@misc{BestZhengBorgiaetal.2018, author = {Best, Robert B. and Zheng, Wenwei and Borgia, Alessandro and Buholzer, Karin and Borgia, Madeleine B. and Hofmann, Hagen and Soranno, Andrea and Nettels, Daniel and Gast, Klaus and Grishaev, Alexander and Schuler, Benjamin}, title = {Comment on "Innovative scattering analysis shows that hydrophobic disordered proteins are expanded in water"}, series = {Science}, volume = {361}, journal = {Science}, number = {6405}, publisher = {American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0036-8075}, doi = {10.1126/science.aar7101}, pages = {2}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Riback et al. (Reports, 13 October 2017, p. 238) used small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments to infer a degree of compaction for unfolded proteins in water versus chemical denaturant that is highly consistent with the results from Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) experiments. There is thus no "contradiction" between the two methods, nor evidence to support their claim that commonly used FRET fluorophores cause protein compaction.}, language = {en} } @article{NettelsMuellerSpaethKuesteretal.2009, author = {Nettels, Daniel and M{\"u}ller-Sp{\"a}th, Sonja and K{\"u}ster, Frank and Hofmann, Hagen and Haenni, Domminik and R{\"u}egger, Stefan and Reymond, Luc and Hoffmann, Armin S. and Kubelka, Jan and Heinz, Benjamin and Gast, Klaus and Best, Robert B. and Schuler, Benjamin}, title = {Single-molecule spectroscopy of the temperature-induced collapse of unfolded proteins}, issn = {0027-8424}, year = {2009}, abstract = {We used single-molecule FRET in combination with other biophysical methods and molecular simulations to investigate the effect of temperature on the dimensions of unfolded proteins. With singlemolecule FRET, this question can be addressed even under nearnative conditions, where most molecules are folded, allowing us to probe a wide range of denaturant concentrations and temperatures. We find a compaction of the unfolded state of a small cold shock protein with increasing temperature in both the presence and the absence of denaturant, with good agreement between the results from single-molecule FRET and dynamic light scattering. Although dissociation of denaturant from the polypeptide chain with increasing temperature accounts for part of the compaction, the results indicate an important role for additional temperaturedependent interactions within the unfolded chain. The observation of a collapse of a similar extent in the extremely hydrophilic, intrinsically disordered protein prothymosin suggests that the hydrophobic effect is not the sole source of the underlying interactions. Circular dichroism spectroscopy and replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations in explicit water show changes in secondary structure content with increasing temperature and suggest a contribution of intramolecular hydrogen bonding to unfolded state collapse.}, language = {en} } @article{BorgiaZhengBuholzeretal.2016, author = {Borgia, Alessandro and Zheng, Wenwei and Buholzer, Karin and Borgia, Madeleine B. and Sch{\"u}ler, Anja and Hofmann, Hagen and Soranno, Andrea and Nettels, Daniel and Gast, Klaus and Grishaev, Alexander and Best, Robert B. and Schuler, Benjamin}, title = {Consistent View of Polypeptide Chain Expansion in Chemical Denaturants from Multiple Experimental Methods}, series = {Journal of the American Chemical Society}, volume = {138}, journal = {Journal of the American Chemical Society}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0002-7863}, doi = {10.1021/jacs.6b05917}, pages = {11714 -- 11726}, year = {2016}, abstract = {There has been a long-standing controversy regarding the effect of chemical denaturants on the dimensions of unfolded and intrinsically disordered proteins: A wide range of experimental techniques suggest that polypeptide chains expand with increasing denaturant concentration, but several studies using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) have reported no: such increase of the radius of gyration (R-g). This inconsistency challenges our current understanding of the mechanism of chemical denaturants, which are widely employed to investigate protein folding and stability. Here, we use a combination Of single-molecule Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET), SAXS, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and two-focus fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (2f-FCS) to characterize the denaturant dependence of the unfolded state of the spectrin domain R17 and the intrinsically disordered protein ACTR in two different denaturants. Standard analysis of the primary data clearly indicates an expansion of the unfolded state with increasing denaturant concentration irrespective of the protein, denaturant, or experimental method used. This is the first case in which SAXS and FRET have yielded even qualitatively consistent results regarding expansion in denaturant when applied to the same proteins. To more directly illustrate this self-consistency, we used both SAXS and FRET data in a Bayesian procedure to refine structural ensembles representative of the observed unfolded state. This analysis demonstrates that both of these experimental probes are compatible with a common ensemble of protein configurations for each denaturant concentration. Furthermore, the resulting ensembles reproduce the trend of increasing hydrodynamic radius, with denaturant concentration obtained by 2f-FCS,and DLS. We were thus able to reconcile the results from all four experimental techniques quantitatively, to obtain a comprehensive structural picture of denaturant;induced unfolded state expansion, and to identify the Most likely sources of earlier discrepancies.}, language = {en} }