Protein cold adaptation: Role of physico-chemical parameters in adaptation of proteins to low temperatures

During years 2007 and 2008, we published three papers (Jahandideh, 2007a, JTB, 246, 159-166; Jahandideh, 2007b, JTB, 248, 721-726; Jahandideh, 2008, JTB, 255, 113-118) investigating sequence and structural parameters in adaptation of proteins to low temperatures. Our studies revealed important features in cold-adaptation of proteins. Here, we calculate values of a new set of physico-chemical parameters and perform a comparative systematic analysis on a more comprehensive database of psychrophilic-mesophilic homologous protein pairs. Our obtained results confirm that psychrophilicity rules are not merely the inverse rules of thermostability; for instance, although contact order is reported as a key feature in thermostability, our results have shown no significant difference between contact orders of psychrophilic proteins compared to mesophilic proteins. We are optimistic that these findings would help future efforts to propose a strategy for designing cold-adapted proteins.