Case study of hydrogen bonding in a hydrophobic cavity

Protein internal hydrogen bonds and hydrophobicity determine protein folding and structure stabilization, and the introduction of a hydrogen bond has been believed to represent a better interaction for consolidating protein structure. We observed an alternative example for chicken IL-1β. The native IL-1β contains a hydrogen bond between the Y157 side-chain OηH and I133 backbone CO, whereby the substitution from Tyr to Phe abolishes the connection and the mutant without the hydrogen bond is more stable. An attempt to explain the energetic view of the presence of the hydrogen bond fails when only considering the nearly identical X-ray structures. Here, we resolve the mechanism by monitoring the protein backbone dynamics and interior hydrogen bond network. IL-1β contains a hydrophobic cavity in the protein interior, and Y157 is one of the surrounding residues. The Y157 OηH group introduces an unfavorable energy in the hydrophobic cavity, therefore sequestering itself by forming a hydrogen bond with the proximate residue I133. The hydrogen bonding confines Y157 orientation but exerts a force to disrupt the hydrogen bond network surrounding the cavity. The effect propagates over the entire protein and reduces the stability, as reflected in the protein backbone dynamics observed by an NMR hydrogen-deuterium (H/D) exchange experiment. We describe the particular case in which a hydrogen bond does not necessarily confer enhanced protein stability while the disruption of hydrophobicity must be integrally considered.