A Study of a Protein-Folding Machine: Transient Rotation of the Polypeptide Backbone Facilitates Rapid Folding of Protein Domains in All-Atom Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Molecular dynamics simulations of protein folding typically consider the polypeptide chain at equilibrium and in isolation from the cellular components. We argue that in order to understand protein folding as it occurs in vivo, it should be modeled as an active, energy-dependent process, in which the cellular protein-folding machine directly manipulates the polypeptide. We conducted all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of four protein domains, whose folding from the extended state was augmented by the application of rotational force to the C-terminal amino acid, while the movement of the N-terminal amino acid was restrained. We have shown earlier that such a simple manipulation of peptide backbone facilitated the formation of native structures in diverse α-helical peptides. In this study, the simulation protocol was modified, to apply the backbone rotation and movement restriction only for a short time at the start of simulation. This transient application of a mechanical force to the peptide is sufficient to accelerate, by at least an order of magnitude, the folding of four protein domains from different structural classes to their native or native-like conformations. Our in silico experiments show that a compact stable fold may be attained more readily when the motions of the polypeptide are biased by external forces and constraints.