EX1 hydrogen exchange and protein folding

Abstract

Slow amide hydrogen exchange is an increasingly popular tool for investigating structure and function in proteins. The kinetic model for slow hydrogen exchange has two limits, called EX2 and EX1, wherein the thermodynamics and kinetics of protein motions, respectively, are reported by the exchange data. While many laboratories have demonstrated that EX2 exchange can indeed provide accurate results regarding the thermodynamics of protein stability, the potential of EX1 exchange to follow the kinetics of protein unfolding and folding is only beginning to be realized. EX1 hydrogen exchange has advantages over more traditional folding experiments: it provides single-residue resolution, as well as whole-molecule information, the latter of which can be interpreted in terms of the cooperativity of unfolding. However, key questions remain regarding the interpretation of EX1 hydrogen exchange.