Elastin recoil is driven by the hydrophobic effect.

Elastin is an extracellular matrix material found in all vertebrates. Its reversible elasticity, robustness, and low stiffness are essential for the function of arteries, lungs, and skin. It is among the most resilient elastic materials known: During a human lifetime, arterial elastin undergoes in excess of 2 × 109 stretching/contracting cycles without replacement, and slow oxidative hardening has been identified as a limiting factor on human lifespan. For over 50 y, the mechanism of entropic recoil has been controversial. Herein, we report a combined NMR and thermomechanical study that establishes the hydrophobic effect as the primary driver of elastin function. Water ordering at the solvent:protein interface was observed as a function of stretch using double quantum 2H NMR, and the most extensive thermodynamic analysis performed to date was obtained by measuring elastin length and volume as a function of force and temperature in normal water, heavy water and with cosolvents. When stretched, elastin's heat capacity increases, water is ordered proportional to the degree of stretching, the internal energy decreases, and heat is released in excess of the work performed. These properties show that recoil in elastin under physiological conditions is primarily driven by the hydrophobic effect rather than by configurational entropy as is the case for rubber. Consistent with this conclusion are decreases in the thermodynamic signatures when cosolvents that alter the hydrophobic effect are introduced. We propose that hydrophobic effect-driven recoil, as opposed to a configurational entropy mechanism where hardening from crystallization can occur, is the origin of elastin's unusual resilience.

Dynamics in natural and designed elastins and their relation to elastic fiber structure and recoil.

Elastin fibers assemble in the extracellular matrix from the precursor protein tropoelastin and provide the flexibility and spontaneous recoil required for arterial function. Unlike many proteins, a structure-function mechanism for elastin has been elusive. We have performed detailed NMR relaxation studies of the dynamics of the minielastins 24x' and 20x' using solution NMR, and of purified bovine elastin fibers in the presence and absence of mechanical stress using solid state NMR. The low sequence complexity of the minielastins enables us to determine average dynamical timescales and degrees of local ordering in the cross-link and hydrophobic modules separately using NMR relaxation by taking advantage of their residue-specific resolution. We find an extremely high degree of disorder, with order parameters for the entirety of the hydrophobic domains near zero, resembling that of simple chemical polymers and less than the order parameters that have been observed in other intrinsically disordered proteins. We find that average backbone order parameters in natural, purified elastin fibers are comparable to those found in 24x' and 20x' in solution. The difference in dynamics, compared with the minielastins, is that backbone correlation times are significantly slowed in purified elastin. Moreover, when elastin is mechanically stretched, the high chain disorder in purified elastin is retained, showing that any change in local ordering is below that detectable in our experiment. Combined with our previous finding of a 10-fold increase in the ordering of water when fully hydrated elastin fibers are stretched by 50%, these results support the hypothesis that stretch induced solvent ordering, i.e., the hydrophobic effect, is a key player in the elastic recoil of elastin as opposed to configurational entropy loss.

Order, Disorder, and Temperature-Driven Compaction in a Designed Elastin Protein.

Artificial minielastin constructs have been designed that replicate the structure and function of natural elastins in a simpler context, allowing the NMR observation of structure and dynamics of elastin-like proteins with complete residue-specific resolution. We find that the alanine-rich cross-linking domains of elastin have a partially helical structure, but only when capped by proline-rich hydrophobic domains. We also find that the hydrophobic domains, composed of prominent 6-residue repeats VPGVGG and APGVGV found in natural elastins, appear random coil by both NMR chemical shift analysis and circular dichroism. However, these elastin hydrophobic domains exhibit structural bias for a dynamically disordered conformation that is neither helical nor ß sheet with a degree of nonrandom structural bias which is dependent on residue type and position in the sequence. Another nonrandom-coil aspect of hydrophobic domain structure lies in the fact that, in contrast to other intrinsically disordered proteins, these hydrophobic domains retain a relatively condensed conformation whether attached to cross-linking domains or not. Importantly, these domains and the proteins containing them constrict with increasing temperature by up to 30% in volume without becoming more ordered. This property is often observed in nonbiological polymers and suggests that temperature-driven constriction is a new type of protein structural change that is linked to elastin's biological functions of coacervation-driven assembly and elastic recoil.

