Characterizing Transient Protein-Protein Interactions by Trp-Cys Quenching and Computer Simulations

Transient protein-protein interactions occur frequently under the crowded conditions encountered in biological environments. Tryptophan-cysteine quenching is introduced as an experimental approach with minimal labeling for characterizing such interactions between proteins due to its sensitivity to nano- to microsecond dynamics on subnanometer length scales. The experiments are paired with computational modeling at different resolutions including fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations for interpretation of the experimental observables and to gain molecular-level insights. This approach is applied to model systems, villin variants and the drkN SH3 domain, in the presence of protein G crowders. It is demonstrated that Trp-Cys quenching experiments can differentiate between overall attractive and repulsive interactions between different proteins, and they can discern variations in interaction preferences at different protein surface locations. The close integration between experiment and simulations also provides an opportunity to evaluate different molecular force fields for the simulation of concentrated protein solutions.