Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.139, No.45, 16168-16177, 2017
Dynamic Transition from alpha-Helices to beta-Sheets in Polypeptide Coiled-Coil Motifs
We carried out dynamic force manipulations in silico on a variety of coiled-coil protein fragments from myosin, chemotaxis receptor, vimentin, fibrin, and phenylalanine zippers that vary in size and topology of their alpha-helical packing. When stretched along the superhelical axis, all superhelices show elastic, plastic, and inelastic elongation regimes and undergo a dynamic transition from the alpha-helices to the beta-sheets, which marks the onset of plastic deformation. Using the Abeyaratne-Knowles formulation of phase transitions, we developed a new theoretical methodology to model mechanical and kinetic properties of protein coiled-coils under mechanical nonequilibrium conditions and to map out their energy landscapes. The theory was successfully validated by comparing the simulated and theoretical force-strain spectra. We derived the scaling laws for the elastic force and the force for alpha-to-beta transition, which can be used to understand natural proteins' properties as well as to rationally design novel biomaterials of required mechanical strength with desired balance between stiffness and plasticity.