15N solid-state NMR provides a sensitive probe of oxidized flavin reactive sites.

Flavins are central to the reactivity of a wide variety of enzymes and electron transport proteins. There is great interest in understanding the basis for the different reactivities displayed by flavins in different protein contexts. We propose solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (SS-NMR) as a tool for directly observing reactive positions of the flavin ring and thereby obtaining information on their frontier orbitals. We now report the SS-NMR signals of the redox-active nitrogens N1 and N5, as well as that of N3. The chemical shift tensor of N5 is over 720 ppm wide, in accordance with the predictions of theory and our calculations. The signal of N3 can be distinguished on the basis of coupling to 1H absent for N1 and N5, as well as the shift tensor span of only 170 ppm, consistent with N3's lower aromaticity and lack of a nonbonding lone pair. The isotropic shifts and spans of N5 and N1 reflect two opposite extremes of the chemical shift range for "pyridine-type" N's, consistent with their electrophilic and nucleophilic chemical reactivities, respectively. Upon flavin reduction, N5's chemical shift tensor contracts dramatically to a span of less than 110 ppm, and the isotropic chemical shift changes by approximately 300 ppm. Both are consistent with loss of N5's nonbonding lone pair and decreased aromaticity, and illustrate the responsiveness of the 15N chemical shift principal values to electronic structure. Thus. 15N chemical shift principal values promise to be valuable tools for understanding electronic differences that underlie variations in flavin reactivity, as well as the reactivities of other heterocyclic cofactors.

Peptide 17O chemical shielding and electric field gradient tensors.

Complete (17)O chemical shielding (CS) and quadrupole coupling (QC) tensors and their molecular orientations were determined for the central residues in two tripeptides Gly-Gly-Val (GGV) and Ala-Gly-Gly (AGG) by single-crystal NMR methods. Tensor orientations in the two peptides are very similar, however, principal components are different. The most shielded CS and smallest magnitude QC components are normal to the peptide plane, while the most deshielded CS and largest QC components are in the peptide plane either at an angle of 17 degrees (CS) or perpendicular (QC) to the C=O bond. Comparisons of principal components from experiment and DFT calculations indicate that the smaller shielding tensor span in GGV (549 ppm) compared to AGG (606 ppm) is likely due to two factors: a shorter "direct" H-bond distance to the peptide carbonyl oxygen and an "indirect" H bond of the peptide NH to a carboxylate rather than a carbonyl. We anticipate that (17)O NMR should be generally useful for probing H-bonding and local electrostatic interactions in proteins and polypeptides. Using the single-crystal data as an accurate reference, we show that a useful subset of the NMR parameters, QC and CS principal components and their relative orientation, can be obtained with reasonable accuracy from a very high-field (21.2 T), stationary sample powder spectrum.

Ion-binding study by 17O solid-state NMR spectroscopy in the model peptide Gly-Gly-Gly at 19.6 T.

Li(+) and Ca(2+) binding to the carbonyl oxygen sites of a model peptide system has been studied by (17)O solid-state NMR spectroscopy. (17)O chemical shift (CS) and quadrupole coupling (QC) tensors are determined in four Gly-(Gly-(17)O)-Gly polymorphs by a combination of stationary and fast magic-angle spinning (MAS) methods at high magnetic field, 19.6 T. In the crystal lattice, the carbonyl oxygen of the central glycyl residue in two gly-gly-gly polymorphs form intermolecular hydrogen bonds with amides, whereas the corresponding carbonyl oxygens of the other two polymorphs form interactions with Li(+) and Ca(2+) ions. This permits a comparison of perturbations on (17)O NMR properties by ion binding and intermolecular hydrogen bonding. High quality spectra are augmented by density functional theory (DFT) calculations on large molecular clusters to gain additional theoretical insights and to aid in the spectral simulations. Ion binding significantly decreases the two (17)O chemical shift tensor components in the peptide plane, delta(11) and delta(22), and, thus, a substantial change in the isotropic chemical shift. In addition, quadrupole coupling constants are decreased by up to 1 MHz. The effects of ion binding are found to be almost an order of magnitude greater than those induced by hydrogen bonding.

