title: Multifunnel Landscape of the Fold-Switching Protein RfaH-CTD

Nathan Bernhardt (TALK)

institution: The University of Oklahoma

abstract:

Proteins like the transcription factor RfaH can alter their function by undergoing a change in three-dimensional shape. In vivo RfaH regulates transcription when its C-terminal domain forms a helix hairpin and promotes translation if in a beta barrel fold. Such a switch between folds is also observed for the isolated C-terminal domain referred to here as Rfah-CTD. In this work we use a variant of the Replica-Exchange-with-Tunneling method developed by our group to simulate RfaH-CTD thus allowing construction of the free energy landscape. Using this data we are able to propose a transition pathway connecting the helix hairpin and beta barrel folds.