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1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, 2 Department of Ophthalmology, and 3 Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York 10032, USA
Reprint requests to: Lawrence Shapiro, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, Box 18, New York, NY 10032, USA; e-mail: lss8{at}columbia.edu; fax: (212) 342-6026.
(RECEIVED June 30, 2005; FINAL REVISION September 9, 2005; ACCEPTED September 16, 2005)
| Abstract |
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Keywords: structural genomics; NYSGXRC; WrbA; TrpR binding protein
Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.051680805.
| Introduction |
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Sequence database searches with WrbA revealed a family of flavodoxin-like proteins (Grandori and Carey 1994). Proposed structure homology based on this sequence analysis supports the hypothesis that WrbA may share the 
twisted open-sheet fold characteristic of known flavodoxin structures (Grandori and Carey 1994). It has also been proposed based on these sequence analyses that members of the WrbA family contain a conserved insertion uncharacteristic of classical flavodoxins (Grandori and Carey 1994). Notably, prior studies have shown strong sequence similarity between proteins with quinone reductase activity and members of the WrbA family (Laskowski et al. 2002; Daher et al. 2005).
The presence of an N-terminal flavodoxin-like motif suggests the possibility of flavin mononucleotide (FMN) binding. Biochemical characterization of WrbA from Escherichia coli has shown that it binds one FMN molecule per monomer, although the binding constant was found to be weaker than that of many flavodoxins (Grandori et al. 1998). However, solution binding experiments indicated that WrbA did not bind FAD or riboflavin under the same conditions (Grandori et al. 1998). Ultracentrifugation experiments on E. coli WrbA indicate that it participates in a dimertetramer equilibrium (Grandori et al. 1998). In gel filtration experiments, FMN binding was found to have little or no effect on this multimeric equilibrium (Grandori et al. 1998). The WrbA from E. coli used for these characterization experiments shares 37% sequence identity with the putative WrbA from Deinococcus radiodurans and 40% sequence identity with the putative WrbA from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, for which the crystal structures are presented here. The sequences for the two structures presented here share only 29% sequence identity.
Here we report crystal structures of WrbA from D. radiodurans and P. aeruginosa, both in their apo forms and as complexes with FMN. These structures reveal a homotetramer that binds one FMN molecule per protomer. Each protomer adopts an 
twisted open-sheet fold similar to known long-chain flavodoxin structures (Smith et al. 1983). There are no significant structural changes observed upon FMN binding. The region surrounding the
6 helix, located in the core of the WrbA tetramer, is responsible for the majority of tetramerization interactions. These studies also reveal the structure of a conserved insertion sequence unique to the WrbA family.
| Results |
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twisted open-sheet fold similar to long-chain flavodoxins. The majority of the tetramerization interactions are found in the helical region surrounding and including
6, although this helix is not known to function in the tetramerization of other flavodoxins. The structures also reveal an insertion following the
2-strand, which is conserved in members of the WrbA family but not in known flavodoxin structures (Fig. 2
3 and
4 spanning from Glu43 to Thr70 in the structures of WrbA from D. radiodurans. This region lies close to the FMN binding site; however, it does not interact with the FMN molecule directly or contribute to the tetramerization of the molecule. This region is disordered in the structures from P. aeruginosa. The structure of WrbA from D. radiodurans also contains
7 spanning from Pro149 to Gly166. Long-chain flavodoxins contain an insertion corresponding to the
7 position, which splits the
5-strand. The function of this insertion in flavodoxins remains unclear; however, it is not believed to be structurally essential (López-Llano et al. 2004). This region is also disordered in the structures of WrbA from P. aeruginosa.
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twisted open-sheet fold shared by these three flavoproteins. The RMS deviation of the C
atoms of these structures from the unliganded WrbA structure from D. radiodurans structure are 1.8 Å, 2.0 Å, and 2.8 Å, respectively, across 148, 136, and 155 residue pairs. The unliganded structure from P. aeruginosa shows respective RMS deviations of 1.8 Å, 2.0 Å, and 2.6 Å across 144, 136, and 148 residue pairs. The unliganded structures of WrbA from D. radiodurans and P. aeruginosa show RMS deviation of 1.5 Å across 166 residue pairs. A sequence alignment between members of the WrbA family and members of the flavodoxin family is shown in Figure 3
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6 helix and the
5 sheet.
