformation; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D013917:Thrombin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D006629:Hirudins; D011506:Proteins; D005340:Fibrinogen; D015105:3',5'-Cyclic-AMP Phosphodiesterases; D054703:Cyclic Nucleotide Phosphodiesterases, Type 4; D013917:Thrombin