Histidine 73 methylation coordinates β-actin plasticity in response to key environmental factors

Adrien Schahl, Louis Lagardère, Brandon Walker, Pengyu Ren, Hugo Wioland, Maya Ballet, Antoine Jégou, Matthieu Chavent () and Jean-Philip Piquemal ()
Additional contact information
Adrien Schahl: Université de Toulouse, CNRS
Louis Lagardère: Sorbonne Université, UMR 7616 CNRS
Brandon Walker: The University of Texas at Austin
Pengyu Ren: The University of Texas at Austin
Hugo Wioland: Université Paris Cité, CNRS
Maya Ballet: Université Paris Cité, CNRS
Antoine Jégou: Université Paris Cité, CNRS
Matthieu Chavent: Université de Toulouse, CNRS
Jean-Philip Piquemal: Sorbonne Université, UMR 7616 CNRS

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract The functional importance of the methylation of histidine 73 (H73) in actin remains unclear. Focusing on cytoplasmic β-actin, present in all mammalian cells, we use molecular dynamics simulations with a polarizable force field and adaptive sampling to examine the effects of H73 methylation. Our results show that methylation enhances nucleotide binding cleft opening, alters allosteric pathways connecting subdomains 2 and 4 (SD2 and SD4) in G-actin, and affects backdoor openings and inorganic phosphate release in F-actin, as validated by biochemical assays. These effects depend on the nucleotide and ions interacting with the actin. Together, our findings reveal how H73 methylation regulates β-actin plasticity and integrates environmental cues.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57458-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-57458-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57458-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().