HSA in Motion

HSA is a remarkably flexible molecule. Our work is helping to reveal the structural changes due to fatty acid binding and the impact that this has on other ligand such as drugs.

The animations on this page should help to illustrate what happens to HSA when fatty acids bind. However, please note that these animations are 'morphs' (see reference below) made using the known structures of defatted HSA and the HSA-myristate complex.  They give an indication of a possible path for the structural transition upon fatty acid binding. Although we can be sure of the starting and ending structures we have no direct experimental information on how the transition is achieved.

Click on the thumbnails below to see each animation. Animations are in Quicktime format. If they don’t play, get Quicktime free from Apple for Mac or PC.

Global view of fatty acid induced conformational changes in HSA

Top view

Close-up of changes at the interface between domains I and II

Close-up of changes at the interface between domains II and III

Local changes in subdomain IB upon fatty acid binding

Changes at the warfarin binding site on fatty acid binding

Animations were prepared using the morphing utilities in LSQMAN [See Kleywegt, G.J. (1996). Use of non-crystallographic symmetry in protein structure refinement. Acta Cryst., D52, 842-857.]