Abstract
We developed a 'computational second-site suppressor' strategy to redesign specificity at a protein-protein interface and applied it to create new specifically interacting DNase-inhibitor protein pairs. We demonstrate that the designed switch in specificity holds in in vitro binding and functional assays. We also show that the designed interfaces are specific in the natural functional context in living cells, and present the first high-resolution X-ray crystallographic analysis of a computer-redesigned functional protein-protein interface with altered specificity. The approach should be applicable to the design of interacting protein pairs with novel specificities for delineating and re-engineering protein interaction networks in living cells.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the members of the Baker lab for stimulating discussions, and J. Havranek for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by a long-term fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program (T.K.), a Wellcome Trust International Prize fellowship (A.N.B.), a US National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant (L.A.J.) and a grant from the NIH (D.B.).
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Kortemme, T., Joachimiak, L., Bullock, A. et al. Computational redesign of protein-protein interaction specificity. Nat Struct Mol Biol 11, 371–379 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb749
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb749