The occurrence of a highly conserved 11-mer repeating motif in the primary sequence is a major characteristic of group 3 late embryogenesis abundant (LEA3) proteins, which are strongly associated with abiotic stress tolerance of the plants. In this study, the three-dimensional structure, mimetic membrane association, and salt effect for consensus 11-mer motif from soybean PM2 protein (LEA3) were investigated in sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) micelles by NMR techniques. It was shown that the 11-mer motif was disordered in aqueous solution, but adopted an α-helix in SDS micelles. NMR diffusion measurements demonstrated that the 11-mer motif was associated with SDS micelles. Paramagnetic quenching NMR experiments further revealed the orientation of the 11-mer motif with respect to the mimetic membrane: the ordered N-terminal segment was inserted into the mimetic membrane, and the disordered C-terminal segment was exposed to water. In addition, salt addition could not change the secondary structure of the 11-mer motif, but might slightly alter the relative spatial position of some N-terminal residue atoms. These results implied that the 11-mer motif would take an important role in structural plasticity and membrane stabilization for LEA3 proteins.
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