Hydrophobic interactions accelerate early stages of the folding of BPTI

Bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) has long served as an important model system for the studies of the protein folding process. Recently a kinetically important folding intermediate has been detected early on the oxidative folding pathway of BPTI [Dadlez, M., & Kim, P. S. (1995) Nat. Struct. Biol. 2, 674-679]. The intermediate, named [14-38], contains a single native disulfide bond between residues 14 and 38, and forms much faster than any other single-disulfide intermediate. A series of 24 mutants of BPTI has been studied here to detect amino acids which contribute to fast formation of [14-38]. Seven nonpolar or aromatic residues, distant from the cysteines by as many as eight residues, are found to accelerate the formation of 14-38 disulfide, without changing the reactivities of the cysteines. The acceleration is observed even in 8 M urea. It is concluded that in the early stages of the folding of BPTI and BPTI-like domains, the residual structure of the denatured state promotes native pairing of cysteines by way of interaction of hydrophobic residues. A similar mechanism may facilitate early steps in the folding of proteins in general.