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A computational investigation on the connection between dynamics properties of ribosomal proteins and ribosome assembly.

ABSTRACT: Assembly of the ribosome from its protein and RNA constituents has been studied extensively over the past 50 years, and experimental evidence suggests that prokaryotic ribosomal proteins undergo conformational changes during assembly. However, to date, no studies have attempted to elucidate these conformational changes. The present work utilizes computational methods to analyze protein dynamics and to investigate the linkage between dynamics and binding of these proteins during the assembly of the ribosome. Ribosomal proteins are known to be positively charged and we find the percentage of positive residues in r-proteins to be about twice that of the average protein: Lys+Arg is 18.7% for E. coli and 21.2% for T. thermophilus. Also, positive residues constitute a large proportion of RNA contacting residues: 39% for E. coli and 46% for T. thermophilus. This affirms the known importance of charge-charge interactions in the assembly of the ribosome. We studied the dynamics of three primary proteins from E. coli and T. thermophilus 30S subunits that bind early in the assembly (S15, S17, and S20) with atomic molecular dynamic simulations, followed by a study of all r-proteins using elastic network models. Molecular dynamics simulations show that solvent-exposed proteins (S15 and S17) tend to adopt more stable solution conformations than an RNA-embedded protein (S20). We also find protein residues that contact the 16S rRNA are generally more mobile in comparison with the other residues. This is because there is a larger proportion of contacting residues located in flexible loop regions. By the use of elastic network models, which are computationally more efficient, we show that this trend holds for most of the 30S r-proteins.

SUBMITTER: Burton B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3359968 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A computational investigation on the connection between dynamics properties of ribosomal proteins and ribosome assembly.

Burton Brittany B Zimmermann Michael T MT Jernigan Robert L RL Wang Yongmei Y

PLoS computational biology 20120524 5

Assembly of the ribosome from its protein and RNA constituents has been studied extensively over the past 50 years, and experimental evidence suggests that prokaryotic ribosomal proteins undergo conformational changes during assembly. However, to date, no studies have attempted to elucidate these conformational changes. The present work utilizes computational methods to analyze protein dynamics and to investigate the linkage between dynamics and binding of these proteins during the assembly of t ...[more]

PMID: 22654657

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Assembly of the ribosome from its protein and RNA constituents must occur quickly and efficiently in order to synthesize the proteins necessary for all cellular activity. Since the early 1960's, certain characteristics of possible assembly pathways have been elucidated, yet the mechanisms that govern the precise recognition events remain unclear.We utilize a comparative analysis to investigate the amino acid composition of ribosomal proteins (r-proteins) with respect to their role in the assembly process. We compared small subunit (30S) r-protein sequences to those of other housekeeping proteins from 560 bacterial species and searched for correlations between r-protein amino acid content and factors such as assembly binding order, environmental growth temperature, protein size, and contact with ribosomal RNA (rRNA) in the 30S complex. RESULTS:We find r-proteins have a significantly high percent of positive residues, which are highly represented at rRNA contact sites. An inverse correlation between the percent of positive residues and r-protein size was identified and is mainly due to the content of Lysine residues, rather than Arginine. Nearly all r-proteins carry a net positive charge, but no statistical correlation between the net charge and the binding order was detected. Thermophilic (high-temperature) r-proteins contain increased Arginine, Isoleucine, and Tyrosine, and decreased Serine and Threonine compared to mesophilic (lower-temperature), reflecting a known distinction between thermophiles and mesophiles, possibly to account for protein thermostability. However, this difference in amino acid content does not extend to rRNA contact sites, as the proportions of thermophilic and mesophilic contact residues are not significantly different. CONCLUSIONS:Given the significantly higher level of positively charged residues in r-proteins and at contact sites, we conclude that ribosome assembly relies heavily on an electrostatic component of interaction. However, the binding order of r-proteins in assembly does not appear to depend on these electrostatics interactions. Additionally, because thermophiles and mesophiles exhibit significantly different amino acid compositions in their sequences but not in the identities of contact sites, we conclude that this electrostatic component of interaction is insensitive to temperature and is not the determining factor differentiating the temperature sensitivity of ribosome assembly.

Dataset Information

A computational investigation on the connection between dynamics properties of ribosomal proteins and ribosome assembly.

Publications

A computational investigation on the connection between dynamics properties of ribosomal proteins and ribosome assembly.

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