Protein structure is more evolutionarily conserved than dynamics

Summary

Protein structures are generally more conserved than dynamics (1). An example is the Venus Flytrap fold, which is adopted by bacterial transcription factors and periplasmic binding proteins, but shows different conformational dynamics upon ligand-binding (2). Another example is the APC transporter superfamily (3).

Details

• (1) found that proteins with the same structure have radically different unfolding dynamics and intra-family differences exceed inter-family differences

Figures

Ref (1)

See also

• Cooperative unfolding is not correlated with overall protein stability across proteins with the same fold

1.

Ferrari ÁJR, Dixit SM, Thibeault J, Garcia M, Houliston S, Ludwig RW, et al. Large-scale discovery, analysis, and design of protein energy landscapes. openRxiv; 2025. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.20.644235

2.

Wells ML, Lu C, Sultanov D, Weber KC, Ahern E, Gong Z, et al. Distinct energetic blueprints diversify function of conserved protein folds. openRxiv; 2025. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.02.646877

3.

del Alamo D, Meiler J, Mchaourab HS. Principles of Alternating Access in LeuT-fold Transporters: Commonalities and Divergences. Journal of Molecular Biology. 2022;434(19):167746. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2022.167746