Probing the Flexibility of Large Conformational Changes in Protein Structures through Local Perturbations
Figure 9
Conformational change in Helix-12 of the Estrogen Receptor ligand-binding domain.
(A) Overlay of the crystal structures showing Helix-12 in the closed conformation (blue) and the open conformation (green), which indicates the pivot point between the two structures. In the RIP simulations, perturbation on Trp-83 (red spheres) induces a large conformational change in Helix-12 (red), from the starting conformation of the closed structure (blue), where the hinge of the perturbed motion corresponds to the pivot point of the crystal structures.