Many biological processes depend on allosteric communication between different parts of a protein, but the role of internal protein motion in propagating signals through the structure remains largely unknown. Through an experimental and computational analysis of the ground state dynamics in ubiquitin, we identify a collective global motion that is specifically linked to a conformational switch distant from the binding interface. This allosteric coupling is also present in crystal structures and is found to facilitate multispecificity, particularly binding to the ubiquitin-specific protease (USP) family of deubiquitinases. The collective motion that enables this allosteric communication does not affect binding through localized changes but, instead, depends on expansion and contraction of the entire protein domain. The characterization of these collective motions represents a promising avenue for finding and manipulating allosteric networks.allostery | protein dynamics | concerted motion | relaxation dispersion | nuclear magnetic resonance I ntermolecular interactions are one of the key mechanisms by which proteins mediate their biological functions. For many proteins, these interactions are enhanced or suppressed by allosteric networks that couple distant regions together (1). The mechanisms by which these networks function are just starting to be understood (2-4), and many of the important details have yet to be uncovered. In particular, the role of intrinsic protein motion and kinetics remains particularly poorly characterized. A number of structural ensembles representing ubiquitin motion have been recently proposed (5-9). Additionally, it has been suggested that through motion at the binding interface, its free state visits the same conformations found in complex with its many binding partners (5, 10). However, it remains an unanswered question if the dynamics that enable this multispecificity are only clustered around the canonical binding interface or whether this motion is allosterically coupled to the rest of the protein, especially given the presence of motion at distal sites (11).
ResultsTo answer this question and to provide a detailed structural picture of the underlying mechanism, we applied recently developed high-power relaxation dispersion (RD) experiments (12, 13) to both the backbone amide proton ( 1 H N ) and nitrogen ( 15 N) nuclei of ubiquitin. This survey yielded a nearly twofold increase in the number of nuclei where RD had been previously observed (11)(12)(13)(14) (from 17 to 31; Fig. 1A and Fig. S1). When fit individually, the full set of backbone and side-chain nuclei shows a consistent time scale of motion [exchange lifetime (τ ex ) = 55 μs; Fig. 1B]. Furthermore, the nuclei showing exchange are spread throughout the structure (Fig. 1C). Put together, these data suggest that the motions are not independent but share a common molecular mechanism.To determine whether the RD data could be modeled using a single collective motion, we developed a computational method to take a set of molecu...