Complete folding of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor with only a single disulfide bond

In the oxidative folding of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) at neutral pH, only two one-disulfide intermediates accumulate to a significant extent, namely [5-55] and [30-51]. In this paper we describe a recombinant model of [5-55], designated [5-55]Ala, which was made by replacing the cysteine residues not involved in the disulfide bond with alanine. As judged by two-dimensional NMR, [5-55]Ala folds into essentially the same conformation as native BPTI. Moreover, like native BPTI, [5-55]Ala inhibits trypsin stoichiometrically. Thus, the disulfide-bonded intermediate [5-55] corresponds not to a partially folded protein folding intermediate but rather to an essentially completely folded protein. This conclusion provides an explanation for many of the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of [5-55] in the folding pathway of BPTI.