Conformational freedom of metalloproteins revealed by paramagnetism-assisted NMR

In many biologically relevant cases protein-ligand or protein-protein recognition occurs thanks to the availability of multiple conformational states of at least one of the partners. Paramagnetism-assisted NMR is a powerful tool to address the conformational freedom of proteins. Appropriate experiments and theoretical interpretation permit the characterization of biologically relevant protein-protein interactions in solution. The paradigmatic examples of two-domain metalloproteins such as calmodulin (CaM) or two-domain metalloenzymes such as matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) are discussed. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.