Site-specific thermodynamic stability and unfolding of a de novo designed protein structural motif mapped by 13C isotopically edited IR spectroscopy.

The mechanism of protein folding remains poorly understood, in part due to limited experimental information available about partially folded states. Isotopically edited infrared (IR) spectroscopy has emerged as a promising method for studying protein structural changes with site-specific resolution, but its full potential to systematically probe folding at multiple protein sites has not yet been realized. We have used (13)C isotopically edited IR spectroscopy to investigate the site-specific thermal unfolding at seven different locations in the de novo designed helix-turn-helix protein αtα. As one of the few stable helix-turn-helix motifs, αtα is an excellent model for studying the roles of secondary and tertiary interactions in folding. Circular dichroism (CD) experiments on the full αtα motif and its two peptide fragments show that interhelical tertiary contacts are critical for stabilization of the secondary structure. The site-specific thermal unfolding probed by (13)C isotopically edited IR is likewise consistent with primarily tertiary stabilization of the local structure. The least thermally stable part of the αtα motif is near the turn where the interhelical contacts are rather loose, while the motif's center with best established core packing has the highest stability. Similar correlation between the local thermal stability and tertiary contacts was found previously for a naturally occurring helix-turn-helix motif. These results underline the importance of native-like tertiary stabilizing interactions in folding, in agreement with recent state-of-the art folding simulations as well as simplified, native-centric models.