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Protein Science (2005), 14:1447-1457. Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Copyright © 2005 The Protein Society
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Pretransition and progressive softening of bovine carbonic anhydrase II as probed by single molecule atomic force microscopy

Rehana Afrin, Mohammad T. Alam and Atsushi Ikai

Laboratory of Biodynamics, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8501, Japan

(RECEIVED December 8, 2004; FINAL REVISION March 6, 2005; ACCEPTED March 11, 2005)

To develop a simple method for probing the physical state of surface adsorbed proteins, we adopted the force curve mode of an atomic force microscope (AFM) to extract information on the mechanical properties of surface immobilized bovine carbonic anhydrase II under native conditions and in the course of guanidinium chloride–induced denaturation. A progressive increase in the population of individually softened molecules was probed under mildly to fully denaturing conditions. The use of the approach regime of force curves gave information regarding the height and rigidity of the molecule under compressive stress, whereas use of the retracting regime of the curves gave information about the tensile characteristics of the protein. The results showed that protein molecules at the beginning of the transition region possessed slightly more flattened and significantly more softened conformations compared with that of native molecules, but were still not fully denatured, in agreement with results based on solution studies. Thus the force curve mode of an AFM was shown to be sensitive enough to provide information concerning the different physical states of single molecules of globular proteins.

Keywords: bovine carbonic anhydrase II; atomic force microscopy (AFM); protein stretching and compression; Young’s modulus; progressive softening; pretransition softening; Tatara model

Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.041282305.

Reprint requests to: Atsushi Ikai, Laboratory of Biodynamics, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuka, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8501, Japan; e-mail: aikai{at}bio.titech.ac.jp; fax: 81-45-924-5806.


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