Molecular modelling articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors developed a computational approach to probe the stability of amyloid fibrils and discover networks of hotspot interactions. Understanding the mechanisms of amyloid folding will help identify novel methods to treat protein (mis)folding diseases.

    • Vishruth Mullapudi
    • , Jaime Vaquer-Alicea
    •  & Lukasz A. Joachimiak

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors show that H2A.Z histone variant incorporation reduces the nucleosomal barrier for transcription. Furthermore their simulations reveal that H2A.Z facilitates spontaneous DNA unwrapping from the histone octamer and enhances nucleosome gaping.

    • Shuxiang Li
    • , Tiejun Wei
    •  & Anna R. Panchenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Computational methods to study protein structural dynamics are a powerful tool in life sciences but are computationally expensive. Here, the authors show that machine learning can be used to efficiently generate protein conformational ensembles and test their method on intrinsically disordered peptides.

    • Giacomo Janson
    • , Gilberto Valdes-Garcia
    •  & Michael Feig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To refold client proteins, HSP90 chaperone undergoes large structural rearrangements. Here the authors use NMR and molecular simulation and reveal structure and dynamics of a key functionally relevant metastable state of human HSP90α N-terminal domain.

    • Faustine Henot
    • , Elisa Rioual
    •  & Jerome Boisbouvier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work the authors provide a computational workflow for the parallel, from scratch, design of proteins to rapidly explore the shape diversity of protein folds.

    • Thomas W. Linsky
    • , Kyle Noble
    •  & Eva-Maria Strauch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The accuracy of AlphaFold decreases with the number of protein chains and the available GPU memory limits the size of protein complexes that can be predicted. Here, the authors show that complexes with 10–30 chains can be assembled from predicted subcomponents using Monte Carlo tree search.

    • Patrick Bryant
    • , Gabriele Pozzati
    •  & Arne Elofsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The formation of ternary degrader-protein complexes is a key step in the targeted degradation of proteins of interest. Here, the authors explore the structure and dynamics of such complexes applying high-performance computer simulations augmented with experimental data.

    • Tom Dixon
    • , Derek MacPherson
    •  & Jesus A. Izaguirre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By constructing an evolutionary trajectory of the cyclostome-gnathostome Pou5 gene family and comparing the structural and phenotypic protein variations, the authors uncover the origin of functional characteristics for the pluripotency factor Oct4.

    • Woranop Sukparangsi
    • , Elena Morganti
    •  & Joshua M. Brickman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Trypanosomes can sense signal molecules and coordinate their movement in response to such signals, a phenomenon termed social motility (SoMo). Here, Bachmaier et al show that cyclic AMP response protein 3 (CARP3) localization to the flagellar tip and its interaction with a number of different adenylate cyclases is essential for migration to tsetse fly salivary glands and for SoMo, therewith linking SoMo and cAMP signaling to trypanosome transmission.

    • Sabine Bachmaier
    • , Giacomo Giacomelli
    •  & Michael Boshart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    SHP2 is an important human tyrosine phosphatase with key roles in cancer, immune responses and insulin signaling. Here, the authors explore its substrate recognition mechanism in molecular detail and uncover a complex regulatory mechanism for this enzyme that marks specific target sites for dephosphorylation.

    • András Zeke
    • , Tamás Takács
    •  & Attila Reményi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding how small molecules bind to pathological aggregates is of importance for therapeutic and diagnostic development in diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease. Here, the authors reveal a binding site of anle138b to lipid-induced α-synuclein fibrils.

    • Leif Antonschmidt
    • , Dirk Matthes
    •  & Loren B. Andreas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Spns lipid transporters use ion gradients to drive substrate transport, including bioactive sphingolipids. Here, Dastvan et al. investigated how binding of protons powers the conformational changes that enable broad transport by a bacterial Spns.

    • Reza Dastvan
    • , Ali Rasouli
    •  & Emad Tajkhorshid

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) drives phospholipid (PL) from the plasma membrane into extracellular apolipoprotein A-I, for the production of high density lipoprotein (HDL). Here, the authors use simulations to assess the mechanism of ABCA1 function and show that ABCA1 extracts lipid from the outer face of the plasma membrane.

