Amide hydrogen exchange and internal dynamics in the chemotactic protein CheY from Escherichia coli

The backbone internal dynamics of the wild-type 129 amino acid alpha/beta parallel protein CheY and its double mutant F14N/P110G are analysed here by the hydrogen-exchange method. The F14N mutation is known to stabilise the protein and to accelerate refolding while P110G is destabilising and accelerates unfolding. We first assigned and characterised the double mutant by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), to try and discover any possible conformational change induced by the two mutations. The main difference between the two proteins is a favourable N-capping interaction of the newly introduced Asn14 side-chain at the beginning of the first alpha-helix (alpha-helix A). Second, we have measured the exchange rates in the wild-type and mutant CheY. In the first case the observed protection factors are slightly dispersed around an average value. According to their distribution in the structure, protein stability is highest on one face of the central beta-sheet, in the surroundings of the main hydrophobic core formed by side-chains of residues in beta-strands I, II and III and helices A and E. The mutations in the double mutant protein affect two distinct subdomains differently (from beta-strand I to III and from alpha-helix C to the end). In the second subdomain the number of protected protons is reduced with respect to those in the wild-type. This differential behaviour can be explained by a selective decrease in stability of the second folding subdomain produced by the P110G mutation and the opposite effect in the first subdomain, produced by the F14N mutation. alpha-Helix A, which is involved together with beta-strands I and III in the folding nucleus of CheY, shows the largest protection factors in both proteins.