title: Protein folding in confined and crowded environments.
abstract: Confinement and crowding are two major factors that can potentially impact protein folding in cellular environments. Theories based on considerations of excluded volumes predict disparate effects on protein folding stability for confinement and crowding: confinement can stabilize proteins by over 10k(B)T but crowding has a very modest effect on stability. On the other hand, confinement and crowding are both predicted to favor conformations of the unfolded state which are compact, and consequently may increase the folding rate. These predictions are largely borne out by experimental studies of protein folding under confined and crowded conditions in the test tube. Protein folding in cellular environments is further complicated by interactions with surrounding surfaces and other factors. Concerted theoretical modeling and test-tube and in vivo experiments promise to elucidate the complexity of protein folding in cellular environments.
authors: Department of Physics and Institute of Biophysics and School of Computational Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA. zhou@sb.fsu.edu
authors: Huan-Xiang
authors: HX
authors: Zhou
mesh_terms: D008962:Models, Theoretical; D017510:Protein Folding; D013816:Thermodynamics
references: J Mol Recognit. 2004 Sep-Oct;17(5):368-75
references: 15362094
references: J Am Chem Soc. 2006 Mar 29;128(12):3916-7
references: 16551092
references: Protein Sci. 2005 May;14(5):1125-33
references: 15802645
references: Protein Sci. 2004 Jan;13(1):125-33
references: 14691228
references: Biophys J. 2005 Feb;88(2):971-85
references: 15596487
references: J Mol Biol. 1998 Apr 10;277(4):985-94
references: 9545386
references: Phys Rev E Stat Phys Plasmas Fluids Relat Interdiscip Topics. 1996 Aug;54(2):1134-1152
references: 9965182
references: J Chem Phys. 2007 Dec 28;127(24):245101
references: 18163710
references: Biol Chem. 2006 May;387(5):485-97
references: 16740119
references: Biopolymers. 2007;88(2):157-63
references: 17206628
references: Phys Rev E Stat Phys Plasmas Fluids Relat Interdiscip Topics. 1999 Jun;59(6):6853-78
references: 11969674
references: Protein Expr Purif. 2005 Jul;42(1):173-7
references: 15939304
references: J Am Chem Soc. 2006 Nov 22;128(46):14782-3
references: 17105269
references: Adv Exp Med Biol. 2007;594:1-13
references: 17205670
references: J Am Chem Soc. 2004 Oct 6;126(39):12224-5
references: 15453729
references: J Cell Sci. 2006 Jul 15;119(Pt 14):2863-9
references: 16825427
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Mar 19;99(6):3535-9
references: 11904417
references: J Mol Biol. 2004 Feb 6;336(1):203-12
references: 14741216
references: Biochemistry. 2001 Sep 25;40(38):11289-93
references: 11560476
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996 Oct 15;93(21):11615-7
references: 8876184
references: J Am Chem Soc. 2006 May 17;128(19):6316-7
references: 16683786
references: Langmuir. 2005 Nov 8;21(23):10632-7
references: 16262330
references: Protein Sci. 2004 Mar;13(3):822-9
references: 14978313
references: Biophys Chem. 2002 Dec 10;101-102:155-65
references: 12487997
references: Nano Lett. 2006 May;6(5):901-5
references: 16683822
references: Acc Chem Res. 2004 Feb;37(2):123-30
references: 14967059
references: J Mol Biol. 2006 Aug 4;361(1):7-10
references: 16824541
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Dec 27;102(52):18956-61
references: 16357202
references: J Mol Biol. 2006 Feb 3;355(5):893-7
references: 16343531
references: Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2004 Apr;11(4):352-7
references: 14990997
references: J Mol Biol. 2007 Jan 19;365(3):856-69
references: 17084857
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jun 19;104(25):10430-4
references: 17563390
references: Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Oct 27;97(17):178302
references: 17155512
references: J Am Chem Soc. 2006 Aug 2;128(30):9580-1
references: 16866482
references: Cell. 2006 Jun 2;125(5):903-14
references: 16751100
references: Biochemistry. 2006 Nov 7;45(44):13356-60
references: 17073456
references: Curr Biol. 2006 Apr 18;16(8):R269-71
references: 16631567
references: J Mol Biol. 2005 Aug 5;351(1):219-32
references: 15992823
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001 Feb 27;98(5):2399-406
references: 11226251
references: Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2005 Dec;12(12):1123-9
references: 16299515
references: J Am Chem Soc. 2004 Aug 11;126(31):9498-9
references: 15291527
references: Phys Rev Lett. 1988 Nov 21;61(21):2496-2499
references: 10039133
references: J Phys Chem B. 2006 Jun 22;110(24):11615-9
references: 16800453
references: Biochemistry. 2004 Mar 2;43(8):2141-54
references: 14979710