Protein disulfide engineering

Alan A. Dombkowski, Kazi Zakia Sultana, Douglas B. Craig

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

207 Scopus citations

Abstract

Improving the stability of proteins is an important goal in many biomedical and industrial applications. A logical approach is to emulate stabilizing molecular interactions found in nature. Disulfide bonds are covalent interactions that provide substantial stability to many proteins and conform to well-defined geometric conformations, thus making them appealing candidates in protein engineering efforts. Disulfide engineering is the directed design of novel disulfide bonds into target proteins. This important biotechnological tool has achieved considerable success in a wide range of applications, yet the rules that govern the stabilizing effects of disulfide bonds are not fully characterized. Contrary to expectations, many designed disulfide bonds have resulted in decreased stability of the modified protein. We review progress in disulfide engineering, with an emphasis on the issue of stability and computational methods that facilitate engineering efforts.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)206-212
Number of pages7
JournalFEBS Letters
Volume588
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 21 Jan 2014

Keywords

  • Disulfide
  • Engineering
  • Kinetics
  • Protein
  • Stability
  • Thermodynamics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Protein disulfide engineering'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this