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Effects of a helix substitution on the folding mechanism of bovine α‐lactalbumin

The structure, stability, and unfolding‐refolding kinetics of a chimeric protein, in which the amino acid sequence of the flexible loop region (residues 105–110) comes from equine lysozyme and the remainder of the sequence comes from bovine α‐lactalbumin were studied by circular dichroism spectroscopy and stopped‐flow measurements, and the results were compared with those of bovine α‐lactalbumin. The substitution of the flexible loop in bovine α‐lactalbumin with the helix D of equine lysozyme destabilizes the molten globule state, although the native state is significantly stabilized by substitution of the flexible loop region. The kinetic refolding and unfolding experiments showed that the chimeric protein refolds significantly faster and unfolds substantially slower than bovine α‐lactalbumin. To characterize the transition state between the molten globule and the native states, we investigated the guanidine hydrochloride concentration dependence of the rate constants of refolding and unfolding. Despite the significant differences in the stabilities of both the molten globule and native states between the chimeric protein and bovine α‐lactalbumin, the free energy level of the transition state is not affected by the amino acid substitution in the flexible loop region. Our results suggest that the destabilization in the molten globule state of the chimeric protein is caused by the disruption of the non‐native interaction in the flexible loop region and that the disruption of the non‐native interaction reduces the free energy barrier of refolding. We conclude that the non‐native interaction in the molten globule state may act as a kinetic trap for the folding of α‐lactalbumin. Proteins 2002;49:95–103. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.