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1 Clinical Genomics Center, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1L7, Canada
2 Division of Molecular and Structural Biology, Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 2M9, Canada
3 Banting and Best Department of Medical Research, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1L6, Canada
4 Biosciences Division and Structural Biology Center, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
Reprint requests to: Dinesh Christendat, Clinical Genomics Center, University Health Network, 101 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1L7, Canada; e-mail: dinesh{at}uhnres.utoronto.ca; fax : (416) 340-4004.
(RECEIVED November 29, 2001; FINAL REVISION February 21, 2002; ACCEPTED March 5, 2002)
Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.4720102.
| Abstract |
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Keywords: Hypothetical protein; structural proteomics; X-ray crystallography; structural biology
| Introduction |
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Our group has set out to determine the three-dimensional structures of nonmembrane proteins for which sequence-based methods have been unable to predict a function. Membrane proteins were excluded because it is technologically challenging to produce them on a high throughput scale. This approach is designed to produce a subset of protein structures that may be useful in elucidating protein function and that will contribute to our understanding of the sequence/structure relationship.
The proteins for our analysis were selected from Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum (MTH) whose genome comprises about 1885 open reading frames (ORFs). Fewer than 50% of the MTH gene products can be assigned a function based on their amino acid sequence analysis. Here, we report the three-dimensional structure of an MTH protein whose biological function is not known and has thus been annotated as unknown in the GenBank database. This protein (MTH1491) has several sequence homologs, all of which are also currently annotated as either unknown or hypothetical, indicating that their biological function has yet to be determined. A combination of structural, sequence, and co-crystallization data suggests a putative role for this family of proteins in sulfur oxidation or metabolism. The structural data provided here for MTH1491 will now enable more detailed functional analysis of this entire family of unknown proteins.
| Results and Discussion |
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Structure determination
The crystal structure of MTH1491 was determined to 2.3 Å resolution by multiwavelength anomalous dispersion (MAD) phasing from a selenium-containing protein crystal. Initial phases were obtained using crystallography and NMR system (CNS), which produced high-quality electron density for most of the molecule except for the region between residues 7481 for which the density is discontinuous. However, after several rounds of refinement with CNS, the electron density in this region became visible to a level sufficient for tracing of the main chain atoms. Residues 7481 of the protein, found in the middle of helix 3, are solvent exposed and are not involved in any crystal contacts with other molecules, which results in their being disordered. In addition, the two amino-terminal residues, whose density is also missing, were omitted from the final model. The final model consists of 111 amino acid residues, from 3 to 113, with proline 113 in cis conformation. CNS maximum likelihood refinement to 2.3 Å resolution resulted in an Rcryst of 20.2 and an Rfree of 22.6. According to PROCHECK (Laskowski et al. 1993), 96.7% of all residues in this model are in the most favored regions and 3.3% are in the additional allowed regions of the Ramachandran plot.
Overall fold
MTH1491 is a single domain molecule of 113 residues, with an overall topologic arrangement of alternating ß-strands and
-helices with strand order 51234 (Fig. 1A
). This arrangement produces a five-stranded twisted parallel ß-sheet flanked by helices on both faces and a disordered helix (
-helix 3) that lies perpendicular to the flanking helices. This structural arrangement, which is analogous to the Rossmann fold, is shared between diverse families of proteins and includes dehydrogenases, amidases, nucleotidyltransferases, and a number of flavin-binding proteins such as flavin reductase and ferredoxin.
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Structure comparison
Proteins with structures similar to MTH1491 were identified using DALI (Holm and Sander 1997). The most structurally conserved protein is glutaminaseasparaginase (DALI Z-score = 6.3, r.m.s.d. = 3.7 Å over 89 C
residues) and belongs to the family of amidohydrolases (Jakob et al. 1997). Amidohydrolases catalyze the hydrolysis of Asn and Gln residues to the corresponding acidic residues Asp and Glu. The second family of structurally similar proteins are dehydrogenases (with a range of DALI Z-scores between 5 and 3); however, this is not surprising as MTH1491 shares the ß/
topology that is common to dehydrogenases. Flavin reductase is also structurally similar (DALI Z-score = 5.9, r.m.s.d. = 3.5 Å over 90 C
residues) and belongs to the oxidoreductase family (Ingelman et al. 1999).
We initiated a more detailed structural and sequence analysis of MTH1491 with the above mentioned protein families identified by DALI. Dehydrogenases share several general structural features, including a conserved sequence motif GxGXXG, and a conserved aspartate residue at the carboxyl end of ß-strand 2 (Lesk 1995). Conserved glycine residues are important for the proper packing of the helices against the ß-strands and the conserved aspartate is involved in a hydrogen-bonding interaction with the 2`-hydroxyl group of the adenylyl ribose moiety. MTH1491 did not reveal any of these conserved features; therefore, it is not likely that MTH1491 is a dehydrogenase.
The structures of amidohydrolases are now available from Pseudomonas (Jakob et al. 1997), Escherichia coli (Swain et al. 1993), and Erwinia chrysanthemi (Miller et al. 1993). The DALI search identified Pseudomonas glutaminaseasparaginase (PGA) as the closest structural relative to MTH1491 with the highest Z-score (6.3) compared to all other identified proteins. Although the carboxy-terminal domain of PGA aligns well with the overall structure of MTH1491, the proposed active site residues in MTH1491 are not conserved in this region of PGA. The active site of PGA is found between the amino- and the carboxy-terminal domains; active site groups that are involved in catalysis are mainly located within the amino-terminal domain and substrate-binding groups are found in the carboxy-terminal domain. This leaves the class of oxidoreductases as possible structural and functional homologs of MTH1491. This possibility could neither be confirmed nor ruled out based on structural analysis.
In an effort to seek further evidence for a redox-related role, we analyzed the genomic organization of MTH1491 to identify a possible regulatory operon. Most of the neighboring ORF gene products are annotated as either hypothetical or unknown with the exception of the adjacent upstream gene of MTH1491, which codes for a 5` nucleotidase. Sequence analysis of this predicted nucleotidase with PSI-BLAST revealed that it shares a high degree of homology to the SoxB protein from Paracoccus denitrificans, A. aeolicus, and a number of other organisms. The thiosulfate oxidizing enzyme system of Paracoccus pantotrophus is located in the periplasm and four proteins SoxXA, SoxYZ, SoxB, and SoxCD are required for the complete oxidation of thiosulfate (Friedrich et al. 2000). Therefore, it is likely that this protein annotated as 5` nucleotidase is involved in sulfur oxidation. Because MTH1491 is adjacent to SoxB on the genome, and it has a conserved cysteine-containing domain, it is likely that MTH1491 may also be involved in sulfur oxidation.
To functionally understand how MTH1491 fits in the overall framework of this family of sulfur oxidizing proteins, we co-crystallized it with a variety of sulfate salts. Interestingly, we obtained a different crystal form with 0.05 M ammonium sulfate added to the original crystallization condition, suggesting an interaction with sulfate. Taken together, our structural and genomic analysis point to a role for MTH1491 in sulfur metabolism. Keeping in mind that the aim of structural genomics projects is to provide structural data to the general public for functional studies, further analysis to determine the function of MTH1491 was not undertaken. Nevertheless, these observations do indicate that MTH1491 may be involved in sulfate binding and may play a role in sulfur oxidation. However, further functional studies are required to confirm these findings.
| Materials and methods |
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Crystallographic studies
The single crystals grow as rods with maximum dimensions of 0.30 mm by 0.10 mm by 0.4 mm. Crystals selected for MAD data collection were grown in 30% MPD and 100 mM HEPES at pH 7.5 at 20°C. The crystals belonged to the hexagonal space group P63, with the following unit cell parameters: a = b = 82.4, and c = 37.0 Å. The Matthew's coefficient, VM, was determined to be 2.9 Å3 Da-1 implying a solvent content of 57.3% with a single molecule of MTH1491 in each asymmetric unit (Matthews 1968; Westbrook 1985). These values are within the range normally found for protein crystals. The diffraction data from the remote wavelength have an Rsym of 7.1% and a completeness of 99.4% to 2.3 Å. Data collection statistics are summarized in Table 1
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in an FoFc map, a peak of at least 1.0
in a 2FoFc map, and reasonable intermolecular interactions. Refinement statistics are found in Table 1
Accession number
Atomic coordinates have been deposited into the Protein Data Bank as PDB ID 1L1S.
| Acknowledgments |
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The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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