Quantum chemical studies on anion specificity of C^αNN motif in functional proteins

Anion binding C^αNN motif is found in functionally important regions of protein structures. This motif based only on backbone atoms from three adjacent residues, recognizes free sulphate or phosphate ion as well as phosphate groups in nucleotides and in a variety of cofactors. The mode of anion recognition and microscopic picture of binding interaction remains unclear. Here we perform self-consistent quantum chemical calculations considering sulphate and phosphate bound C^αNN motif fragments from crystal structures of functional proteins in order to figure out microscopic basis of anion recognition. Our calculations indicate that stability and preference of the anion in the motif depends on the sequence of the motif. The stabilization energy is larger in case of polar residue containing motif fragment. Nitrogen atom of the polar residue of motif mainly participates in the coordination at the lowest energy levels. Anion replacement decreases stabilization energy along with coordination between motif atoms and oxygen atoms of anion shifted to higher energies, suggesting preference of the motif residues to specific anion. Our analysis may be helpful to understand microscopic basis of interaction between proteins and ionic species.