Single-crystal studies of peptide prolyl and glycyl 15N shielding tensors.

15N shielding tensors were determined for the central peptide groups in GGV, AGG, and APG by single-crystal NMR. We find that the angle between the downfield component (delta11) and the N-H or the N-C(delta) (pro) bonds is in the range of 20-23 degrees and in accord with previous solid-state NMR measurements. However, AGG, unlike APG or GGV, has a distorted peptide plane, and delta11 lies approximately in the plane of N, C(alpha), and H rather than in the peptide plane defined by heavy atoms. Accurate orientations of delta22 and delta33 were determined, and the usual assumption that delta22 is along the peptide normal was found only in APG which has a highly nonaxial tensor. More generally, delta22 and delta33 are rotated about the delta11 axis (36 degrees in GGV). These results are compared with DFT calculations to gain a structural understanding of the effects of intermolecular interactions on shielding tensor principal components and orientations. Trimeric clusters containing H-bonded neighbors predict the orientations of the principal components within 2-3 degrees, but calculated principal components are less quantitative. Possible reasons for this disagreement are explored.

15N Chemical shielding in glycyl tripeptides: measurement by solid-state NMR and correlation with X-ray structure.

15N chemical shielding parameters are reported for central glycyl residues in crystallographically characterized tripeptides with alpha-helix, beta-strand, polyglycine II (3(1)-helix), and extended structures. Accurate values of the shielding components (2-5 ppm) are determined from MAS and stationary spectra of peptides containing [2-(13)C,(15)N]Gly. Two dipolar couplings, (1)H-(15)N and (13)C(alpha)-(15)N, are used to examine (15)N shielding tensor orientations in the molecular frame and the results indicate that the delta(11), delta(33) plane of the shielding tensor is not coincident with the peptide plane. The observed isotropic shifts, which vary over a range of 13 ppm, depend on hydrogen bonding (direct and indirect) and local conformation. Tensor spans, delta(span) = delta(11) - delta(33), and their deviations from axial symmetry, delta(dev) = delta(22) - delta(33), vary over a larger range and are grouped according to 2 degrees structure. Augmented by previously reported (13)C(alpha) shielding parameters, a prediction scheme for the 2 degrees structure of glycyl residues in proteins based on shielding parameters is proposed.

Quantitative observation of backbone disorder in native elastin.

Elastin is a key protein in soft tissue function and pathology. Establishing a structural basis for understanding its reversible elasticity has proven to be difficult. Complementary to structure is the important aspect of flexibility and disorder in elastin. We have used solid-state NMR methods to examine polypeptide and hydrate ordering in both elastic (hydrated) and brittle (dry) elastin fibers and conclude (i) that tightly bound waters are absent in both dry and hydrated elastin and (ii) that the backbone in the hydrated protein is highly disordered with large amplitude motions. The hydrate was studied by (2)H and (17)O NMR, and the polypeptide by (13)C and (2)H NMR. Using a two-dimensional (13)C MAS method, an upper limit of S < 0.1 was determined for the backbone carbonyl group order parameter in hydrated elastin. For comparison, S approximately approximately 0.9 in most proteins. The former result is substantiated by two additional observations: the absence of the characteristic (2)H spectrum for stationary amides and "solution-like" (13)C magic angle spinning spectra at 75 degrees C, at which the material retains elasticity. Comparison of the observed shifts with accepted values for alpha-helices, beta-sheets, or random coils indicates a random coil structure at all carbons. These conclusions are discussed in the context of known thermodynamic properties of elastin and, more generally, protein folding. Because coacervation is an entropy-driven process, it is enhanced by the observed backbone disorder, which, we suggest, is the result of high proline content. This view is supported by recent studies of recombinant elastin polypeptides with systematic proline substitutions.

17O quadrupole coupling and chemical shielding tensors in an H-bonded carboxyl group: alpha-oxalic acid.

