Allosteric Activation through Coordinated Energy Landscape Reweighting and Information Flow
Bao-Dan Zhang, De-Rui Zhao, Meng-Ting Liu, Li-Quan Yang, Peng Sang · 2026
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Description
Zhang, Zhao, and Liu re-examined how a protein switches on, in this 2026 Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal study. Proteins are often pictured flipping between two fixed shapes, but the authors suspected the innate immune adaptor STING works more subtly. Using long molecular-dynamics simulations and network inference, they watched how binding a small signaling molecule reshaped the protein's whole range of motion.
The ligand did not simply snap STING from closed to open. It reweighted the energy landscape, suppressing stretched-out shapes and favoring activation-ready intermediates, while communication routes inside the protein condensed from scattered paths into shorter, focused channels that transmit signals more efficiently. The authors propose allosteric activation as landscape reweighting, a model that may explain regulation in many flexible proteins.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Bao-Dan Zhang, De-Rui Zhao, Meng-Ting Liu, Li-Quan Yang, Peng Sang |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 84 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |