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91 Publications visible to you, out of a total of 91
Breaking Strong Alkynyl-Phenyl Bonds: Poly(para-phenylene ethynylene)s under Mechanical Stress

Abstract

Not specified

Authors: Maximilian Elter, Matthias Brosz, Daniel Sucerquia, Andrei Kuzhelev, Denis C. Kiesewetter, Markus Kurth, Andreas Dreuw, Thomas F. Prisner, Jan Freudenberg, Uwe H. F. Bunz, Frauke Gräter

Date Published: 27th Sep 2024

Publication Type: Journal

O-glycans Expand Lubricin and Attenuate Its Viscosity and Shear Thinning

Abstract

Not specified

Authors: Saber Boushehri, Hannes Holey, Matthias Brosz, Peter Gumbsch, Lars Pastewka, Camilo Aponte-Santamaría, Frauke Gräter

Date Published: 30th May 2024

Publication Type: Journal

Grappa – A Machine Learned Molecular Mechanics Force Field

Abstract

Not specified

Authors: Leif Seute, Eric Hartmann, Jan Stühmer, Frauke Gräter

Date Published: 25th Mar 2024

Publication Type: Journal

Mechanical control of the adhesion of malaria-infected erythrocytes to the placenta

Abstract (Expand)

Pathogens use sophisticated adhesion mechanisms to remain attached to the host’s surfaces. A key example of this is the adhesion of erythrocytes infected with Plasmodium, the parasite which causes … malaria, to the microvasculature. Remarkably, in the case of pregnancy-associated malaria, the adherence of parasitized erythrocytes to the placenta is enhanced by the shear of the flowing blood, suggesting a catch-bond adhesion mechanism. The adhesion is mediated by a parasite protein called VAR2CSA which anchors such infected erythrocytes to the proteoglycan matrix of the placenta. In this work, by using extensive equilibrium and force-probe molecular dynamics simulations, we elucidate the—so far unknown—molecular mechanism governing the adhesive function of VAR2CSA. We demonstrate that the elongation tension that arises from the shear of the flowing blood opens VAR2CSA into two structurally-intact domains, thereby exposing cryptic sugar binding sites. The orientation of VAR2CSA with respect to the pulling direction as well as strong sugar-protein shearing interactions favor this mode of opening. Accordingly, as the basis for a catch bond, we propose that mechanical forces strengthen the adhesion of infected erythrocytes, by increasing the number of sugar binding sites in VAR2CSA and not the bond lifetime as it would be canonically thought for a catch bond. This constitutes a new intriguing hypothesis which is of high relevance for our understanding of malaria infection and for the design of vaccines. More generally, our results put forward force-induced multivalency of mechano-responsive proteins as a key new concept for pathogen-host interactions.

Authors: Rita Roessner, Nicholas Michelarakis, Frauke Gräter, Camilo Aponte-Santamaría

Date Published: 8th Feb 2024

Publication Type: Journal

Substituting density functional theory in reaction barrier calculations for hydrogen atom transfer in proteins

Abstract (Expand)

Hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) reactions are important in many biological systems. As these reactions are hard to observe experimentally, it is of high interest to shed light on them using simulations. … Here, we present a machine learning model based on graph neural networks for the prediction of energy barriers of HAT reactions in proteins. As input, the model uses exclusively non-optimized structures as obtained from classical simulations. It was trained on more than 17 000 energy barriers calculated using hybrid density functional theory. We built and evaluated the model in the context of HAT in collagen, but we show that the same workflow can easily be applied to HAT reactions in other biological or synthetic polymers. We obtain for relevant reactions (small reaction distances) a model with good predictive power (R2 ∼ 0.9 and mean absolute error of <3 kcal mol−1). As the inference speed is high, this model enables evaluations of dozens of chemical situations within seconds. When combined with molecular dynamics in a kinetic Monte-Carlo scheme, the model paves the way toward reactive simulations.

Authors: Kai Riedmiller, Patrick Reiser, Elizaveta Bobkova, Kiril Maltsev, Ganna Gryn'ova, Pascal Friederich, Frauke Gräter

Date Published: 16th Jan 2024

Publication Type: Journal

SUMO's intrinsically disordered N-terminus is an intramolecular inhibitor of SUMO - SIM interactions

Abstract (Expand)

Small Ubiquitin-related modifiers of the SUMO family regulate thousands of proteins in eukaryotic cells. Many SUMO substrates, effectors and enzymes carry short motifs (SIMs) that mediate low affinity … interactions with SUMO proteins. This raises the question how specificity is achieved in target selection, SUMO paralogue choice and SUMO-dependent interactions. A unique but poorly understood feature of SUMO proteins is their intrinsically disordered N-terminus. We reveal a function for N-termini of human, C. elegans, and yeast SUMO proteins as intramolecular inhibitors of SUMO-SIM interactions. Mutational analyses, NMR spectroscopy, and Molecular Dynamics simulations indicate that SUMO's N-terminus can inhibit SIM binding by fast and fuzzy interactions with SUMO‘s core. Deletion of the C. elegans SUMO1 N-terminus leads to p53-dependent apoptosis during germline development, indicating an important role of SUMO's N-termini in DNA damage repair. Our findings reveal a mechanism of disorder-based autoinhibition that contributes to the specificity of SUMOylation and SUMO-dependent interactions.

Authors: Stefan Richter, Fan Jin, Tobias Ritterhoff, Aleksandra Fergin, Eric Maurer, Andrea Frank, Alex Hajnal, Rachel Klevit, Frauke Gräter, Annette Flotho, Frauke Melchior

Date Published: 5th Jan 2024

Publication Type: Journal

Myristoyl's dual role in allosterically regulating and localizing Abl kinase

Abstract (Expand)

c-Abl kinase, a key signalling hub in many biological processes ranging from cell development to proliferation, is tightly regulated by two inhibitory Src homology domains. An N-terminal myristoyl-modification … can bind to a hydrophobic pocket in the kinase C-lobe, which stabilizes the auto-inhibitory assembly. Activation is triggered by myristoyl release. We used molecular dynamics simulations to show how both myristoyl and the Src homology domains are required to impose the full inhibitory effect on the kinase domain, and reveal the allosteric transmission pathway at residue-level resolution. Importantly, we find myristoyl insertion into a membrane to thermodynamically compete with binding to c-Abl. Myristoyl thus not only localizes the protein to the cellular membrane, but membrane attachment at the same time enhances activation of c-Abl by stabilizing its pre-activated state. Our data put forward a model in which lipidation tightly couples kinase localization and regulation, a scheme that currently appears to be unique for this non-receptor tyrosine kinase.

Authors: Svenja de Buhr, Frauke Gräter

Date Published: 16th Oct 2023

Publication Type: Journal

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