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W700S

Category 2 — Moderately DestabilizingLikely pathogenicLumenal · predictedσ-1 candidateEditorial
TryptophanSerine at position 700 · C-terminal lumenal domain (653-869) · WFS1 (Wolframin)

Tryptophan → Serine at position 700 in wolframin's C-terminal lumenal domain. ClinVar Likely pathogenic. AlphaMissense 0.996 (deeply pathogenic), DynaMut2 ΔΔG -2.49 kcal/mol (destabilising). Together with V779G, the second of only two Cat 2 variants in the entire 245-variant Atlas.

Interactive 3D Structure

Wild-type reference
Wild-type W700 — hydrogen bond to F825
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DynaMut2 mutant · W700S
Mutant S700 — hydrogen bond to L664 lost (13 contacts lost)
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Bond changes · DynaMut2 interaction analysis

13 lost1 gained3 preserved
Interaction typeWild-type partnerMutant partnerStatus
Hydrogen bondL664Lost
Hydrogen bondE824E824Preserved
Hydrogen bondF825F825Preserved
Polar contactL664Lost
Polar contactE824Lost
Polar contactF825F825Preserved
Aromatic / πW666Lost
Aromatic / πY669Lost
Van der WaalsF825Gained
HydrophobicW666Lost
HydrophobicY669Lost
HydrophobicV698Lost
HydrophobicM781Lost
HydrophobicI802Lost
HydrophobicF825Lost
HydrophobicL829Lost
HydrophobicF840Lost

Lost / gained / preserved interatomic contacts at the variant residue, from the DynaMut2 (Arpeggio) interaction analysis of the wild-type and energy-minimized mutant structures.

Computational Predictions

DynaMut2 ΔΔG
-2.49kcal/mol
Destabilising — large
AlphaMissense
0.996
LPath
AlphaFold pLDDT
90
model confidence
Schema
Cat 2
Category 2 — Moderately Destabilizing

Clinical Evidence

ClinVar classificationLikely pathogenic
Review statuscriteria provided, single submitter
Associated conditions(no specific conditions catalogued for W700S — ClinVar Likely pathogenic classification established by review evidence)
InheritanceInheritance pattern not specified in this ClinVar entry. WFS1 supports both autosomal dominant (DFNA6/14/38, Wolfram-like syndrome) and autosomal recessive (classical Wolfram syndrome) presentations; the W700 position appears in both contexts depending on the substituting residue.
Population frequency (gnomAD v4)Absent from gnomAD v4
cDNA changec.2099G>C
ClinVar accessionVCV004802689
Last evaluated2025/02/27 00:00

Not observed in ~730k individuals — consistent with a rare allele (ACMG PM2_supporting).

Structural Context

Position 700 sits in wolframin's C-terminal lumenal domain (residues 653–869), the protein's largest soluble region and the documented site of partner interactions with ATF6 (the master regulator of the unfolded protein response) and the Na+/K+ ATPase β1 subunit. The AlphaFold model shows W700 packed against immediate sequence neighbors THR699 (2.5 Å) and THR701 (2.4 Å), and into a distant hydrophobic pocket containing PHE825 (3.9 Å) and MET781 (4.8 Å). The aromatic indole ring of tryptophan provides a substantial hydrophobic contact surface against PHE825 — likely a π-stacking or edge-face aromatic interaction — and into the lipid-like pocket lined by methionine.

Replacing tryptophan with serine at this position removes the indole ring entirely and replaces it with a small polar hydroxyl. The volume loss is approximately 130 ų — among the largest single-substitution volume losses possible in protein chemistry. The π-stacking interaction with PHE825 is eliminated, the hydrophobic contact to MET781 is broken, and the resulting cavity is too large to be filled by side-chain repacking. The introduced hydroxyl group is polar and small, and would prefer to point toward solvent rather than into the hydrophobic pocket — further destabilizing the local fold.

DynaMut2 returns |ΔΔG| = 2.49 kcal/mol, placing W700S in Category 2 — moderately destabilizing but not gross-misfolding. The fold survives but is energetically compromised in proportion to the lost hydrophobic packing. Note that the W700C variant at the same position (Atlas card adjacent) shows |ΔΔG| of only -0.10 kcal/mol — replacing the indole with a thiol preserves more volume than replacing it with a hydroxyl, even though both are small polar groups. This W → C vs W → S contrast is a clean local example of how packing density, not just chemical class, drives WFS1 destabilization.

Amino-acid chemistry
Tryptophan (W) → Serine (S) — the bulkiest aromatic side chain in the genetic code replaced by a small polar hydroxyl. The volume difference is dramatic.
Position in the protein
C-terminal lumenal domain · position 700 lies inside the ER lumen, in a high-confidence region of the AlphaFold model (pLDDT 90).

Druggability Assessment

Category 2 — Moderately Destabilizing. |ΔΔG| = 2.49 kcal/mol places W700S just inside the moderately destabilizing range. The fold survives but a fraction of translated protein will be cleared by ER quality control before reaching its functional location.

This is a pharmacological chaperone candidate. The lost stability comes from a volume mismatch in a packed hydrophobic pocket — not from a broken specific bond or a disrupted catalytic site. The right intervention is a small molecule that stabilizes the wolframin fold globally, shifting the folding equilibrium toward functional protein. The CFTR-corrector analogy applies: rescue the folding yield, not the function.

Worth noting alongside the W700C card: W700 itself sits in a position where multiple pathogenic substitutions are documented, with substitution chemistry directly controlling severity. This makes W700 a useful didactic example of why structural context matters more than the position label alone — the variant cards must always be read at the specific substitution level.

Why this matters

W700S is one of two variants out of 245 in the Atlas where |ΔΔG| exceeds 2 kcal/mol. Both outliers stop well short of the 4 kcal/mol gross-misfolding threshold. The Atlas-wide finding holds: WFS1 pathogenic variants do not require gene therapy. They damage the fold in measurable but tractable ways. W700S adds nuance to that picture — even within a single position, the substitution chemistry determines whether the variant is mildly perturbing (W700C, |ΔΔG| 0.1) or moderately destabilizing (W700S, |ΔΔG| 2.5). The Atlas captures that resolution.
Therapeutic Strategy Handoff · prediction

Feed this card to Wolfram Intelligence

Download the W700S PDF below and upload it to Wolfram Intelligence to generate therapeutic-strategy proposals — guanidinium mimetics, sigma-1 agonist docking, NAC thiol-capping. NAC is already on the bench-testing list.

Download W700S PDF card ↓Strategies are AI-generated predictions, not validated therapeutics.

UniProt Domain Annotation

Chain1890 · Wolframin
Topological domain653869 · Lumenal
Natural variant700700 · in WFS1