The effect of intrachain electrostatic repulsion on conformational disorder and dynamics of the Sic1 protein.

The yeast cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor Sic1 is a disordered protein that, upon multisite phosphorylation, forms a dynamic complex with the Cdc4 subunit of an SCF ubiquitin ligase. To understand the multisite phosphorylation dependence of the Sic1:Cdc4 interaction, which ultimately leads to a sharp cell cycle transition, the conformational properties of the disordered Sic1 N-terminal targeting region were studied using single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy. Multiple conformational populations with different sensitivities to charge screening were identified by performing experiments in nondenaturing salts and ionic denaturants. Both the end-to-end distance and the hydrodynamic radius decrease monotonically with increasing the salt concentration, and a rollover of the chain dimensions in high denaturant conditions is observed. The data were fit to the polyelectrolyte binding-screening model, yielding parameters such as the excluded volume of the uncharged chain and the binding constant to denaturant...