@article {2022|2150, title = {Modeling the Dynamics of Protein-Protein Interfaces, How and Why?}, journal = {Molecules}, volume = {27}, year = {2022}, pages = {1841}, abstract = {

Protein-protein assemblies act as a key component in numerous cellular processes. Their accurate modeling at the atomic level remains a challenge for structural biology. To address this challenge, several docking and a handful of deep learning methodologies focus on modeling protein-protein interfaces. Although the outcome of these methods has been assessed using static reference structures, more and more data point to the fact that the interaction stability and specificity is encoded in the dynamics of these interfaces. Therefore, this dynamics information must be taken into account when modeling and assessing protein interactions at the atomistic scale. Expanding on this, our review initially focuses on the recent computational strategies aiming at investigating protein-protein interfaces in a dynamic fashion using enhanced sampling, multi-scale modeling, and experimental data integration. Then, we discuss how interface dynamics report on the function of protein assemblies in globular complexes, in fuzzy complexes containing intrinsically disordered proteins, as well as in active complexes, where chemical reactions take place across the protein-protein interface.

}, issn = {1420-3049}, doi = {10.3390/molecules27061841}, url = {https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/27/6/1841}, author = {Karaca, Ezgi and Pr{\'e}vost, Chantal and S Sacquin-Mora} } @article {2021, title = {Moving pictures: Reassessing docking experiments with a dynamic view of protein interfaces.}, journal = {Proteins}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 May 26}, abstract = {

The modeling of protein assemblies at the atomic level remains a central issue in structural biology, as protein interactions play a key role in numerous cellular processes. This problem is traditionally addressed using docking tools, where the quality of the models is based on their similarity to a single reference experimental structure. However, using a static reference does not take into account the dynamic quality of the protein interface. Here, we used all-atom classical Molecular Dynamics simulations to investigate the stability of the reference interface for three complexes that previously served as targets in the CAPRI competition. For each one of these targets, we also ran MD simulations for ten models that are distributed over the High, Medium and Acceptable accuracy categories. To assess the quality of these models from a dynamic perspective, we set up new criteria which take into account the stability of the reference experimental protein interface. We show that, when the protein interfaces are allowed to evolve along time, the original ranking based on the static CAPRI criteria no longer holds as over 50\% of the docking models undergo a category change (which can be either toward a better or a lower accuracy group) when reassessing their quality using dynamic information.

}, issn = {1097-0134}, doi = {10.1002/prot.26152}, author = {Chantal Pr{\'e}vost and S Sacquin-Mora} } @article {2018|2047, title = {Mechanical variations in proteins with large-scale motions highlight the formation of structural locks}, journal = {Journal of Structural Biology}, year = {2018}, keywords = {Coarse-grain simulations, Elastic network model, Protein domain motion, Proteins mechanics}, issn = {1047-8477}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsb.2018.05.006}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1047847718301308}, author = {S Sacquin-Mora} } @article {2018|2044, title = {Meet-U: Educating through research immersion}, journal = {PLOS Computational Biology}, volume = {14}, year = {2018}, month = {03}, pages = {1-10}, abstract = {

We present a new educational initiative called Meet-U that aims to train students for collaborative work in computational biology and to bridge the gap between education and research. Meet-U mimics the setup of collaborative research projects and takes advantage of the most popular tools for collaborative work and of cloud computing. Students are grouped in teams of 4\–5 people and have to realize a project from A to Z that answers a challenging question in biology. Meet-U promotes \"coopetition,\" as the students collaborate within and across the teams and are also in competition with each other to develop the best final product. Meet-U fosters interactions between different actors of education and research through the organization of a meeting day, open to everyone, where the students present their work to a jury of researchers and jury members give research seminars. This very unique combination of education and research is strongly motivating for the students and provides a formidable opportunity for a scientific community to unite and increase its visibility. We report on our experience with Meet-U in two French universities with master\’s students in bioinformatics and modeling, with protein\–protein docking as the subject of the course. Meet-U is easy to implement and can be straightforwardly transferred to other fields and/or universities. All the information and data are available at www.meet-u.org.

