Kinetic analysis of the unfolding and refolding of ribonuclease Tl by a stopped-flow double-mixing technique

Often protein folding reactions show complex kinetics, because multiple unfolded species are present, which refold simultaneously. After conformational unfolding, these species are formed by the slow cis/trans equilibrations at Xaa-Pro peptide bonds. To dissect the roles of individual prolines for unfolding and refolding, we used ribonuclease T1, a protein with two cis prolyl peptide bonds, preceding Pro39 and Pro55, and two variants with substitutions at these positions. A stopped-flow double-mixing technique was employed (i) to measure the rates of the individual prolyl isomerizations in the unfolded proteins and (ii) to study the refolding of transient species that are not well populated at equilibrium. In particular, the elusive species with correct prolyl isomers could be produced by short unfolding pulses, and its refolding kinetics could be measured. The two isomerizations in unfolded ribonuclease T1 could be assigned to Pro39 and Pro55, because they occurred with almost identical rates in the wild-type protein, in the single-cis proline variants, and in tetrapeptide-4-nitroanilides, which contained prolines in the same sequential context as Pro39 and Pro55 of ribonuclease T1. The direct refolding reaction of the unfolded molecules with correct prolyl isomers shows a time constant of 180 ms (at 25 degrees C, pH 4.6). This reaction is almost unaffected by the proline substitutions. It depends nonlinearly on temperature with a maximum near 25 degrees C, which suggests that the activated state for this reaction resembles the native rather than the unfolded state in heat capacity. The formation of a transient intermediate with incorrect prolyl isomers could be studied as well. Surprisingly, this reaction is only about 5-fold slower than direct folding, and it is also accompanied by a strong decrease in the apparent heat capacity.