The Origin of the Designability of Protein Structures

We study the designability of all compact 3x3x3 and 6x6 lattice-protein structures using the Miyazawa-Jernigan (MJ) matrix. The designability of a structure is the number of sequences that design the structure, i.e. sequences that have that structure as their unique lowest-energy state. Previous studies of hydrophobic-polar (HP) models showed a wide distribution of structure designabilities. Recently, questions were raised concerning the use of a 2-letter (HP) code in such st...

By exact computer enumeration and combinatorial methods, we have calculated the designability of proteins in a simple lattice H-P model for the protein folding problem. We show that if the strength of the non-additive part of the interaction potential becomes larger than a critical value, the degree of designability of structures will depend on the parameters of potential. We also show that the existence of a unique ground state is highly sensitive to mutation in certain si...

The precise sequence of aminoacids plays a central role in the tertiary structure of proteins and their functional properties. The Hydrophobic-Polar lattice models have provided valuable insights regarding the energy landscape. We demonstrate here the isomorphism between the protein sequences and designable structures for two and three dimensional lattice proteins of very long aminoacid chains using exact enumerations and intuitive considerations.We emphasize that the topolog...

Protein folds are highly designable, in the sense that many sequences fold to the same conformation. In the present work we derive an expression for the designability in a 20 letter lattice model of proteins which, relying only on the Central Limit Theorem, has a generality which goes beyond the simple model used in its derivation. This expression displays an exponential dependence on the energy of the optimal sequence folding on the given conformation measured with respect t...

A general strategy is described for finding which amino acid sequences have native states in a desired conformation (inverse design). The approach is used to design sequences of 48 hydrophobic and polar aminoacids on three-dimensional lattice structures. Previous studies employing a sequence-space Monte-Carlo technique resulted in the successful design of one sequence in ten attempts. The present work also entails the exploration of conformations that compete significantly wi...

Using an off-lattice model, we fully enumerate folded conformations of polypeptide chains of up to N = 19 monomers. Structures are found to differ markedly in designability, defined as the number of sequences with that structure as a unique lowest-energy conformation. We find that designability is closely correlated with the pattern of surface exposure of the folded structure. For longer chains, complete enumeration of structures is impractical. Instead, structures can be ran...

Native protein folds often have a high degree of symmetry. We study the relationship between the symmetries of native proteins, and their designabilities -- how many different sequences encode a given native structure. Using a two-dimensional lattice protein model based on hydrophobicity, we find that those native structures that are encoded by the largest number of different sequences have high symmetry. However only certain symmetries are enhanced, e.g. x/y-mirror symmetry ...

We present an analytical method for determining the designability of protein structures. We apply our method to the case of two-dimensional lattice structures, and give a systematic solution for the spectrum of any structure. Using this spectrum, the designability of a structure can be estimated. We outline a heirarchy of structures, from most to least designable, and show that this heirarchy depends on the potential that is used.

By enumerating all sequences of length 20, we study the designability of structures in a two-dimensional Hydrophobic-Polar (HP) lattice model in a wide range of inter-monomer interaction parameters. We find that although the histogram of designability depends on interaction parameters, the set of highly designable structures is invariant. So in the HP lattice model the High Designability should be a purely geometrical feature. Our results suggest two geometrical properties fo...

On the study of protein folding, our understanding about the protein structures is limited. In this paper we find one way to characterize the compact structures of lattice protein model. A quantity called Partnum is given to each compact structure. The Partnum is compared with the concept Designability of protein structures emerged recently. It is shown that the highly designable structures have, on average, an atypical number of local degree of freedom. The statistical prope...