Thermodynamics of fatty acid binding to engineered mutants of the adipocyte and intestinal fatty acid-binding proteins

We constructed 18 single amino acid mutants of the adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein (A-FABP) and 17 of the intestinal fatty acid-binding protein (I-FABP), at locations in the fatty acid (FA) binding sites, For each mutant protein, we measured thermodynamic parameters that characterize FA binding, Binding affinities ranged from about 200-fold smaller to 30-fold larger than the wild type (WT) proteins, Thermodynamic parameters revealed that binding affinities often inaccurately reported changes in protein-FA interactions because changes in the binding entropy and enthalpy were usually compensatory and larger than the binding free energy, FA-FABP interactions were quite different for I-FABP and A-FABP proteins, Binding affinities were larger and decreased to a greater degree with increasing FA solubility for most of the I-FABP as compared with the A-FABP proteins, consistent with a more hydrophobic binding site for the I-FABP proteins, In A-FABP, Ala substitutions for Arg(106) and Arg(126), which interact with the FA carboxylate, reduce affinities by about 100-fold, but in I-FABP, R106A increases affinities up to 30-fold, Moreover, in A-FABP, the thermodynamic parameters predict that the FA carboxylate location switches from the 126-position in R106A to the 106 position in R126A. Finally, the A-FABP proteins, in contrast to the I-FABP proteins, reveal significant heat capacity changes (Delta C-p) upon FA binding, and substitutions at residues Arg(106), and Arg(126) reduce the magnitude of Delta C-p.