Tuning Protein Autoinhibition by Domain Destabilization

Activation of many multi-domain signaling proteins requires rearrangement of autoinhibitory interdomain interactions that occlude activator binding sites. In one model for activation, the major inactive conformation exists in equilibrium with activated-like conformations that can be stabilized by ligand binding or post-translational modifications. The molecular basis for this model is established for the archetypal signaling adapter protein Crk-II by measuring the thermodynamics and kinetics of the equilibrium between autoinhibited and activated-like states using fluorescence and NMR spectroscopies, together with segmental isotopic labeling via expressed protein ligation. The results demonstrate that intramolecular domain-domain interactions both stabilize the autoinhibited state and induce the activated-like conformation. A combination of favorable interdomain interactions and unfavorable intradomain structural changes fine-tunes the population of the activated-like conformation and allows facile response to activators. This mechanism suggests a general strategy for optimization of autoinhibitory interactions of multi-domain proteins.