Patrick J. Fleming

Bio: Patrick J. Fleming is an academic researcher from Johns Hopkins University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Bacterial outer membrane & Lipid bilayer. The author has an hindex of 23, co-authored 33 publications receiving 2172 citations.

A backbone-based theory of protein folding

Abstract: Under physiological conditions, a protein undergoes a spontaneous disorder order transition called "folding." The protein polymer is highly flexible when unfolded but adopts its unique native, three-dimensional structure when folded. Current experimental knowledge comes primarily from thermodynamic measurements in solution or the structures of individual molecules, elucidated by either x-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy. From the former, we know the enthalpy, entropy, and free energy differences between the folded and unfolded forms of hundreds of proteins under a variety of solvent/cosolvent conditions. From the latter, we know the structures of approximately 35,000 proteins, which are built on scaffolds of hydrogen-bonded structural elements, alpha-helix and beta-sheet. Anfinsen showed that the amino acid sequence alone is sufficient to determine a protein's structure, but the molecular mechanism responsible for self-assembly remains an open question, probably the most fundamental open question in biochemistry. This perspective is a hybrid: partly review, partly proposal. First, we summarize key ideas regarding protein folding developed over the past half-century and culminating in the current mindset. In this view, the energetics of side-chain interactions dominate the folding process, driving the chain to self-organize under folding conditions. Next, having taken stock, we propose an alternative model that inverts the prevailing side-chain/backbone paradigm. Here, the energetics of backbone hydrogen bonds dominate the folding process, with preorganization in the unfolded state. Then, under folding conditions, the resultant fold is selected from a limited repertoire of structural possibilities, each corresponding to a distinct hydrogen-bonded arrangement of alpha-helices and/or strands of beta-sheet.

Internal packing of helical membrane proteins

Abstract: Helix packing is important in the folding, stability, and association of membrane proteins. Packing analysis of the helical portions of 7 integral membrane proteins and 37 soluble proteins show that the helices in membrane proteins have higher packing values (0.431) than in soluble proteins (0.405). The highest packing values in integral membrane proteins originate from small hydrophobic (G and A) and small hydroxyl-containing (S and T) amino acids, whereas in soluble proteins large hydrophobic and aromatic residues have the highest packing values. The highest packing values for membrane proteins are found in the transmembrane helix–helix interfaces. Glycine and alanine have the highest occurrence among the buried amino acids in membrane proteins, whereas leucine and alanine are the most common buried residue in soluble proteins. These observations are consistent with a shorter axial separation between helices in membrane proteins. The tight helix packing revealed in this analysis contributes to membrane protein stability and likely compensates for the lack of the hydrophobic effect as a driving force for helix–helix association in membranes.

Polyproline II helix is the preferred conformation for unfolded polyalanine in water

Abstract: Does aqueous solvent discriminate among peptide conformers? To address this question, we computed the solvation free energy of a blocked, 12-residue polyalanyl-peptide in explicit water and analyzed its solvent structure. The peptide was modeled in each of 4 conformers: alpha-helix, antiparallel beta-strand, parallel beta-strand, and polyproline II helix (P(II)). Monte Carlo simulations in the canonical ensemble were performed at 300 K using the CHARMM 22 forcefield with TIP3P water. The simulations indicate that the solvation free energy of P(II) is favored over that of other conformers for reasons that defy conventional explanation. Specifically, in these 4 conformers, an almost perfect correlation is found between a residue's solvent-accessible surface area and the volume of its first solvent shell, but neither quantity is correlated with the observed differences in solvation free energy. Instead, solvation free energy tracks with the interaction energy between the peptide and its first-shell water. An additional, previously unrecognized contribution involves the conformation-dependent perturbation of first-shell solvent organization. Unlike P(II), beta-strands induce formation of entropically disfavored peptide:water bridges that order vicinal water in a manner reminiscent of the hydrophobic effect. The use of explicit water allows us to capture and characterize these dynamic water bridges that form and dissolve during our simulations.

