S100 protein expression and purification. S100 proteins (UniProt accession codes: S100A1: P23297, S100A2: P29034, S100A3: P33764, S100A4: P26447, S100A5: P33763, S100A6: P06703, S100A7: P31151, S100A8: P05109, S100A9: P06702, S100A10: P60903, S100A11: P31949, S100A12: P80511, S100A13: Q99584, S100A14: Q9HCY8, S100A15: Q86SG5, S100A16: Q96FQ6, S100B: P04271, S100G: P29377, S100P: P25815 and S100Z: Q8WXG8) were expressed and purified with N-terminal His6-tag as described previously 29. Briefly, S100 proteins were cloned into a modified pET15b vector with a TEV protease cleavable N-terminal His6-tag and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) cells, followed by Ni2+-affinity chromatography. For HU assay, S100 proteins were further purified by either hydrophobic interaction chromatography or ion exchange chromatography without the cleavage of the N-terminal His6-tag applying standard conditions 29. For direct FP measurements, the N-terminal His6-tag was cleaved, and the S100 proteins were purified by hydrophobic interaction chromatography, ion exchange chromatography or size exclusion chromatography 29. The quality of the recombinant proteins was checked by SDS-PAGE analysis in all cases. The concentration of the recombinant S100 proteins was determined by UV spectrophotometry using the absorbance of Tyr and Trp residues.
Synthesis and purification of the foldamer libraries. The foldamer libraries were synthetized and purified as described previously 30. Briefly, the 256-memberd library was divided to four sublibraries (aromatic, charged, apolar, non-charged polar) containing 64 members (Fig S13). The libraries were synthetized with a CEM liberty 1 microwave peptide synthesizer using HATU (1-[bis(dimethylamino)methylene]-1H-1,2,3-triazolo[4,5-b]-pyridinium-3-oxid hexafluorophosphate) as coupling agent following Fmoc strategy by coupling aminocyclohexanecarboxylic acids and β3-amino acids. After cleavage of the sublibraries, the samples were lyophilized and the mixtures of foldamers were purified by RP-HPLC (Phenomenex Luna C18, 250 x 10 mm), followed by HPLC-MS identification. The purity and equimolarity of the foldamer libraries were checked by HPLC-MS.
Synthesis and purification of labeled foldamer sequences. Individual foldamers were synthetized manually using solid-phase peptide synthesis with Fmoc strategy applying HATU as coupling agent 13. Coupling of the 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein to the ε-amino group of a Lys attached to the C-terminus of the foldamers was carried out as the last step of the synthesis. The crude foldamers were cleaved from the resin and then, the samples were precipitated in diethyl ether and purified by RP-HPLC (Phenomenex Jupiter C18, 250 x 10 mm). Purity was confirmed by HPLC-MS. The concentration of the foldamers was determined by UV-spectrophotometry using the absorbance of 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein.
Synthesis and purification of the peptide TRTK12. The TRTK12 peptide was synthetized as described previously 7. Briefly, the peptide was chemically synthetized by solid phase peptide synthesis with a PS3 peptide synthesizer (Protein technologies, Tucson, AZ, USA) using Fmoc/tBu strategy, and purified by RP-HPLC using a Jupiter 300 Å C18 column.
Holdup assay. Screening the interaction between the foldamer libraries and the S100ome was performed by holdup assays as described previously 30. Briefly, S100 proteins were immobilized in a buffer containing 20 mM HEPES pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, 2 mM CaCl2, 1 mM TCEP on Co2+-affinity resin (~ 2 mg protein / ml resin concentration) via the N-terminal His6-tag followed by the addition of the foldamer libraries. After incubation, the resin was centrifuged (Pierce™ Spin Cups – paper filter, Thermo Fisher Scientific) to separate the unbound fraction of the library. Negative controls were prepared using the procedure described above in the absence of the His6-tagged protein. The flow-through fractions were analyzed by HPLC-MS (Fig S17). Quantitative evaluation of the HPLC-MS chromatograms were performed with Thermo Xcalibur software. Bound fractions (FB) were calculated by the following equation (Eq. 2) from the loss of intensity of the foldamer fragments (AUCprotein) in the flow-through fractions compared to the control samples (AUCcontrol).
Calculation of amino acid preference. For each 16 amino acid, a summarized FB (FBaa) was calculated by the following equation in the instances of all S100 proteins:
In which FBaa,2p and FBaa,5p are fraction bound values of foldamer fragments containing the proteogenic sidechain of interest in the 2nd or 5th position, respectively. The amino acids were further categorized into five groups (aromatic: F, W, Y; aliphatic: A, I, L, M, V; polar: N, Q, S, T; acidic: D, E; basic: K, R), and the root fraction bound values (FBroot) were calculated for each group in the case of all S100 proteins by the following equation:
In which K is the number of amino acids in the individual groups. Standard deviation and standard error were calculated through propagation of uncertainty using the standard formula 31.
Fluorescence polarization assay. In direct fluorescence polarization assays, S100 proteins were diluted in a buffer containing 50 nM labeled foldamer, 20 mM HEPES pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, 1 mM CaCl2, 0.5 mM TCEP and 0.01% Tween20. The dilution series (50 µl) were divided into three technical repeats and transferred (15 µl) to a 384-well microplate. In competitive fluorescence polarization assays, the buffer applied in direct measurements was supplemented with the S100 protein of interest to reach a saturation of 60–80%. This mixture was titrated with the competitor (i.e. the unlabeled peptide). Fluorescence polarization was measured in 8 different S100 concentrations (one of which contained no S100 protein) on a Synergy H4 plate reader using 485 ± 20 nm and 528 ± 20 nm band-pass filters for excitation and emission, respectively. The Kd values were obtained by fitting the data from the FP measurements with the python-based ProFit software using quadratic and competitive binding equation for direct and competitive FP, respectively 7. The detection threshold was based on two parameters. First, we rejected all fitted dissociation constants above 1 mM. Second, we also rejected all fitted data where the experimental window was significantly lower (< 80 mP) or higher (> 350 mP), compared to other, stronger interactions of the same labeled foldamer.
Correlation between holdup and FP. The correlation between the holdup assay (FB values) and the fluorescence polarization (Kd values) was quantitatively described by the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) using the standard formula.
Calculation of promiscuity. Promiscuity, defined as a number between 0 (no interaction with any member) and 1 (the strongest interaction with all the members in the library) was calculated for each S100 protein according to Eq. 1 by averaging the measured FB values.