Abstract
Functional proteins designed de novo have potential application in chemical engineering, agriculture and healthcare. Metal binding sites are commonly used to incorporate functions. Based on a de novo designed protein DS119 with a βαβ structure, we have computationally engineered zinc binding sites into it using a home-made searching program. Seven out of the eight designed sequences tested were shown to bind Zn2+ with micromolar affinity, and one of them bound Zn2+ with 1:1 stoichiometry. This is the first time that metalloproteins with an α, β mixed structure have been designed from scratch.
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Zhu, C., Zhang, C., Liang, H. et al. Engineering a zinc binding site into the de novo designed protein DS119 with a βαβ structure. Protein Cell 2, 1006–1013 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13238-011-1121-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13238-011-1121-3