    • Jere P. Segrest
    • , Chongren Tang
    •  & Jay W. Heinecke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite its crucial role in the central nervous system, little is known about the activation mechanism of GABAB receptor. Here, the authors predict that the inactive G protein induces conformational changes of the receptor to form an intermediate state.

    • Moon Young Yang
    • , Soo-Kyung Kim
    •  & William A. Goddard III

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pulsed electron-electron double resonance spectroscopy (PELDOR/DEER) and single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer spectroscopy (smFRET) are used to determine conformational changes and probe distances in biological macromolecules. Here the authors compare the methods on a large set of samples.

    • Martin F. Peter
    • , Christian Gebhardt
    •  & Gregor Hagelueken

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Collision cross sections (CCS) from ion mobility mass spectrometry provide information about protein shape and size. Here, the authors develop an algorithm to predict CCS and integrate experimental ion mobility data into Rosetta-based molecular modelling to predict protein structures from sequence.

    • SM Bargeen Alam Turzo
    • , Justin T. Seffernick
    •  & Steffen Lindert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Actin filaments generate force in diverse contexts, although how they can produce nanonewtons of force is unclear. Here, the authors apply cryo-electron tomography, quantitative analysis, and modelling to reveal the podosome core is a dense, spring-loaded, actin network storing elastic energy.

    • Marion Jasnin
    • , Jordan Hervy
    •  & Renaud Poincloux

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors provide a litmus test for the recognition mechanism of transiently binding proteins based on nuclear magnetic resonance and find a conformational selection binding mechanism through concentration-dependent kinetics of ubiquitin and SH3.

    • Kalyan S. Chakrabarti
    • , Simon Olsson
    •  & Christian Griesinger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Identifying determinants of broadly neutralizing antibodies against hepatitis C virus (HCV) may guide HCV vaccine design. Here, the authors discover new anti-HCV antibodies using computational screening and analyze the amino acid composition and sequence-structure relationships in this antibody family.

    • Nina G. Bozhanova
    • , Andrew I. Flyak
    •  & Jens Meiler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite their relevance as regulators of actin severing and filament disassembly, few structural insights into the mechanism of cofilin-isoform-specific severing activity are reported. Here, the authors provide structural insights towards actin severing activity by human cofilin-2 obtained by MAS NMR and all-atom MD simulations. The results reveal an isoform-specific binding mode unique to CFL2 that may be related to its potent severing properties in-vivo.

    • Jodi Kraus
    • , Ryan W. Russell
    •  & Tatyana Polenova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The essential protein kinase PDK1 is activated by phospoinositide-mediated dimerization and trans-autophosphorylation. Here, the authors show that in the absence of PIP3 or PI(3,4)P2 phosphoinositides, PDK1 is maintained in an inactive, autoinhibited conformation in the cytosol.

    • Aleksandra Levina
    • , Kaelin D. Fleming
    •  & Thomas A. Leonard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Five New World mammarenaviruses (NWMs) enter cells via binding to human transferrin receptor 1 (hTfR1). Here, Hickerson et al. show that hTfR1 targeting antibodies partially protect hTfR1-transgenic mice from lethal NWM challenge via competition of anti-hTfR1 antibody and viral glycoprotein for hTfR1.

    • Brady T. Hickerson
    • , Tracy R. Daniels-Wells
    •  & Brian B. Gowen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Kir potassium channels are known to operate and gate without a major conformational change. Here, the authors identify the permeation gate of Kir channels as a steric plug within the conduction pathway, describing how tightly associated anionic lipids pushing into fenestrations in the pore walls engage with the plug to operate the gate.

    • Ruitao Jin
    • , Sitong He
    •  & Jacqueline M. Gulbis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    AlphaFold2 has originally been developed to provide highly accurate predictions of protein monomer structures. Here, the authors present a simple adaptation of AlphaFold2 that enables structural modeling of peptide–protein complexes, and explore the underlying mechanisms and limitations of this approach.

