Monday, February 11, 2019

Global Implications of Local Unfolding Phenomena, Probed by Cysteine Reactivity in Human Frataxin

Santiago E. Faraj, Martín E. Noguera, José María Delfino & Javier Santos; Scientific Reportsvolume 9, Article number: 1731 (2019) doi:10.1038/s41598-019-39429-2

Local events that affect specific regions of proteins are of utmost relevance for stability and function. The aim of this study is to quantitatively assess the importance of locally-focused dynamics by means of a simple chemical modification procedure. Taking human Frataxin as a working model, we investigated local fluctuations of the C-terminal region (the last 16 residues of the protein) by means of three L → C replacement mutants: L98C, L200C and L203C. The conformation and thermodynamic stability of each variant was assessed.