MODELING MULTIPLE DISULFIDE LOOP CONTAINING POLYPEPTIDES BY RANDOM CONFORMATION GENERATION - THE TEST CASES OF ALPHA-CONOTOXIN GI AND ENDOTHELIN-I

A general procedure for arriving at 3-D models of disulphide-rich polypeptide systems based on the covalent cross-link constraints has been developed. The procedure, which has been coded as a computer program, RANMOD, assigns a large number of random, permitted backbone conformations to the polypeptide and identifies stereochemically acceptable structures as plausible models based on strainless disulphide bridge modelling. Disulphide bond modelling is performed using the procedure MODIP developed earlier, in connection with the choice of suitable sites where disulphide bonds could be engineered in proteins (Sowdhamini, R., Srinivasan, N., Shoichet, B., Santi, D.V., Ramakrishnan, C. and Balaram, P. (1989) Protein Engng, 3, 95-103). The method RANMOD has been tested on small disulphide loops and the structures compared against preferred backbone conformations derived from an analysis of putative disulphide subdatabase and model calculations. RANMOD has been applied to disulphide-rich peptides and found to give rise to several stereochemically acceptable structures. The results obtained on the modelling of two test cases, alpha-conotoxin GI and endothelin I, are presented. Available NMR data suggest that such small systems exhibit conformational heterogeneity in solution. Hence, this approach for obtaining several distinct models is particularly attractive for the study of conformational excursions.