Latest
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Control of repeat-protein curvature by computational protein design
Shape complementarity is an important component of molecular recognition, and the ability to precisely adjust the shape of a binding scaffold to match a target of interest would greatly facilitate the creation of high-affinity protein reagents and therapeutics. Here we describe a general approach to control the shape of the binding surface on repeat-protein scaffolds…
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A general computational approach for repeat protein design
Repeat proteins have considerable potential for use as modular binding reagents or biomaterials in biomedical and nanotechnology applications. Here we describe a general computational method for building idealized repeats that integrates available family sequences and structural information with Rosetta de novo protein design calculations. Idealized designs from six different repeat families were generated and experimentally…
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High thermodynamic stability of parametrically designed helical bundles
We describe a procedure for designing proteins with backbones produced by varying the parameters in the Crick coiled coil–generating equations. Combinatorial design calculations identify low-energy sequences for alternative helix supercoil arrangements, and the helices in the lowest-energy arrangements are connected by loop building. We design an antiparallel monomeric untwisted three-helix bundle with 80-residue helices, an…
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Robust and accurate prediction of residue-residue interactions across protein interfaces using evolutionary information
Do the amino acid sequence identities of residues that make contact across protein interfaces covary during evolution? If so, such covariance could be used to predict contacts across interfaces and assemble models of biological complexes. We find that residue pairs identified using a pseudo-likelihood-based method to covary across protein–protein interfaces in the 50S ribosomal unit…
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A computationally designed inhibitor of an Epstein-Barr viral Bcl-2 protein induces apoptosis in infected cells
Since apopotosis of infected cells can limit virus production and spread, some viruses have co-opted prosurvival genes from the host. This includes the Epstein-Barr virus gene BHRF1, a homologue of human Bcl-2 proteins that block apoptosis and are associated with cancer. Here we describe an approach where computational design and experimental optimization were used to…
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Accurate design of co-assembling multi-component protein nanomaterials
The self-assembly of proteins into highly ordered nanoscale architectures is a hallmark of biological systems. The sophisticated functions of these molecular machines have inspired the development of methods to engineer self-assembling protein nanostructures; however, the design of multi-component protein nanomaterials with high accuracy remains an outstanding challenge. Here we report a computational method for designing protein nanomaterials in which multiple copies of two distinct subunits co-assemble…
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Removing T-cell epitopes with computational protein design
King, C. et al. PNAS 111, 8577-82 (2014) Immune reposes can make protein therapeutics ineffective or even dangerous. Here we describe a general computational protein design method for reducing immunogenicity by eliminating known and predicted T-cell epitopes and maximizing the content of human peptide sequences without disrupting protein structure and function. We show that the method…
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Design of activated serine-containing catalytic triads with atomic-level accuracy
Rajagopalan, S., Wang, C., et al. Nat Chem Bio. 10(5), 386-391 (2014) A challenge in the computational design of enzymes is that multiple properties, including substrate binding, transition state stabilization and product release, must be simultaneously optimized, and this has limited the absolute activity of successful designs. Here, we focus on a single critical property…