    • Tomer Tsaban
    • , Julia K. Varga
    •  & Ora Schueler-Furman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present DeepRank, a deep learning framework for the data mining of large sets of 3D protein-protein interfaces (PPI). They use DeepRank to address two challenges in structural biology: distinguishing biological versus crystallographic PPIs in crystal structures, and secondly the ranking of docking models.

    • Nicolas Renaud
    • , Cunliang Geng
    •  & Li C. Xue

  • Article
    | Open Access

    UvrD is a model helicase from the non-hexameric Superfamily 1. Here, the authors use optical tweezers to measure directly the stepwise translocation of UvrD along a DNA hairpin, and propose a mechanism in which UvrD moves one base pair at a time, but sequesters the nascent single strands, releasing them after a variable number of ATP hydrolysis cycles.

    • Sean P. Carney
    • , Wen Ma
    •  & Yann R. Chemla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Simultaneous targeting of BCL-xL and BCL-2 is an attractive approach for cancer treatment. Based on information gained by computational structure modelling, the authors develop a PROTAC that induces degradation of both BCL-xL and BCL-2 and effectively targets BCL-xL/2-dependent leukaemia cells.

    • Dongwen Lv
    • , Pratik Pal
    •  & Daohong Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The TOM and TIM23 complexes facilitate the transport of nuclear-encoded proteins into the mitochondrial matrix. Here, the authors use a stalled client protein to purify the translocation supercomplex and gain insight into the TOM-TIM23 interface and the mechanism of protein handover from the TOM to the TIM23 complex.

    • Ridhima Gomkale
    • , Andreas Linden
    •  & Peter Rehling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    OqxB is an RND (Resistance-Nodulation-Division) transporter that contributes to the antibiotic resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae. Here, the authors report structural and functional characterization of OqxB, with insights into its substrate binding pocket and the role in fluoroquinolone resistance.

    • Nagakumar Bharatham
    • , Purnendu Bhowmik
    •  & Satoshi Murakami

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The intrinsic disorder of histone tails poses challenges in their characterization. Here the authors apply extensive molecular dynamics simulations of the full nucleosome to show reversible binding to DNA with specific binding modes of different types of histone tails, where charge-altering modifications suppress tail-DNA interactions and may boost interactions between nucleosomes and nucleosome-binding proteins.

    • Yunhui Peng
    • , Shuxiang Li
    •  & Anna R. Panchenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) receptors are single pass transmembrane serine/threonine kinases that form tetrameric complexes comprised of two type I and two type II BMP receptors. Here the authors characterize a structure of an active type I/type II kinase tetramer providing insight into molecular mechanism driving ligand-induced signaling.

    • Christopher Agnew
    • , Pelin Ayaz
    •  & Natalia Jura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The intracellular compartment is a crowded environment. Here, the authors use molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to assess inhibitor binding to c-Src kinase and show how ligand binding pathways differ in crowded and dilute protein solutions, highlighting the role of c-Src Tyr82 sidechain.

    • Kento Kasahara
    • , Suyong Re
    •  & Yuji Sugita

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The class Frizzled of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) consist of ten Frizzled (FZD1-10) subtypes and Smoothened (SMO). Here the Schulte laboratory demonstrates that FZDs differ substantially from SMO in receptor activation-associated conformational changes, while SMO manifests a preference for a straight TM6, the TM6 of FZDs is kinked upon activation.

    • Ainoleena Turku
    • , Hannes Schihada
    •  & Gunnar Schulte

  • Article
    | Open Access

    AtEH/Pan1 proteins contain two N-terminal Eps15 homology (EH) domains and are subunits of the endocytic TPLATE complex present in plants. Here, the authors combine X-ray crystallography, NMR and MD simulations with biochemical and in planta analysis to characterize the two AtEH1/Pan1 EH domains and reveal their structural differences and complementary functional roles.

    • Klaas Yperman
    • , Anna C. Papageorgiou
    •  & Daniel Van Damme

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