Biophysical and Computational Studies of Human Disease Related Proteins with a Single-Pass Transmembrane Helix
Park, Younghee, and Jens Meiler. "Biophysical and Computational Studies of Human Disease Related Proteins with a Single-Pass Transmembrane Helix." Biophysical Journal 120, no. 3 (2021): 25a.
Single-pass transmembrane receptors (SPTMRs) are involved in essential processes of biophysical and pathological nature in the human. This membrane protein family includes receptor tyrosine kinases, integrins, and immunoreceptors, which play an important role in metabolism, growth, proliferation, and apoptosis. SPTMR consists of several distinct domains including the extracellular domain (ECD), the transmembrane domain (TMD), and the intracellular domain (ICD) and exists as a monomer, homo- and/or heterodimer. Upon a ligand ligation through ECD, homo- or heterodimerization of SPTMR forms, followed by consequent modification of the ICDs, leading to the initiation of cellular signaling events. This activation requires interactions between TMD helices whose role in receptor activation becomes important. TMD is further highlighted by the discovery of mutations in the TMD or juxtamembrane domain (JMD) that are associated with human diseases. However, the details of cross-membrane signal transduction via SPTMRs have to be elucidated. Due to the high conformational flexibility of SPTMRs with their diverse structural composition, it is hard to characterize SPTMRs structurally. This drives us to work with only TMD helices of SPTMRs and focus on their interactions in the lipid bilayer environment. Our approach is the use of not only experimental data but also computational MD simulations to understand how TMD helices interact and how mutants associated with diseases affect the dimerization of TMD helices.