Surgery News

Protein pulling advances in protein folding science

August 23, 2015



"We believe the method can be applied to any protein," said lead author Ching-Hwa Kiang, assistant professor of physics and astronomy. "Many people are working on this problem, and when we present our work at scientific conferences it often creates a good deal of excitement."



At the halfway point between it's folded and unfolded state, a protein is like a rollercoaster balanced at the crest of the highest hill on the track. Like the rollercoaster, the protein requires a certain amount of energy to make it over the hill and wind its course to a final resting place -- its folded state. If it lacks the energy to clear the hill, it will slide back into a partially folded or misfolded state.

Kiang and graduate student Nolan Harris's new approach to probing these energy states yields something akin to a map of the rollercoaster's path. For example, theirs is the only experimental method that can reveal the slope and height of the energy barrier that the protein must overcome.

"Other experimental methods give researchers a pretty clear picture of the energy states at the beginning and the end -- the two equilibrium states," Kiang said. "Our approach helps fill in what happens in between, when the system is between folded and unfolded."


Harris measured the force exerted on the cantilever arm each time an I27 was unfolded. To get the energy maps, he wrote software incorporating a statistical mechanics equation called the "Jarzynski equality." The equation related the non-equilibrium energy from the unfolding events to the equilibrium profiles along the trajectory from the folded to the unfolded state. Kiang said the software, and the use of the Jarzynski equality, makes the new method unique and useful.

"Christopher Jarzynski only discovered this relationship 10 years ago," Kiang said. "It's a very powerful technique."