Methionine oxidation of monomeric lambda repressor: the denatured state ensemble under nondenaturing conditions

Although poorly understood, the properties of the denatured state ensemble are critical to the thermodynamics and the kinetics of protein folding. The most relevant conformations to cellular protein folding are the ones populated under physiological conditions. To avoid the problem of low expression that is seen with unstable variants, we used methionine oxidation to destabilize monomeric lambda repressor and predominantly populate the denatured state under nondenaturing buffer conditions. The denatured ensemble populated under these conditions comprises conformations that are compact. Analytical ultracentrifugation sedimentation velocity experiments indicate a small increase in Stokes radius over that of the native state. A significant degree of alpha-helical structure in these conformations is detected by far-UV circular dichroism, and some tertiary interactions are suggested by near-UV circular dichroism. The characteristics of the denatured state populated by methionine oxidation in nondenaturing buffer are very different from those found in chemical denaturant.