{"title":"Native sulfur/chlorine SAD phasing for serial femtosecond crystallography.","authors":"Takanori Nakane, Changyong Song, Mamoru Suzuki, Eriko Nango, Jun Kobayashi, Tetsuya Masuda, Shigeyuki Inoue, Eiichi Mizohata, Toru Nakatsu, Tomoyuki Tanaka, Rie Tanaka, Tatsuro Shimamura, Kensuke Tono, Yasumasa Joti, Takashi Kameshima, Takaki Hatsui, Makina Yabashi, Osamu Nureki, So Iwata, Michihiro Sugahara","doi":"10.1107/S139900471501857X","DOIUrl":"10.1107/S139900471501857X","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) allows structures to be determined with minimal radiation damage. However, phasing native crystals in SFX is not very common. Here, the structure determination of native lysozyme from single-wavelength anomalous diffraction (SAD) by utilizing the anomalous signal of sulfur and chlorine at a wavelength of 1.77 Å is successfully demonstrated. This sulfur SAD method can be applied to a wide range of proteins, which will improve the determination of native crystal structures.</p>","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4667287/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61948570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Herguedas, Isaias Lans, María Sebastián, J. Hermoso, M. Martínez-Júlvez, M. Medina
{"title":"Structural insights into the synthesis of FMN in prokaryotic organisms.","authors":"B. Herguedas, Isaias Lans, María Sebastián, J. Hermoso, M. Martínez-Júlvez, M. Medina","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715019641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1107/S1399004715019641","url":null,"abstract":"Riboflavin kinases (RFKs) catalyse the phosphorylation of riboflavin to produce FMN. In most bacteria this activity is catalysed by the C-terminal module of a bifunctional enzyme, FAD synthetase (FADS), which also catalyses the transformation of FMN into FAD through its N-terminal FMN adenylyltransferase (FMNAT) module. The RFK module of FADS is a homologue of eukaryotic monofunctional RFKs, while the FMNAT module lacks homologyto eukaryotic enzymes involved in FAD production. Previously, the crystal structure of Corynebacterium ammoniagenes FADS (CaFADS) was determined in its apo form. This structure predicted a dimer-of-trimers organization with the catalytic sites of two modules of neighbouring protomers approaching each other, leading to a hypothesis about the possibility of FMN channelling in the oligomeric protein. Here, two crystal structures of the individually expressed RFK module of CaFADS in complex with the products of the reaction, FMN and ADP, are presented. Structures are complemented with computational simulations, binding studies and kinetic characterization. Binding of ligands triggers dramatic structural changes in the RFK module, which affect large portions of the protein. Substrate inhibition and molecular-dynamics simulations allowed the conformational changes that take place along the RFK catalytic cycle to be established. The influence of these conformational changes in the FMNAT module is also discussed in the context of the full-length CaFADS protomer and the quaternary organization.","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72981638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
H. Serrano-Posada, S. Centeno-Leija, S. Rojas-Trejo, C. Rodríguez-Almazán, V. Stojanoff, E. Rudiño-Piñera
{"title":"X-ray-induced catalytic active-site reduction of a multicopper oxidase: structural insights into the proton-relay mechanism and O2-reduction states.","authors":"H. Serrano-Posada, S. Centeno-Leija, S. Rojas-Trejo, C. Rodríguez-Almazán, V. Stojanoff, E. Rudiño-Piñera","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715018714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1107/S1399004715018714","url":null,"abstract":"During X-ray data collection from a multicopper oxidase (MCO) crystal, electrons and protons are mainly released into the system by the radiolysis of water molecules, leading to the X-ray-induced reduction of O2 to 2H2O at the trinuclear copper cluster (TNC) of the enzyme. In this work, 12 crystallographic structures of Thermus thermophilus HB27 multicopper oxidase (Tth-MCO) in holo, apo and Hg-bound forms and with different X-ray absorbed doses have been determined. In holo Tth-MCO structures with four Cu atoms, the proton-donor residue Glu451 involved in O2 reduction was found in a double conformation: Glu451a (∼7 Å from the TNC) and Glu451b (∼4.5 Å from the TNC). A positive peak of electron density above 3.5σ in an Fo - Fc map for Glu451a O(ℇ2) indicates the presence of a carboxyl functional group at the side chain, while its significant absence in Glu451b strongly suggests a carboxylate functional group. In contrast, for apo Tth-MCO and in Hg-bound structures neither the positive peak nor double conformations were observed. Together, these observations provide the first structural evidence for a proton-relay mechanism in the MCO family and also support previous studies indicating that Asp106 does not provide protons for this mechanism. In addition, eight composite structures (Tth-MCO-C1-8) with different X-ray-absorbed doses allowed the observation of different O2-reduction states, and a total depletion of T2Cu at doses higher than 0.2 MGy showed the high susceptibility of this Cu atom to radiation damage, highlighting the importance of taking radiation effects into account in biochemical interpretations of an MCO structure.","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90294409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Roisin M McMahon, Mathieu Coinçon, Stephanie Tay, Begoña Heras, Craig J Morton, Martin J Scanlon, Jennifer L Martin
