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Pincus blob elasticity in an intrinsically disordered protein

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A Correction to this article was published on 08 December 2023

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Abstract

Understanding the dynamic structure of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) is important to deciphering their biological functions. Here, we exploit precision entropic elasticity measurements to infer the conformational behavior of a model IDP construct formed from the disordered tail of the neurofilament low molecular weight protein. The IDP construct notably displays a low-force power-law elastic regime, consistent with the Pincus blob model, which allows direct extraction of the Flory exponent, \(\nu \), from the force–extension relationship. We find \(\nu \) increases with added denaturant, transitioning from a nearly ideal chain to a swollen chain in a manner quantitatively consistent with measurements of IDP dimensions from other experimental techniques. We suggest that measurements of entropic elasticity could be broadly useful in the study of IDP structure.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Notes

  1. We dedicate this article to Fyl Pincus as a way to thank him for the friendship, mentorship, and insight he has shared with OS and RB over the years. Further, as demonstrated by the work presented in this article, we note that his “Pincus blob” model is a powerful concept which continues to find applications 47 years after he introduced it.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. MCB-2113302 and by the United States-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation under Grant No. 2020787. The authors have no relevant financial or nonfinancial interests to disclose.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

    Hoang P. Truong & Omar A. Saleh

  2. The Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy and The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Gil Koren, Ram Avinery & Roy Beck

  3. The Center of Physics and Chemistry of Living Systems, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Gil Koren, Ram Avinery & Roy Beck

  4. Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

    Ian L. Morgan & Omar A. Saleh

  5. Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

    Omar A. Saleh

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  1. Hoang P. Truong
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Contributions

OAS and RB conceived the project. GK and RA synthesized the NFLt construct. HPT conducted single-molecule experiments and performed data analysis. HPT and OAS drafted the manuscript, with assistance and commentary from GK and RB.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Omar A. Saleh.

Additional information

The original online version of this article was revised: This article was updated to include a co-author: Ian L. Morgan, who is omitted in the initial version due to an oversight. The original article has been corrected.

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Truong, H.P., Morgan, I.L., Koren, G. et al. Pincus blob elasticity in an intrinsically disordered protein. Eur. Phys. J. E 46, 100 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-023-00360-0

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