Monte Carlo simulations of voltage-driven translocation of a signal sequence

Transmembrane potentials play important but poorly understood roles in many biological processes, including signal sequence-mediated protein translocation across bacterial membranes. In this study we applied Monte Carlo techniques to simulate the way the potential acts on a signal sequence. The simu...

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Veröffentlicht in:FEBS letters 2002-08, Vol.526 (1), p.97-100
Hauptverfasser: Efremov, Roman G, Volynsky, Pavel E, Nolde, Dmitry E, van Dalen, Annemieke, de Kruijff, Ben, Arseniev, Alexander S
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Transmembrane potentials play important but poorly understood roles in many biological processes, including signal sequence-mediated protein translocation across bacterial membranes. In this study we applied Monte Carlo techniques to simulate the way the potential acts on a signal sequence. The simulations demonstrate that in the absence of a potential the signal sequence prefers insertion in both helical hairpin and transmembrane α-helical conformations. However, in the presence of a potential only the transmembrane α-helical conformation is the state of lowest energy for the signal sequence. From these results it is concluded that the membrane potential stabilizes the transmembrane orientation of a signal sequence, explaining the membrane potential dependence of preprotein translocation.
ISSN:0014-5793
1873-3468
DOI:10.1016/S0014-5793(02)03145-9