The conformational stability of globular proteins is strongly influenced by the addition to water of different co-solutes. Some of the latter destabilize the native state, while others stabilize it. It is emerging that stabilizing agents are able to counteract the action of destabilizing agents. We have already provided experimental evidence that this counteraction is a general phenomenon and offered a rationalization. In the present work, we show that four different sugars, namely fructose, glucose, sucrose, and trehalose, counteract the effect of urea, tetramethylurea, sodium perchlorate, guanidinium chloride, and guanidinium thiocyanate despite the chemical and structural differences of those destabilizing agents. The rationalization we provide is as follows: (a) the solvent-excluded volume effect, a purely entropic effect, stabilizes the native state, whose solvent-accessible surface area is smaller than the one of denatured conformations; (b) the magnitude of the solvent-excluded volume effect increases markedly in ternary solutions because the experimental density of such solutions is larger than that of pure water.

General Counteraction Exerted by Sugars against Denaturants / Cozzolino, Serena; Tortorella, Attila; Del Vecchio, Pompea; Graziano, Giuseppe. - In: LIFE. - ISSN 2075-1729. - 11:7(2021), p. 652. [10.3390/life11070652]

General Counteraction Exerted by Sugars against Denaturants

Tortorella, Attila;Del Vecchio, Pompea;Graziano, Giuseppe
2021

Abstract

The conformational stability of globular proteins is strongly influenced by the addition to water of different co-solutes. Some of the latter destabilize the native state, while others stabilize it. It is emerging that stabilizing agents are able to counteract the action of destabilizing agents. We have already provided experimental evidence that this counteraction is a general phenomenon and offered a rationalization. In the present work, we show that four different sugars, namely fructose, glucose, sucrose, and trehalose, counteract the effect of urea, tetramethylurea, sodium perchlorate, guanidinium chloride, and guanidinium thiocyanate despite the chemical and structural differences of those destabilizing agents. The rationalization we provide is as follows: (a) the solvent-excluded volume effect, a purely entropic effect, stabilizes the native state, whose solvent-accessible surface area is smaller than the one of denatured conformations; (b) the magnitude of the solvent-excluded volume effect increases markedly in ternary solutions because the experimental density of such solutions is larger than that of pure water.
2021
General Counteraction Exerted by Sugars against Denaturants / Cozzolino, Serena; Tortorella, Attila; Del Vecchio, Pompea; Graziano, Giuseppe. - In: LIFE. - ISSN 2075-1729. - 11:7(2021), p. 652. [10.3390/life11070652]
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11588/855662
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 5
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 5
social impact