Do all backbone polar groups in proteins form hydrogen bonds

Abstract: Evidence from proteins and peptides supports the conclusion that intrapeptide hydrogen bonds stabilize the folded form of proteins. Paradoxically, evidence from small molecules supports the opposite conclusion, that intrapeptide hydrogen bonds are less favorable than peptide–water hydrogen bonds. A related issue—often lost in this debate about comparing peptide–peptide to peptide– water hydrogen bonds—involves the energetic cost of an unsatisfied hydrogen bond. Here, experiment and theory agree that breaking a hydrogen bond costs between 5 and 6 kcal/mol. Accordingly, the likelihood of finding an unsatisfied hydrogen bond in a protein is insignificant. This realization establishes a powerful rule for evaluating protein conformations.

[8] Purification of cytochrome b5

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter provides information on the purification of cytochrome b 5 . The isolation of cytochrome b 5 from liver endoplasmic reticulum in its complete form requires fractionation procedures with detergents at 0° to avoid loss of peptide fragments by endopeptidase activity. The chapter mentions the procedure for the heme peptide and NADH-cytochrome b 5 reductase that can also be used for the complete form of cytochrome b 5 . NADH and the reductase are added to the cytochrome to yield the reduced spectrum. This procedure is the one that gradually evolved from the original procedure described for rabbit liver. To scale the preparation to large amounts of yearling steer liver, CaCI 2 precipitation of microsomes and slightly different column chromatography steps are employed. Cytochrome b 5 serves as an electron acceptor for cytochrome b 5 reductase and an electron donor for stearyl-CoA desaturase where the binding of the protein to phospholipid.

Comparison of multiple Amber force fields and development of improved protein backbone parameters.

Abstract: The ff94 force field that is commonly associated with the Amber simulation package is one of the most widely used parameter sets for biomolecular simulation. After a decade of extensive use and testing, limitations in this force field, such as over-stabilization of alpha-helices, were reported by us and other researchers. This led to a number of attempts to improve these parameters, resulting in a variety of "Amber" force fields and significant difficulty in determining which should be used for a particular application. We show that several of these continue to suffer from inadequate balance between different secondary structure elements. In addition, the approach used in most of these studies neglected to account for the existence in Amber of two sets of backbone phi/psi dihedral terms. This led to parameter sets that provide unreasonable conformational preferences for glycine. We report here an effort to improve the phi/psi dihedral terms in the ff99 energy function. Dihedral term parameters are based on fitting the energies of multiple conformations of glycine and alanine tetrapeptides from high level ab initio quantum mechanical calculations. The new parameters for backbone dihedrals replace those in the existing ff99 force field. This parameter set, which we denote ff99SB, achieves a better balance of secondary structure elements as judged by improved distribution of backbone dihedrals for glycine and alanine with respect to PDB survey data. It also accomplishes improved agreement with published experimental data for conformational preferences of short alanine peptides and better accord with experimental NMR relaxation data of test protein systems.

CHARMM36m: An improved force field for folded and intrinsically disordered proteins

Abstract: An all-atom protein force field, CHARMM36m, offers improved accuracy for simulating intrinsically disordered peptides and proteins. The all-atom additive CHARMM36 protein force field is widely used in molecular modeling and simulations. We present its refinement, CHARMM36m ( http://mackerell.umaryland.edu/charmm_ff.shtml ), with improved accuracy in generating polypeptide backbone conformational ensembles for intrinsically disordered peptides and proteins.

CHARMM-GUI Input Generator for NAMD, Gromacs, Amber, Openmm, and CHARMM/OpenMM Simulations using the CHARMM36 Additive Force Field

Abstract: Proper treatment of nonbonded interactions is essential for the accuracy of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, especially in studies of lipid bilayers. The use of the CHARMM36 force field (C36 FF) in different MD simulation programs can result in disagreements with published simulations performed with CHARMM due to differences in the protocols used to treat the long-range and 1-4 nonbonded interactions. In this study, we systematically test the use of the C36 lipid FF in NAMD, GROMACS, AMBER, OpenMM, and CHARMM/OpenMM. A wide range of Lennard-Jones (LJ) cutoff schemes and integrator algorithms were tested to find the optimal simulation protocol to best match bilayer properties of six lipids with varying acyl chain saturation and head groups. MD simulations of a 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) bilayer were used to obtain the optimal protocol for each program. MD simulations with all programs were found to reasonably match the DPPC bilayer properties (surface area per lipid, chain order para...