Báo cáo khoa học: Prevalent conformations and subunit exchange in the biologically active apoptin protein multimer

Recombinant, bacterially expressed apoptin protein induces apoptosis inhuman tumour cell lines but not innormal cells, mimicking the behaviour of ectopically expressed apoptin. Recombinant apoptin is isolated exclusively as a highly stablemultimeric complex of 30–40monomers, with little, if any,a-helical and b-sheet structure. Despite its apparent disorder, multimeric apoptin is biologically active. Here, we present evidence thatmost of the apoptinmoietieswithin the complex may well share a similar conformation. Further-more, the multimer has extensive and uniformhydrophobic patches and conformationally stable domains. ...