Force-driven allostery in proteins

Allostery in proteins plays a significant role such as cell signalling or gene and enzyme regulations. Allostery is characterized by a signal propagation through single proteins or complexes. The signal is triggered by external forces or ligand binding and then propagated toward a distant site which could be several nanometers away. Experimental techniques usually fails to explain at the atomic detail this fine tuned mechanism. Our team has been interested in the allosteric signal transmission within various proteins. Using our in-house tool « Force Distribution Analysis » (FDA), we could decipher the allosteric nature of the signal transmitted through these proteins. We further proposed key amino-acids directly involved in the signal propagation. In this study published in PLoS Comp Biol, Maxime used our Force Distribution Analysis to track the force propagation through the allosteric CAP protein upon binding of its ligand. The analysis tells how the protein across domains and across monomers communicates.