Abstract
Conjugation of fluorescent dyes to proteins - a prerequisite for the study of conformational dynamics by single molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (smFRET) - can lead to substantial changes of the dye's photophysical properties, ultimately biasing the determination of inter-dye distances. In particular, cyanine dyes and their derivatives, the most used dyes in smFRET experiments, exhibit such behavior. To overcome this, we developed a general strategy to site-specifically equip proteins with FRET pairs by chemo-selective reactions using two distinct non-canonical amino acids simultaneously incorporated through genetic code expansion in Escherichia coli. Applied to human NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase (CPR), the importance of homogenously labeled samples for accurate determination of FRET efficiencies was demonstrated and the effect of NADP+ on the ionic strength dependent modulation of the conformational equilibrium of CPR was unveiled. Given its generality and accuracy, the presented methodology establishes a new benchmark to decipher complex molecular dynamics on single molecules.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 659-666 |
Journal | Chembiochem |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 14 Nov 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Mar 2019 |
Keywords
- bioorthogonal double labeling
- biophysics
- conformation analysis
- noncanonical amino acids
- protein engineering