Triggers for protein restructuring determined

Science : Some proteins regularly change their shape and, therefore, their properties because of changes in surrounding conditions, such as temperature. The shape changes are triggered by specific amino acid sequences, and now scientists led by Ashutosh Chilkoti of Duke University in North Carolina and Felipe Quiroz of Rockefeller University in New York have compiled a library of those sequences for elastin-like proteins. Elastin, which is a muscle fiber protein that transitions between soluble and insoluble, lets muscles stretch, contract, and return to their original shape. Chilkoti and Quiroz’s library was built by synthesizing proteins based on five key amino acid sequences found in elastin and then testing to see whether the synthesized proteins changed solubility. They used the results to define a set of guidelines about which sequences are most likely to trigger changes in protein shape. They hope the library and guidelines can be used to help design more effective synthetic proteins for drug delivery.