{"title":"Sent packing: protein engineering generates a new crystal form of Pseudomonas aeruginosa DsbA1 with increased catalytic surface accessibility.","authors":"Roisin M McMahon, Mathieu Coinçon, Stephanie Tay, Begoña Heras, Craig J Morton, Martin J Scanlon, Jennifer L Martin","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715018519","DOIUrl":"10.1107/S1399004715018519","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen for which new antimicrobial drug options are urgently sought. P. aeruginosa disulfide-bond protein A1 (PaDsbA1) plays a pivotal role in catalyzing the oxidative folding of multiple virulence proteins and as such holds great promise as a drug target. As part of a fragment-based lead discovery approach to PaDsbA1 inhibitor development, the identification of a crystal form of PaDsbA1 that was more suitable for fragment-soaking experiments was sought. A previously identified crystallization condition for this protein was unsuitable, as in this crystal form of PaDsbA1 the active-site surface loops are engaged in the crystal packing, occluding access to the target site. A single residue involved in crystal-packing interactions was substituted with an amino acid commonly found at this position in closely related enzymes, and this variant was successfully used to generate a new crystal form of PaDsbA1 in which the active-site surface is more accessible for soaking experiments. The PaDsbA1 variant displays identical redox character and in vitro activity to wild-type PaDsbA1 and is structurally highly similar. Two crystal structures of the PaDsbA1 variant were determined in complex with small molecules bound to the protein active site. These small molecules (MES, glycerol and ethylene glycol) were derived from the crystallization or cryoprotectant solutions and provide a proof of principle that the reported crystal form will be amenable to co-crystallization and soaking with small molecules designed to target the protein active-site surface.</p>","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4667283/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61948532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vaheh Oganesyan, Yariv Mazor, Chunning Yang, Kimberly E Cook, Robert M Woods, Andrew Ferguson, Michael A Bowen, Tom Martin, Jie Zhu, Herren Wu, William F Dall'Acqua
{"title":"Structural insights into the interaction of human IgG1 with FcγRI: no direct role of glycans in binding.","authors":"Vaheh Oganesyan, Yariv Mazor, Chunning Yang, Kimberly E Cook, Robert M Woods, Andrew Ferguson, Michael A Bowen, Tom Martin, Jie Zhu, Herren Wu, William F Dall'Acqua","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715018015","DOIUrl":"10.1107/S1399004715018015","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The three-dimensional structure of a human IgG1 Fc fragment bound to wild-type human FcγRI is reported. The structure of the corresponding complex was solved at a resolution of 2.4 Å using molecular replacement; this is the highest resolution achieved for an unmutated FcγRI molecule. This study highlights the critical structural and functional role played by the second extracellular subdomain of FcγRI. It also explains the long-known major energetic contribution of the Fc `LLGG' motif at positions 234-237, and particularly of Leu235, via a `lock-and-key' mechanism. Finally, a previously held belief is corrected and a differing view is offered on the recently proposed direct role of Fc carbohydrates in the corresponding interaction. Structural evidence is provided that such glycan-related effects are strictly indirect.</p>","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4631484/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61948521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Banerjee, S. Dasgupta, B. P. Mukhopadhyay, K. Sekar
