Florian BLANC

Position: CNRS Research Scientist
Email: florian.blanc[at]isa-lyon.fr
Website: https://flblanc.github.io/
Publications
Mechanism of Ag+-induced Folding of a Bacterial Peptide from Replica-Exchange Molecular Simulations
F.E.C. Blanc, M. Hologne, M. Demontrond, H. Chermette and O.Walker
ChemRxiv. 2025 see DOI

Interactions between proteins and metal cations are central to biochemical processes and shape protein structures. SilE, an intrinsically disordered protein involved in bacterial silver-resistance, folds into α-helices upon binding Ag+ ions. Focusing on the B1 peptide fragment from SilE, we investigate the mechanism of Ag+-induced folding with simulations and NMR experiments. We first derive force-field parameters for Ag+-protein interactions using DFT. Then, we use replica-exchange simulations, deep learning and NMR to map B1’s folding landscape and reveal how Ag+ shapes it. Specifically, Ag+ binding promotes folding by entropic penalizing the disordered state and electrostatic stabilization of the folded state. We also describe how Ag+ alters the folding pathway. Overall, we improve the understanding of metal-induced protein folding and lay the groundwork for further computational investigations of the bacterial silver-resistance machinery.