Institute of Biological Information Processing (IBI-7: Structural Biochemistry), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
JuStruct: Jülich Center for Structural Biology, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2022 May;29(5):440-450. doi: 10.1038/s41594-022-00762-2. Epub 2022 Apr 28.
Hydrogen bonds are fundamental to the structure and function of biological macromolecules and have been explored in detail. The chains of hydrogen bonds (CHBs) and low-barrier hydrogen bonds (LBHBs) were proposed to play essential roles in enzyme catalysis and proton transport. However, high-resolution structural data from CHBs and LBHBs is limited. The challenge is that their 'visualization' requires ultrahigh-resolution structures of the ground and functionally important intermediate states to identify proton translocation events and perform their structural assignment. Our true-atomic-resolution structures of the light-driven proton pump bacteriorhodopsin, a model in studies of proton transport, show that CHBs and LBHBs not only serve as proton pathways, but also are indispensable for long-range communications, signaling and proton storage in proteins. The complete picture of CHBs and LBHBs discloses their multifunctional roles in providing protein functions and presents a consistent picture of proton transport and storage resolving long-standing debates and controversies.
氢键是生物大分子结构和功能的基础，已经得到了详细的研究。氢键链（CHBs）和低势垒氢键（LBHBs）被认为在酶催化和质子传递中发挥着重要作用。然而，CHBs 和 LBHBs 的高分辨率结构数据有限。挑战在于，要“可视化”它们，需要超分辨率结构的基态和功能重要的中间态来识别质子转移事件，并进行结构分配。我们对光驱动质子泵菌视紫红质的真实原子分辨率结构的研究，这种蛋白是质子传递研究的模型，表明 CHBs 和 LBHBs 不仅作为质子通道，而且对于蛋白质中的长程通讯、信号传递和质子储存也是必不可少的。CHBs 和 LBHBs 的完整图像揭示了它们在提供蛋白质功能方面的多功能作用，并提供了一个一致的质子传递和储存的图像，解决了长期存在的争论和争议。