We have used single crystal (17)O NMR and density functional theory to investigate intermolecular interactions in a strongly H-bonded system. The chemical shielding (CS) and quadrupole coupling (QC) tensors are determined in oxalic acid dihydrate by single crystal methods. With cross polarization from abundant protons, high quality spectra are obtained in 1-2 min from 10 micromol samples. In the crystal lattice, oxalic acid is H-bonded directly to the hydrate with each carboxyl group accepting two H-bonds at C=O and donating one H-bond from COH. The effects of these intermolecular interactions on the experimentally determined QC and CS tensors are modeled by density functional theory with a procedure that accurately calculates, without scaling, the known QC tensors in both gas-phase water and ice. The ice calculation uses a cluster containing 42 waters (in excess of two complete hydration shells). The same procedure applied to a similarly constructed cluster of hydrated oxalic acid gives QC and CS tensors that are within 3-6% of the observed values while isolated molecule tensors are significantly different. Comparison of the isolated molecule tensors with those from either experiment or the cluster calculation shows the magnitude and directionality of intermolecular interactions on the tensors. The isotropic shift of the COH oxygen is deshielded by 29 ppm, and C=O is shielded by 62 ppm while the spans of the CS tensors are increased by 78 ppm and decreased by 73 ppm, respectively. Magnitudes of the quadrupole coupling constants, which are proportional to the electric field gradients at the (17)O sites, decrease by 2.2 and 1.2 MHz at COH and C=O, respectively.

Glycyl C(alpha) chemical shielding in tripeptides: measurement by solid-state NMR and correlation with X-ray structure and theory.

We report here (13)C(alpha) chemical shielding parameters for central Gly residues in tripeptides adopting alpha-helix, beta-strand, polyglycine II, and fully extended 2 degrees structures. To assess experimental uncertainties in the shielding parameters and the effects of (14)N-(13)C(alpha) or (15)N-(13)C(alpha) dipolar coupling, stationary and magic angle spinning (MAS) spectra with and without (15)N decoupling were obtained from natural abundance and double-labeled samples containing [2-(13)C, (15)N]Gly. We find that accurate (<1 ppm uncertainty) shielding parameters are measured with good sensitivity and resolution in (15)N decoupled 1D or 2D MAS spectra of double-labeled samples. Compared to variations of isotropic shifts with peptide angles, those of (13)C(alpha) shielding anisotropy and asymmetry are greater. Trends relating shielding parameters to the 2 degrees structure are apparent, and the correlation of the experimental values with unscaled ab initio shielding calculations has an rms error of 3 ppm. Using the experimental data and the ab initio shielding values, the empirical trends relating the 2 degrees structure to shielding are extended to the larger range of torsion angles found in proteins.

Solid-state NMR and calorimetry of structural waters in helical peptides.

The peptide hydrates Gly-Gly-Val x 2H(2)O (GGV) and Gly-Ala-Leu x 3H(2)O (GAL) are known to adopt alpha-helical configurations containing waters of hydration in which each water is H-bonded to three or four peptide groups. Herein we report a thermodynamic and solid-state NMR ((2)H and (17)O) study of these peptides. From TGA and DSC, the average enthalpy per H-bond is 15 kJ/mol. The dynamics and average orientation of the hydrate are studied by powder and single-crystal (2)H NMR. Whereas waters that are shown by the X-ray structure to be coordinated by four hydrogen bonds do not yield observable (2)H NMR signals at room temperature, two of the three triply coordinated waters yield residual (2)H quadrupole coupling tensors characteristic of rapid 180 degrees flip motions and the orientation of the residual tensor is that expected from the X-ray structure-derived H-bonding pattern. At -65 degrees C, the flip motions of triply coordinated water in GGV slow into the (2)H NMR intermediate exchange regime whereas the tetrahedrally coordinated water approaches the slow-exchange limit and yields an observable NMR signal. Extensive isotope exchange between water vapor and crystalline GGV establishes the presence of additional hydrate dynamics and solid-state proton transfer along a chain of water-bridged protonated alpha-amino groups.