Spin labeling and Double Electron-Electron Resonance (DEER) to Deconstruct Conformational Ensembles of HIV Protease

An understanding of macromolecular conformational equilibrium in biological systems is oftentimes essential to understand function, dysfunction, and disease. For the past few years, our lab has been utilizing site-directed spin labeling (SDSL), coupled with electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, to characterize the conformational ensemble and ligand-induced conformational shifts of HIV-1 protease (HIV-1PR). The biomedical importance of characterizing the fractional occupancy of states within the conformational ensemble critically impacts our hypothesis of a conformational selection mechanism of drug-resistance evolution in HIV-1PR. The purpose of the following chapter is to give a timeline perspective of our SDSL EPR approach to characterizing conformational sampling of HIV-1PR. We provide detailed instructions for the procedure utilized in analyzing distance profiles for HIV-1PR obtained from pulsed electron-electron double resonance (PELDOR). Specifically, we employ a version of PELDOR known as double electron-electron resonance (DEER). Data are processed with the software package "DeerAnalysis" (http://www.epr.ethz.ch/software), which implements Tikhonov regularization (TKR), to generate a distance profile from electron spin-echo amplitude modulations. We assign meaning to resultant distance profiles based upon a conformational sampling model, which is described herein. The TKR distance profiles are reconstructed with a linear combination of Gaussian functions, which is then statistically analyzed. In general, DEER has proven powerful for observing structural ensembles in proteins and, more recently, nucleic acids. Our goal is to present our advances in order to aid readers in similar applications.