The Ca(2+) influence on calmodulin unfolding pathway: a steered molecular dynamics simulation study

PLoS One. 2012;7(11):e49013. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049013. Epub 2012 Nov 7.

Abstract

The force-induced unfolding of calmodulin (CaM) was investigated at atomistic details with steered molecular dynamics. The two isolated CaM domains as well as the full-length CaM were simulated in N-C-terminal pulling scheme, and the isolated N-lobe of CaM was studied specially in two other pulling schemes to test the effect of pulling direction and compare with relevant experiments. Both Ca(2+)-loaded CaM and Ca(2+)-free CaM were considered in order to define the Ca(2+) influence to the CaM unfolding. The results reveal that the Ca(2+) significantly affects the stability and unfolding behaviors of both the isolated CaM domains and the full-length CaM. In Ca(2+)-loaded CaM, N-terminal domain unfolds in priori to the C-terminal domain. But in Ca(2+)-free CaM, the unfolding order changes, and C-terminal domain unfolds first. The force-extension curves of CaM unfolding indicate that the major unfolding barrier comes from conquering the interaction of two EF-hand motifs in both N- and C- terminal domains. Our results provide the atomistic-level insights in the force-induced CaM unfolding and explain the observation in recent AFM experiments.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Calcium / chemistry
  • Calcium / metabolism*
  • Calmodulin / chemistry
  • Calmodulin / metabolism*
  • Molecular Dynamics Simulation
  • Protein Folding
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary

Substances

  • Calmodulin
  • Calcium

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from Natural Science Foundations of China (31070827) and by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.