A Fully Atomistic Model of the Cx32 Connexon

Connexins are plasma membrane proteins that associate in hexameric complexes to form channels named connexons. Two connexons in neighboring cells may dock to form a “gap junction” channel, i.e. an intercellular conduit that permits the direct exchange of solutes between the cytoplasm of adjacent cells and thus mediate cell–cell ion and metabolic signaling. The lack of high resolution data for connexon structures has hampered so far the study of the structure–function relationships that link molecular effects of disease–causing mutations with their observed phenotypes. Here we present a combination of modeling techniques and molecular dynamics (MD) to infer side chain positions starting from low resolution structures containing only Cα atoms. We validated this procedure on the structure of the KcsA potassium channel, which is solved at atomic resolution. We then produced a fully atomistic model of a homotypic Cx32 connexon starting from a published model of the Cα carbons arrangement for the connexin transmembrane helices, to which we added extracellular and cytoplasmic loops. To achieve structural relaxation within a realistic environment, we used MD simulations inserted in an explicit solvent–membrane context and we subsequently checked predictions of putative side chain positions and interactions in the Cx32 connexon against a vast body of experimental reports. Our results provide new mechanistic insights into the effects of numerous spontaneous mutations and their implication in connexin-related pathologies. This model constitutes a step forward towards a structurally detailed description of the gap junction architecture and provides a structural platform to plan new biochemical and biophysical experiments aimed at elucidating the structure of connexin channels and hemichannels.