title: Enthalpy distribution functions for protein-DNA complexes: example of the binding of AT-hooks to target DNA.
abstract: In this article we use the published heat capacity data of Dragan et al. [A.I. Dragan, et al., The energetics of specific binding of AT-hooks from HMGA1 to target DNA, J. Mol. Biol. 327 (2003) 393-411] on the association of proteins with DNA duplexes to construct enthalpy probability distributions for the protein/DNA complexes formed in these systems. We first analyze the multistep equilibrium that determines the species concentrations in this system to determine whether or not the DNA-peptide complex goes cleanly to DNA single-strands and peptide. Using the heat capacity data for this case we employ the maximum-entropy method to construct enthalpy probability distribution functions for the species involved in this equilibrium. We find that the distribution functions for this system clearly show bimodal behavior indicating a two-state transition from complex to non-complex form.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. poland@jhu.edu
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Poland
mesh_terms: D024761:AT-Hook Motifs; D001665:Binding Sites; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D004247:DNA