{"title":"The putative role of some conserved water molecules in the structure and function of human transthyretin.","authors":"A. Banerjee, S. Dasgupta, B. P. Mukhopadhyay, K. Sekar","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715016004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1107/S1399004715016004","url":null,"abstract":"Human transthyretin (hTTR) is a multifunctional protein that is involved in several neurodegenerative diseases. Besides the transportation of thyroxin and vitamin A, it is also involved in the proteolysis of apolipoprotein A1 and Aβ peptide. Extensive analyses of 32 high-resolution X-ray and neutron diffraction structures of hTTR followed by molecular-dynamics simulation studies using a set of 15 selected structures affirmed the presence of 44 conserved water molecules in its dimeric structure. They are found to play several important roles in the structure and function of the protein. Eight water molecules stabilize the dimeric structure through an extensive hydrogen-bonding network. The absence of some of these water molecules in highly acidic conditions (pH ≤ 4.0) severely affects the interfacial hydrogen-bond network, which may destabilize the native tetrameric structure, leading to its dissociation. Three pairs of conserved water molecules contribute to maintaining the geometry of the ligand-binding cavities. Some other water molecules control the orientation and dynamics of different structural elements of hTTR. This systematic study of the location, absence, networking and interactions of the conserved water molecules may shed some light on various structural and functional aspects of the protein. The present study may also provide some rational clues about the conserved water-mediated architecture and stability of hTTR.","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78095544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structural analysis of an oxygen-regulated diguanylate cyclase.","authors":"M. Tarnawski, T. Barends, I. Schlichting","doi":"10.1107/S139900471501545X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1107/S139900471501545X","url":null,"abstract":"Cyclic di-GMP is a bacterial second messenger that is involved in switching between motile and sessile lifestyles. Given the medical importance of biofilm formation, there has been increasing interest in understanding the synthesis and degradation of cyclic di-GMPs and their regulation in various bacterial pathogens. Environmental cues are detected by sensing domains coupled to GGDEF and EAL or HD-GYP domains that have diguanylate cyclase and phosphodiesterase activities, respectively, producing and degrading cyclic di-GMP. The Escherichia coli protein DosC (also known as YddV) consists of an oxygen-sensing domain belonging to the class of globin sensors that is coupled to a C-terminal GGDEF domain via a previously uncharacterized middle domain. DosC is one of the most strongly expressed GGDEF proteins in E. coli, but to date structural information on this and related proteins is scarce. Here, the high-resolution structural characterization of the oxygen-sensing globin domain, the middle domain and the catalytic GGDEF domain in apo and substrate-bound forms is described. The structural changes between the iron(III) and iron(II) forms of the sensor globin domain suggest a mechanism for oxygen-dependent regulation. The structural information on the individual domains is combined into a model of the dimeric DosC holoprotein. These findings have direct implications for the oxygen-dependent regulation of the activity of the cyclase domain.","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85177756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the accuracy of unit-cell parameters in protein crystallography.","authors":"Zbigniew Dauter, Alexander Wlodawer","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715015503","DOIUrl":"10.1107/S1399004715015503","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The availability in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) of a number of structures that are presented in space group P1 but in reality possess higher symmetry allowed the accuracy and precision of the unit-cell parameters of the crystals of macromolecules to be evaluated. In addition, diffraction images from crystals of several proteins, previously collected as part of in-house projects, were processed independently with three popular software packages. An analysis of the results, augmented by published serial crystallography data, suggests that the apparent precision of the presentation of unit-cell parameters in the PDB to three decimal points is not justified, since these parameters are subject to errors of not less than 0.2%. It was also noticed that processing data including full crystallographic symmetry does not lead to deterioration of the refinement parameters; thus, it is not beneficial to treat the crystals as belonging to space group P1 when higher symmetry can be seen. </p>","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4631477/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88807469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"History and Philosophy of Biology. By Robert Kretsinger. World Scientific, 2015. Pp. 364. Price GBP 38.00. ISBN 