Abstract
Allosteric regulation of protein activity pervades biology as the "second secret of life." We have been examining the allosteric regulation and mutant reactivation of the tumor suppressor protein p53. We have found that generalizing the definition of allosteric effector to include entire proteins and expanding the meaning of binding site to include the interface of a transcription factor with its DNA to be useful in understanding the modulation of protein activity. Here, we cast the variable regions of p53 isoforms as allosteric regulators of p53 interactions with its consensus DNA. We implemented molecular dynamics simulations and our lab's new techniques of molecular dynamics (MD) sectors and MD-Markov state models to investigate the effects of nine naturally occurring splice variant isoforms of p53. We find that all of the isoforms differ from wild type in their dynamic properties and how they interact with the DNA. We consider the implications of these findings on allostery and cancer treatment.