}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005992}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005992}, author = {Abdollahi, Nika and Albani, Alexandre and Anthony, Eric and Baud, Agnes and Cardon, M{\'e}lissa and Clerc, Robert and Czernecki, Dariusz and Conte, Romain and David, Laurent and Delaune, Agathe and Djerroud, Samia and Fourgoux, Pauline and Guiglielmoni, Nad{\`e}ge and Laurentie, Jeanne and Lehmann, Nathalie and Lochard, Camille and Montagne, R{\'e}mi and Myrodia, Vasiliki and Opuu, Vaitea and Parey, Elise and Polit, L{\'e}lia and Priv{\'e}, Sylvain and Quignot, Chlo{\'e} and Ruiz-Cuevas, Maria and Sissoko, Mariam and Sompairac, Nicolas and Vallerix, Audrey and Verrecchia, Violaine and Delarue, Marc and Gu{\'e}rois, Raphael and Ponty, Yann and S Sacquin-Mora and Carbone, Alessandra and Froidevaux, Christine and Le Crom, St{\'e}phane and Lespinet, Olivier and Weigt, Martin and Abboud, Samer and Bernardes, Juliana and Bouvier, Guillaume and Dequeker, Chlo{\'e} and Ferr{\'e}, Arnaud and Fuchs, Patrick and Lelandais, Ga{\"e}lle and Poulain, Pierre and Richard, Hugues and Schweke, Hugo and Laine, Elodie and Lopes, Anne} } @article {2017, title = {Mobility and core-protein binding patterns of disordered C-terminal tails in β-tubulin isotypes.}, journal = {Biochemistry}, volume = { 56}, year = {2017}, pages = {1746{\textendash}1756}, chapter = {1746}, abstract = {

Although they play a significant part in the regulation of microtubule structure, dynamics and function, the disordered C-terminal tails of tubulin remain invisible to experimental structural methods and do not appear in the crystallographic structures that are currently available in the Protein Data Bank. Interestingly, these tails concentrate most of the sequence variability between tubulin isotypes, and are the sites of the principal post-translational modifications undergone by this protein. Using homology modeling, we developed two complete models for the human αI/βI and αI/βIII tubulin isotypes that include their C-terminal tails. We then investigated the conformational variability of the two β-tails using long time-scale classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations that revealed similar features, notably the unexpected presence of common anchoring regions on the surface of the tubulin dimer, but also distinctive mobility or interaction patterns, some of which could be related to the tail lengths and charge distributions. We also observed in our simulations that the C-terminal tail from the βI isotype, but not the βIII, formed contacts in the putative binding site of a recently discovered peptide that disrupts microtubule formation in glioma cells. Hindering the binding site in the βI isotype would be consistent with this peptide\’s preferential disruption of microtubule formation in glioma, whose cells overexpress βIII, compared to normal glial cells. While these observations need to be confirmed with more intensive sampling, our study opens up new perspectives for the development of isotype-specific chemotherapy drugs.

}, doi = {10.1021/acs.biochem.6b00988}, author = {Laurin, Yoann and Eyer, Joel and Charles H. Robert and Chantal Pr{\'e}vost and S Sacquin-Mora} } @article {2014|1937, title = {Motions and mechanics: investigating conformational transitions in multi-domain proteins with coarse-grain simulations}, journal = {Mol. Simul.}, volume = {40}, number = {1-3}, year = {2014}, month = {jan}, pages = {229{\textendash}236}, doi = {10.1080/08927022.2013.843176}, author = {S Sacquin-Mora} } @article {2014|2015, title = {Multiscale Simulations Give Insight into the Hydrogen In and Out Pathways of [NiFe]-Hydrogenases from Aquifex aeolicus and Desulfovibrio fructosovorans}, journal = {J. Phys. Chem. B}, volume = {118}, number = {48}, year = {2014}, month = {dec}, pages = {13800{\textendash}13811}, doi = {10.1021/jp5089965}, author = {Oteri, F and Marc Baaden and Lojou, E and S Sacquin-Mora} } @article {2009|1799, title = {{M}odeling the {M}echanical {R}esponse of {P}roteins to {A}nisotropic {D}eformation}, journal = {Chemphyschem}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, year = {2009}, month = {jan}, pages = {115{\textendash}118}, doi = {10.1002/cphc.200800480}, author = {S Sacquin-Mora and Lavery, R.} }