Exploring the mechanisms used by promiscuous chaperones to assist protein folding in the cell

There are two popular theories to explain how molecular chaperones boost the yield of folded protein in the cell: According to the Anfinsen cage model, (ACM) chaperonins protect denatured proteins from aggregation. A competing theory, the iterative annealing model (IAM) claims that ATP regulated chaperone binding and release accelerates folding by freeing proteins from long-lived kinetic traps. We present experimental and kinetic evidence to argue that the IAM is not a complete picture of how the GroEL/ES chaperonin works. Surprisingly some substrate proteins experience folding rate enhancements without undergoing multiple rounds of ATP-induced binding and release from the chaperonin. An explanation of this data requires going beyond the ACM and IAM models. Our work uses molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the folding of a highly frustrated protein within a chaperonin cavity. The chaperonin interior is modeled by a sphere with variable degree of attraction to the protein inside. We demonstrate that this cavity, similar to the weakly hydrophobic interior of the GroEL cavity upon complexion with ATP and GroES, is sufficient to accelerate the folding of a frustrated protein by more than an order of magnitude. Our simulations uncover a novel form of the IAM in which the substrate exhibits spontaneous binding and release from the wall of the chaperonin cage. This mimics the behavior observed in the standard IAM, with the difference that thermal fluctuations, rather than ATP, allow the substrate to unbind from the chaperone.; An growing number of smaller cageless chaperones have been discovered that can assist protein folding without the consumption of ATP, including artificial "minichaperones" (fragments of larger chaperones). It is tempting to speculate that the same thermally-driven IAM mechanism could play a role with these chaperones as well. We performed additional simulations of protein folding outside the sphere. We find that in order to accelerate protein folding at relevant chaperone concentrations, chaperones must bind to and hold the protein weakly enough to allow it to change its conformation while bound. We suspect that during this time, the chaperone would also discourage aggregation by competing for aggregation-prone hydrophobic sites on the protein's surface.