title: Hydrophobin film structure for HFBI and HFBII and mechanism for accelerated film formation.
abstract: Hydrophobins represent an important group of proteins from both a biological and nanotechnological standpoint. They are the means through which filamentous fungi affect their environment to promote growth, and their properties at interfaces have resulted in numerous applications. In our study we have combined protein docking, molecular dynamics simulation, and electron cryo-microscopy to gain atomistic level insight into the surface structure of films composed of two class II hydrophobins: HFBI and HFBII produced by Trichoderma reesei. Together our results suggest a unit cell composed of six proteins; however, our computational results suggest P6 symmetry, while our experimental results show P3 symmetry with a unit cell size of 56 Å. Our computational results indicate the possibility of an alternate ordering with a three protein unit cell with P3 symmetry and a smaller unit cell size, and we have used a Monte Carlo simulation of a spin model representing the hydrophobin film to show how this alternate metastable structure may play a role in increasing the rate of surface coverage by hydrophobin films, possibly indicating a mechanism of more general significance to both biology and nanotechnology.
authors: Centre for Drug Research, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Aniket
authors: A
authors: Magarkar
authors: Centre for Drug Research, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Nawel
authors: N
authors: Mele
authors: Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Noha
authors: N
authors: Abdel-Rahman
authors: Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Sarah
authors: S
authors: Butcher
authors: Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Mika
authors: M
authors: Torkkeli
authors: Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Ritva
authors: R
authors: Serimaa
authors: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland.
authors: Arja
authors: A
authors: Paananen
authors: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland; School of Chemical Technology, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.
authors: Markus
authors: M
authors: Linder
authors: Centre for Drug Research, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors: Alex
authors: A
authors: Bunker
mesh_terms: D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation; D055672:Static Electricity; D013499:Surface Properties; D014242:Trichoderma / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins