Protein folding articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cryogenic electron microscopy structures of amyloid filaments extracted from patient brains reveal that the protein TAF15 forms filaments that characterize certain cases of frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

    • Stephan Tetter
    • , Diana Arseni
    •  & Benjamin Ryskeldi-Falcon
  • Article
    | Open Access

    An analysis of the evolutionary distribution of predicted structures for the metamorphic protein KaiB using AF-Cluster reveals that both conformations of KaiB were distributed in clusters across the KaiB family.

    • Hannah K. Wayment-Steele
    • , Adedolapo Ojoawo
    •  & Dorothee Kern
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water thermodynamics drive changes in macromolecular assembly that rapidly restore intracellular water availability in response to physiological fluctuations in temperature, pressure and osmotic strength.

    • Joseph L. Watson
    • , Estere Seinkmane
    •  & Emmanuel Derivery
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cryo-electron microscopy structures and mass spectrometry analyses show that TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) forms amyloid filaments with a distinct fold in type A frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TDP-43 pathology (FTLD-TDP) compared with TDP-43 filaments in type B FTLD-TDP and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

    • Diana Arseni
    • , Renren Chen
    •  & Benjamin Ryskeldi-Falcon
  • Article
    | Open Access

    We identify a highly controlled cytosolic surveillance mechanism that integrates independent mitochondrial stress signals to initiate the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPR), revealing a link between mitochondrial and cytosolic proteostasis.

    • F. X. Reymond Sutandy
    • , Ines Gößner
    •  & Christian Münch
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Structural studies of the ribosome-associated endoplasmic reticulum translocon complex based on cryo-electron tomography and molecular modelling reveal multiple intermediate states and interactions between the components of the complex and its cofactors.

    • Max Gemmer
    • , Marten L. Chaillet
    •  & Friedrich Förster
  • Article |

    Biochemical and structural analysis of intermediates during multipass membrane protein biogenesis showed how an intramembrane chaperone guides nascent membrane proteins to a semi-enclosed lipid-filled cavity where they are inserted and folded correctly.

    • Luka Smalinskaitė
    • , Min Kyung Kim
    •  & Ramanujan S. Hegde
  • Article |

    The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR)-loading complex—a complex in which Hsp70 loads GR onto Hsp90 and Hop—is described, providing insights into how the chaperones Hsp90 and Hsp70 coordinate to facilitate GR remodelling for activation.

    • Ray Yu-Ruei Wang
    • , Chari M. Noddings
    •  & David A. Agard
  • Article |

    The trRosetta neural network was used to iteratively optimise model proteins from random 100-amino-acid sequences, resulting in ‘hallucinated’ proteins, which when expressed in bacteria closely resembled the model structures.

    • Ivan Anishchenko
    • , Samuel J. Pellock
    •  & David Baker
  • Article |

    A protein chaperone system is identified that consists of proteins with poly-Asp/Glu sequence, and may have an important role in diseases characterized by protein aggregation.

    • Liangqian Huang
    • , Trisha Agrawal
    •  & Xiaolu Yang
  • Article |

    The molecular steps that lead to the disaggregation of amyloid fibrils are shown to involve the synergistic action of HSP70 and its co-chaperones DNAJB1 and HSP110.

    • Anne S. Wentink
    • , Nadinath B. Nillegoda
    •  & Bernd Bukau
  • Article |

    An approach for the design of protein pores is demonstrated by the computational design and subsequent experimental expression of both an ion-selective and a large transmembrane pore.

    • Chunfu Xu
    • , Peilong Lu
    •  & David Baker
  • Article |

    The PAT complex, an intermembrane chaperone complex comprising the ER-resident membrane proteins CCDC47 and Asterix, directly interacts with nascent transmembrane domains to facilitate the biogenesis of multi-spanning membrane proteins.

    • Patrick J. Chitwood
    •  & Ramanujan S. Hegde
  • Article |

    A systematic analysis of the proteostasis network of secreted proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans identifies numerous regulators of protein homeostasis outside the cell, and highlights the contribution of extracellular proteostasis to host defence.

    • Ivan Gallotta
    • , Aneet Sandhu
    •  & Della C. David
  • Article |

    Cryo-electron microscopy structures of a folding intermediate on the BAM complex of Escherichia coli reveal how interactions between the BamA catalyst and substrate permit stable association during folding, followed by rapid turnover.

    • David Tomasek
    • , Shaun Rawson
    •  & Daniel Kahne
  • Article |

    A combination of optical tweezers and fluorescent-particle tracking is used to dissect the dynamics of the Hsp100 disaggregase ClpB, and show that the processive extrusion of polypeptide loops is the mechanistic basis of its activity.

    • Mario J. Avellaneda
    • , Kamila B. Franke
    •  & Sander J. Tans
  • Article |

    Chaperones interact with a canonical motif in α-synuclein, which can be prevented by phosphorylation of α-synuclein at Tyr39, whereas inhibition of this interaction leads to the localization of α-synuclein to the mitochondria and aggregate formation.

    • Björn M. Burmann
    • , Juan A. Gerez
    •  & Sebastian Hiller
  • Article |

    iNOS-driven dysregulation of the IRE1α–XBP1 pathway leads to cardiomyocyte dysfunction in mice and recapitulates the systemic and cardiovascular features of human heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

    • Gabriele G. Schiattarella
    • , Francisco Altamirano
    •  & Joseph A. Hill
  • Letter |

    Hsp70 binds unfolded protein segments in its groove, but can also bind and stabilize folded protein structures, owing to its moveable lid, with ATP hydrolysis and co-chaperones allowing control of these contrasting effects.

    • Alireza Mashaghi
    • , Sergey Bezrukavnikov
    •  & Sander J. Tans
  • Article |

    Defects in the ribosome quality control (RQC) complex, which clears proteins that stalled during translation, can cause neurodegeneration; here it is shown that in RQC-defective cells a peptide tail added by the RQC subunit 2 to stalled polypeptides promotes their aggregation and the sequestration of chaperones in these aggregates, affecting normal protein quality control processes.

    • Young-Jun Choe
    • , Sae-Hun Park
    •  & F. Ulrich Hartl
  • Article |

    A new deep proteomic analysis method is used to identify proteins that interact with wild-type cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and its mutant version that is the major cause of cystic fibrosis.

    • Sandra Pankow
    • , Casimir Bamberger
    •  & John R. Yates III
  • Letter |

    An efficient protein disaggregation system uncovered in metazoan cells requires transient interactions between J-protein co-chaperones of classes A and B, which synergistically boost HSP70-dependent disaggregation activity, providing a flexible further level of regulation for metazoan protein quality control, with direct relevance to human diseases such as age-related neurodegeneration.

    • Nadinath B. Nillegoda
    • , Janine Kirstein
    •  & Bernd Bukau
  • Letter |

    The structural polymorphism of intrinsically disordered protein 4E-BP2 allows it to regulate translation initiation through post-translational modification-mediated folding, exemplifying a new and potentially general mechanism of biological regulation mediated by intrinsically disordered proteins.

    • Alaji Bah
    • , Robert M. Vernon
    •  & Julie D. Forman-Kay
  • Article |

    Lipopolysaccharide, an essential component of the outer membranes of Gram-negative bacteria, is inserted by LptD–LptE, a protein complex with a unique ‘barrel and plug’ architecture; the structure, molecular dynamics simulations and functional assays of the LptD–LptE complex of Salmonella typhimurium suggest that lipopolysaccharide may pass through the barrel and is then inserted into the outer leaflet of the outer membrane through a lateral opening between two β-strands of LptD.

    • Haohao Dong
    • , Quanju Xiang
    •  & Changjiang Dong
  • Letter |

    Molecular, pharmacological and functional data show that haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are predisposed to ER-stress-mediated apoptosis compared to closely related progenitors; a framework for understanding how stress signalling is coordinated within the hematopoietic hierarchy and integrated with stemness is provided, and may have implications for the improvement of clinical transplantation of HSCs.

    • Peter van Galen
    • , Antonija Kreso
    •  & John E. Dick
  • Letter |

    Here the Kramers diffusion coefficient and free-energy barrier are characterized for the first time through single-molecule fluorescence measurements of the temperature- and viscosity-dependence of the transition path time for protein folding.

    • Hoi Sung Chung
    •  & William A. Eaton
  • Article |

    The crystal structure of BamA, the central component of the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) complex, from N. gonorrhoeae and H. ducreyi is determined; the structure consists of an interior cavity capped by extracellular loops, an exterior rim with a narrowed hydrophobic surface and a lateral opening of the barrel domain, providing insight into a possible route for the insertion of β-barrel membrane proteins into the bacterial outer membrane.

    • Nicholas Noinaj
    • , Adam J. Kuszak
    •  & Susan K. Buchanan
  • News Feature |

    Susan Lindquist has challenged conventional thinking on how misfolded proteins drive disease and may power evolution. But she still finds that criticism stings.

    • Bijal P. Trivedi