Disordered proteins follow diverse transition paths as they fold and bind to a partner

Abstract

Shedding light on disordered proteins Disordered proteins often fold as they bind to a partner protein. There could be many different molecular trajectories between the unbound proteins and the bound complex. Most methods to measure transition paths rely on monitoring a single distance, making it difficult to resolve complex pathways. Kim and Chung used fast three-color single-molecule Foster resonance energy transfer (FRET) to simultaneously probe distance changes between the two ends of an unfolded protein and between each end and a probe on the partner protein. They show that binding can be initiated by diverse conformations and that the molecules are held together by non-native interactions as the disordered protein folds. This allows the association to be diffusion limited because most collisions lead to binding. Science , this issue p. 1253