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Abstract Many proteins must interact with molecular chaperones to achieve their native state in the cell. Yet, how chaperone binding‐site characteristics affect the folding process is poorly understood. The ubiquitous Hsp70 chaperone system prevents client‐protein aggregation by holding unfolded conformations and by unfolding misfolded states. Hsp70 binding sites of client proteins comprise a nonpolar core surrounded by positively charged residues. However, a detailed analysis of Hsp70 binding sites on a proteome‐wide scale is still lacking. Further, it is not known whether proteins undergo some degree of folding while chaperone bound. Here, we begin to address the above questions by identifying Hsp70 binding sites in 2258Escherichia coli(E. coli) proteins. We find that most proteins bear at least one Hsp70 binding site and that the number of Hsp70 binding sites is directly proportional to protein size. Aggregation propensity upon release from the ribosome correlates with number of Hsp70 binding sites only in the case of large proteins. Interestingly, Hsp70 binding sites are more solvent‐exposed than other nonpolar sites, in protein native states. Our findings show that the majority ofE. coliproteins are systematically enabled to interact with Hsp70 even if this interaction only takes place during a fraction of the protein lifetime. In addition, our data suggest that some conformational sampling may take place within Hsp70‐bound states, due to the solvent exposure of some chaperone binding sites in native proteins. In all, we propose that Hsp70‐chaperone‐binding traits have evolved to favor Hsp70‐assisted protein folding devoid of aggregation.
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This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2026
Proteome-wide determinants of co-translational chaperone binding in bacteria
Abstract Chaperones are essential to the co-translational folding of most proteins. However, the principles of co-translational chaperone interaction throughout the proteome are poorly understood, as current methods are restricted to few substrates and cannot capture nascent protein folding or chaperone binding sites, precluding a comprehensive understanding of productive and erroneous protein biosynthesis. Here, by integrating genome-wide selective ribosome profiling, single-molecule tools, and computational predictions using AlphaFold we show that the binding of the mainE. colichaperones involved in co-translational folding, Trigger Factor (TF) and DnaK correlates with “unsatisfied residues” exposed on nascent partial folds – residues that have begun to form tertiary structure but cannot yet form all native contacts due to ongoing translation. This general principle allows us to predict their co-translational binding across the proteome based on sequence only, which we verify experimentally. The results show that TF and DnaK stably bind partially folded rather than unfolded conformers. They also indicate a synergistic action of TF guiding intra-domain folding and DnaK preventing premature inter-domain contacts, and reveal robustness in the larger chaperone network (TF, DnaK, GroEL). Given the complexity of translation, folding, and chaperone functions, our predictions based on general chaperone binding rules indicate an unexpected underlying simplicity.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2031584
- PAR ID:
- 10616332
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Portfolio
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-1723
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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