Although the insertion following
2 was correctly predicted by sequence alignment, the
6 helix region had also previously been proposed to be formed from an additional conserved insertion in the WrbA family (Grandori and Carey 1994). However, the structures reported here reveal that this region structurally aligns with the
4 helix of classical flavodoxin structures, located between
4 and
5 in most flavodoxins. WrbA is the first case in which this region is associated with tetramerization, which could account for the higher level of sequence conservation of WrbA proteins in this region. The
6 helix participates in interactions with each of the three other chains in the tetramer and is located at the core of the assembly (Fig. 4A
). Approximately 25%, 2486 Å2, of the accessible surface area of each protomer is buried upon tetramerization (Nicholls et al. 1991). Hydrophobic as well as polar and hydrogen-bonding interactions contribute to the tetramer interface (Fig. 4
). Additionally, the first section of the
5 strand aligns as an anti-parallel
-sheet with its mate upon tetramerization, although this interaction is limited to two hydrogen bonds. The sequence alignment shows that a number of the residues involved in tetramerizationin particular His142, Gly144, Tyr152, Gly161, Gly162, Pro164, and Tyr165 (numbered according to WrbA from D. radiodurans)are highly conserved among members of the WrbA family, but show little or no conservation among other flavodoxin-like proteins.
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-sheet (Fig. 5A
1 and
1 are highly conserved residues among flavodoxins and display interactions with the phosphate moiety of FMN. Interestingly, WrbA from D. radiodurans is one of only a few members of the WrbA family in which these residues are conserved. WrbA from P. aeruginosa shows the sequence SRHGAT in this loop, while most members of the WrbA family show a strong conservation of the sequence SXYGH in this loop. Under the crystallization conditions used here for the D. radiodurans WrbA, this loop binds one sulfate molecule in the absence of FMN (Fig. 5B
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| Discussion |
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2. The role of this insertion remains unclear, though it does not appear to be a necessary structural addition, and may play a functional role yet to be determined. These structures also show the FMN phosphate binding is similar to known structures; however, unlike other flavodoxins, residues from two chains contribute to interactions with the isoalloxazine ring indicating that tetramerization is likely to influence FMN binding. Tetramers are formed as dimers of dimers. The larger dimer interface, with 2423 Å2 buried surface area, involves no contacts with FMN. This is consistent with prior observations that the low-concentration dimeric gel filtration behavior of E. coli WrbA is unaffected by the presence of nucleotide (Grandori et al. 1998). The smaller dimer interface, burying 1601 Å2, involves intersubunit contacts mediated by FMN, and could thus conceivably be modulated by the presence of this cofactor. However, this is yet to be determined, since analytical ultracentrifugation studies to measure tetramer formation have not yet been compared in the presence and the absence of FMN (Grandori et al. 1998). The structures reported here do not provide clear insight into the identity of the WrbA binding site for TrpR. Nonetheless, these structural data help provide a framework for understanding biological functions for members of this protein family. | Materials and methods |
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The coding sequences of the wrbA gene from P. aeruginosa was subcloned into a modified pET 26b vector, with N-terminal MAHHHHHHSL tag that was not removed for crystallization. Selenomethionine substituted protein was prepared as described above. The protein was concentrated to 10.5 mg/mL in 10 mM HEPES at pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, and 10% glycerol. Crystals were obtained by vapor diffusion in 1.2 µL hanging drops containing 0.6 µL of protein and 0.6 µL of well solution. The well solution consisted of 16% PEG 3350, 0.12 M MgCl, 5 mM DTT, and Bis-Tris at pH 6.0 at 20°C. The crystals were flash frozen at 100 K in well solution supplemented with 30% glycerol. Crystals were soaked with 10 mM FMN for 24 h to obtain structures for the holoprotein. Data were collected at beamlines X29 and X4A at the NSLS. The crystal for the apo form belongs to space group P222 with cell dimensions of a=73.31 Å, b=73.33 Å, c=78.67 Å, and had two molecules per asymmetric unit. The FMN complex crystal belongs to space group P4222 with dimensions a=b=73.54 Å, c=78.17 Å, with one molecule per asymmetric unit. Detailed crystallographic statistics can be found in Table 1
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The data were processed and merged with Denzo (Otwinowski and Minor 1997). Selenium positions of the WrbA from D. radiodurans were located using Solve (Terwilliger and Berendzen 1999), and the initial model was traced with the program Resolve (Terwilliger 2000). O (Jones et al. 1991) was used to complete the model building. Refinement was performed with Refmac 5.2.0005 (Murshudov et al. 1997) using the CCP4i program suite (CCP 4 1994). Water molecules were added using Arp/wArp 6.1.1 (Perrakis et al. 1999). The molecular replacement solution for WrbA from P. aeruginosa was found by Phaser (Storoni et al. 2004) using the structure from D. radiodurans as a starting model. Molecular structure figures were made with Pymol (Delano Scientific), and the sequence alignment figure was made with Jalview (Clamp et al. 2004) and ClustalW (Thompson et al. 1994).
| Acknowledgments |
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