Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2009, Vol. 25 ›› Issue (3): 269-272.

• Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Conformation Disturbance of CopC by α-Naphthylamine

LI Hui-qing, ZHENG Xiao-yan, ZHAO Ya-qin and YANG Bin-sheng*   

  1. Institute of Molecular Science, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, P. R. China
  • Online:2009-05-25 Published:2009-08-07
  • Contact: YANG Bin-sheng, E-mail: yangbs@sxu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:

    Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No. 20771068) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province, China(No. 2007011024).

Abstract:

It is known that urea and guanidine hydrochloride(GuHCl) induce conformational change of proteins in a certain range of molar ratios. In our research, α-naphthylamine(NA) above 10–4 mol/L at pH 7.0 was discovered to perturb the conformation of CopC, a copper resistant protein with a Greek β-barrel motif; this was reflected by the greater fluorescence quenching and red-shifted emission peak of CopC. The conformation change of CopC was also verified in acrylamide collision experiment by comparing quenching levels of CopC in the presence or the abscence of NA. Comparison of emission change of CopC-Cu2+ with that of apo-CopC showed a consistent result with their denaturation in GuHCl. And decreasing fluorescence polarization of CopC with increasing NA concentration is consistent with a more extend conformation of CopC. Interaction mechanism was also explored.

Key words: α-Naphthylamine(NA); CopC; Conformational change