9789814635042.","authors":"J. Jacquot","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715015163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1107/S1399004715015163","url":null,"abstract":"History and Philosophy of Biology by Robert Kretsinger could as well have been called ‘History and Philosophy of Science’ as it reaches well beyond the realm of biology and includes historical advances made in mathematics, physics and chemistry. Robert Kretsinger is an experienced Commonwealth Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia. In terms of research he has produced a wealth of biochemical data on the evolution of EF hand proteins, and he is thus extremely qualified to address the topic of the evolution of biology. The book by Professor Kretsinger is divided into four major chapters dealing with an overview of history and philosophy; an overview of the physical sciences; an overview of biology; and a final section dealing with the evolution of society/ science relationships. Each chapter is divided into small subchapters of about 5–8 pages, each of them being preceded by a one-page summary. Note that biology is only one of the four major sections and hence the proposed requalification of the whole volume. Of course biology has been profoundly influenced by chemistry, physics and mathematics, and it makes sense to first discuss all these fields in order to understand and put into perspective the amazing recent developments in biology. The front page of the book certainly suggests that the author is profoundly influenced by philosophy and mostly by Greek philosophy as it shows the statue of two Greek ‘thinkers’ one of them being presumably Socrates (unfortunately they are not formally identified). Professor Kretsinger takes you on a historical and philosophical trip concerning science in general, and biology in particular, that spans several millennia. He will help you evaluate the relative contributions of the early civilizations of Greece and China, and also those of the Islamic and Western societies. Because of its carefully crafted subdivisions you can either go for a lengthy ride or, if you are too busy, read only a couple subchapters and go back to it later. The book shows a wide erudition with a total of more than 600 major contributors listed (you will travel along with Plato, Socrates, Hippocrates, Avicenna, Newton, Pasteur, Carl von Linne, Buffon, Cuvier, Darwin, Helmholtz, Humboldt, Bohr, Boltzmann, Einstein, Crick and Watson, to name just a few). For those teachers and/or students interested in the evolution of science and the philosophical relationships with religion in particular, this is a must read. Not that it is exhaustive in any way, such a broad field can hardly be covered extensively in 340 pages, but it will give you the key to further reading should you so wish. In fact the four major sections of the book could easily give rise to four different volumes that would cover the different fields more extensively. Concerning the biology overview, history as told by Kretsinger explains that much has been derived from the need to cure people and the early observations of physiology, including experimentation/dissection","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90742893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ulrich Zander, Gleb Bourenkov, Alexander N Popov, Daniele de Sanctis, Olof Svensson, Andrew A McCarthy, Ekaterina Round, Valentin Gordeliy, Christoph Mueller-Dieckmann, Gordon A Leonard
{"title":"MeshAndCollect: an automated multi-crystal data-collection workflow for synchrotron macromolecular crystallography beamlines.","authors":"Ulrich Zander, Gleb Bourenkov, Alexander N Popov, Daniele de Sanctis, Olof Svensson, Andrew A McCarthy, Ekaterina Round, Valentin Gordeliy, Christoph Mueller-Dieckmann, Gordon A Leonard","doi":"10.1107/S1399004715017927","DOIUrl":"10.1107/S1399004715017927","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Here, an automated procedure is described to identify the positions of many cryocooled crystals mounted on the same sample holder, to rapidly predict and rank their relative diffraction strengths and to collect partial X-ray diffraction data sets from as many of the crystals as desired. Subsequent hierarchical cluster analysis then allows the best combination of partial data sets, optimizing the quality of the final data set obtained. The results of applying the method developed to various systems and scenarios including the compilation of a complete data set from tiny crystals of the membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin and the collection of data sets for successful structure determination using the single-wavelength anomalous dispersion technique are also presented. </p>","PeriodicalId":6895,"journal":{"name":"Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4631482/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61948469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}