D) Secondary structure predictions from AGADIR with α-helices shown as black boxes. Using NMR, such a formation of structure upon addition of TFE was also apparent from the more dispersed 1H chemical shifts observed in the presence of 50% TFE (data not shown). These conditions were thus chosen to determine the secondary structures of cementoin. A series of triple-resonance spectra were recorded in order to assign backbone chemical shifts (Fig. 1B). From the

assigned backbone chemical shifts, it was possible to predict secondary structures selleck using the SSP approach (see Methods). This yielded two predicted helices in cementoin (Fig. 1C), Selumetinib molecular weight similar to that predicted by AGADIR (Fig. 1D). Atomic resolution on spin relaxation data (R1, R2, NOE; see additional file 1: Fig. S1 A) confirmed most of AGADIR predictions. Indeed, residues for which high flexibility is inferred (from reduced spectral density mapping of spin relaxation data, see Fig. S1 B & C) are those located right before helix 1 as proposed by AGADIR, and directly after helix 2. Additionally, R2 data with higher values within proposed α – helices, but also in the middle of the peptide would tend to indicate that this whole section of the peptide is in slow exchange. Hence, both proposed α-helices could be nucleating points

where α – helical structures would start appearing, enabling the transient existence of a long α-helix spanning residues 10-31. Of course, this structure would be transient as the NOE values are quite low (~0.5) for this whole stretch. We previously showed that pre-elafin/trappin-2, Entospletinib purchase elafin and particularly the cementoin domain interact strongly with negatively charged liposomes composed of phosphatidyl Nintedanib (BIBF 1120) glycerol (PG) [27]. We used NMR with bicelles composed of a mixture of dihexanoyl phosphatidylcholine (DHPC), dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine (DMPC)

and dimyristoyl phosphatidylglycerol (DMPG) to a final ratio of 8:3:1 to characterize this interaction, by measuring the translational diffusion coefficients for cementoin in the absence and presence of bicelles (Table 1 and additional file 1: Fig. S2). In the presence of bicelles, cementoin diffused with a rate much slower (1.24 × 10-6 cm2.s-1) than in an aqueous environment (4.28 × 10-6 cm2.s-1). It is important to note here that this effect of bicelles on slowing the diffusion of cementoin is not caused by an increase in solvent viscosity, since water was found to diffuse at approximately the same rate in both conditions (Table 1). This slower rate is close to that measured for the bicelles alone (0.79 × 10-6 cm2.s-1; Table 1 and Fig. S2). This finding convincingly demonstrates that an interaction exists between cementoin and bicelles. From these data, the fraction of cementoin bound to bicelles was estimated to be 87% (see Methods), implying that ~13% cementoin would be free in solution.