3D structure of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A in aqueous solution: An approach to tertiary structure determination from a small basis of1H NMR NOE correlations

Abstract

A method is proposed to generate initial structures in cases where the distance geometry method may fail, such as when the set of1H NMR NOE-based distance constraints is small in relation to the size of the protein. The method introduces an initial correlation between the φ and ψ backbone angles (based on empirical observations) which is relaxed in later stages of the calculation. The obtained initial structures are refined by well-established methods of energy minimization and restrained molecular dynamics. The method is applied to determine the solution structure of Ribonuclease A (124 residues) from a NOE basis consisting of 467 NOE cross-correlations (97 intra-residue, 206 sequential, 23 medium-range and 141 long-range) obtained at 360 MHz. The global shape and backbone overall fold of the eight final refined structures are close to those shown by the crystal structure. A meaningful difference in the positioning of the catalytically important His119 side chain in the solution and crystal structures has been detected.