Copyright © 2008 Cell Press. All rights reserved.
Structure, Vol 16, 513-527, 08 April 2008
Article
Structure Prediction of Domain Insertion Proteins from Structures of Individual Domains
1 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
∗Corresponding author
Jeffrey J. Gray
jgray@jhu.edu
Summary
Multidomain proteins continue to be a major challenge in protein structure prediction. Here we present a Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm, implemented within Rosetta, to predict the structure of proteins in which one domain is inserted into another. Three MC moves combine rigid-body and loop movements to search the constrained conformation by structure disruption and subsequent repair of chain breaks. Local searches find that the algorithm samples and recovers near-native structures consistently. Further global searches produced top-ranked structures within 5 Å in 31 of 50 cases in low-resolution mode, and refinement of top-ranked low-resolution structures produced models within 2 Å in 21 of 50 cases. Rigid-body orientations were often correctly recovered despite errors in linker conformation. The algorithm is broadly applicable to de novo structure prediction of both naturally occurring and engineered domain insertion proteins.

