Dissection of the high rate constant for the binding of a ribotoxin to the ribosome

Restrictocin belongs to a family of site-specific ribonucleases that kill cells by inactivating the ribosome. The restrictocin–ribosome binding rate constant was observed to exceed 1010 M−1 s−1. We have developed a transient-complex theory to model the binding rates of protein–protein and protein–RNA complexes. The theory predicts the rate constant as ka = ka0 exp(−ΔGel*/kBT), where ka0 is the basal rate constant for reaching the transient complex, located at the outer boundary of the bound state, by random diffusion, and ΔGel* is the average electrostatic interaction free energy of the transient complex. Here, we applied the transient-complex theory to dissect the high restrictocin–ribosome binding rate constant. We found that the binding rate of restrictocin to the isolated sarcin/ricin loop is electrostatically enhanced by ≈300-fold, similar to results found in other protein–protein and protein–RNA complexes. The ribosome provides an additional 10,000-fold rate enhancement because of two synergistic mechanisms afforded by the distal regions of the ribosome. First, they provide additional electrostatic attraction with restrictocin. Second, they reposition the transient complex into a region where local electrostatic interactions of restrictocin with the sarcin/ricin loop are particularly favorable. Our calculations rationalize a host of experimental observations and identify a strategy for designing proteins that bind their targets with high speed.

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