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1 Laboratoire d'Enzymologie et Biochimie Structurales, Bâtiment 34, CNRS, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
2 Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, UPR 2301, CNRS, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
(RECEIVED October 2, 2006; FINAL REVISION November 21, 2006; ACCEPTED December 4, 2006)
| Abstract |
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Keywords: dynamic domains; hinge-bending domain motion; domain movement; translation-libration-screw refinement; anisotropic temperature factor
| Introduction |
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The GlmS·Fru6P crystal unit consists of three copies of the protein (monomers A to C) together with three fructose-6P molecules. The model of this complex was refined with isotropic B factors to an R factor of 24.4% and an Rfree of 28.5% at 2.05 Å resolution (Mouilleron et al. 2006). The average isotropic temperature factors were significantly different for each domain of the three non-crystallographic symmetry (NCS)-related molecules. In addition, the monomer C glutaminase domain with the highest B factors had a weak and ill-defined electron density, indicating static disorder. The relatively high R factors and large differences in B factors for the different molecules could be a consequence of unmodeled anisotropic displacements. Therefore, as individual atomic anisotropic refinement is not feasible with data collected at 2.05 Å resolution, we describe here the use of translation-libration-screw (TLS) parameterization that uses collective variables to describe the translation, libration (torsional vibration), and screw-rotation displacements of pseudo-rigid bodies to model anisotropic atomic displacement (Table 1A; Winn et al. 2001).
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Finally, a systematic analysis of the structural change occurring between the two X-ray structures of whole GlmS was done with the program DYNDOM (Hayward and Berendsen 1998). This allows us to delineate the dynamical domains and visualize the conformational change occurring upon DON binding in terms of domain movements. The domains' displacements observed in the crystals are then compared to the domains' motion during the catalytic cycle in order to know if it is related to the biological activity of the protein.
| Results and Discussion |
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atoms is 0.55 Å between monomers A and B and 0.61 Å between monomers A and C.
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atoms of 0.35 Å. The GlmS·Glc6P·DON crystal has a lower solvent content (52.9%) and is involved in more crystallographic contacts than the GlmS·Fru6P crystal (Table 1B). As the glutaminase domain of monomer B is less constrained by the crystal packing than the glutaminase domain of monomer A (Table 1B), its internal motion reflects better the mobility of the glutaminase domain in solution. In general, the glutaminase domains of all monomers of both structures are involved in less crystal-packing interactions than the synthase domains that are involved in the dimer interface (Table 1B) and appear, therefore, to be more flexible, allowing large conformational changes during the catalytic cycle.
TLS refinement
The TLS refinement allows improving the fit of the model to the observed data by accounting for the anisotropy of the data. In addition, it accounts for differences in displacement parameters between NCS-related molecules observed in the isotropic refinement. The TLS refinement implemented in REFMAC evaluates three separate contributions to the total atomic displacement parameter: the overall anisotropy of the crystal, the translations and librations of pseudo-rigid bodies within the asymmetric unit of the crystal, and the local displacements of individual atoms. All atoms within a TLS group are assumed to constitute a rigid body and the displacements about the rigid-body degrees of freedom for this group are refined to optimize the agreement between the model and the measured intensity data. Atomic displacements are represented by 20 refinement parameters for each TLS group instead of one or six parameters per atom, for isotropic or individual anisotropic refinement, respectively. An important component of the TLS model of anisotropic displacements is the choice of rigid groups. Either the whole asymmetric unit or each protein monomer or domain is usually treated as TLS groups. TLS refinement of crystallographic data has been used to investigate domain displacements in a few cases (Ramirez et al. 2002; Yousef et al. 2002; Papiz et al. 2003; Wilson and Brunger 2003; Chaudhry et al. 2004; Schultz-Heienbrok et al. 2004; Akif et al. 2005; Newstead et al. 2005; Painter and Merritt 2006), sometimes together with other complementary approaches.
The relatively high crystallographic factors after isotropic refinement (Table 1C), the different average isotropic B factors for the three monomers (Table 1B), and the loose packing of the crystal led us to investigate three TLS models for the GlmS·Fru6P structure (Table 1C). In the first model, only one TLS group including the three protein monomers and the three fructose-6P molecules was considered. In the second model, each of the three monomers in the asymmetric unit including its fructose-6P ligand was treated individually as a TLS group. In the third model, two TLS groups for each monomer were considered, one for the glutaminase domain and one for the synthase domain with fructose-6P. Solvent molecules were not included in any TLS group. The models have been refined with or without NCS restraints (Table 1B). Although all three TLS models give a drop in R and in Rfree, the inclusion of one TLS group for each monomer has the most significant effect with a decrease of R and Rfree respectively of 3.3% and 3.5%. A further 0.3% decrease in the R factor is observed when each domain is treated as an independent TLS group and this TLS model is further considered here. The GlmS·Glc6P·DON crystal has a much less pronounced anisotropic behavior than the GlmS·Fru6P crystal. The R factors are similar when TLS groups for the asymmetric unit, for each monomer, or for each domain are considered (data not shown). The TLS refinement results in a drop of 1.9% and 1.1% for R and Rfree, respectively (Table 1C). For both structures, while applying NCS restraints in the isotropic refinement has a negative effect on both R and Rfree factors, when TLS parameters are included, the R and Rfree factors have the same values whether NCS restraints are imposed or not.
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The libration tensor results of the TLS refinements where the NCS restraints have been released (Figs. 3B, 4) indicate a particularly large and anisotropic libration motion of monomer C glutaminase domain of the GlmS·Fru6P complex, which is indeed the least ordered part of the structure, as judged by the quality of the electron density (Supplemental Fig. S1) (mean-square displacement of 8.1°2). The directions of libration axes of the different domains are generally different (Fig. 4), indicating individual displacements of these domains. However, it is interesting to note that the axes of libration for the synthase domains of monomers B and C of the GlmS·Fru6P crystal have similar directions (Fig. 4A), implying that these two domains move together as one rigid body. It is the same for the synthase domains of monomers A and B of the GlmS·Glc6P·DON crystal (Fig. 4B). This is in agreement with the corresponding pairs of monomers forming compact dimers through the synthase domains (Fig. 1).
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Analysis of the domain movement occurring upon glutamine analog binding to sugar-bound glucosamine-6P synthase
Insight into protein domain motion most often comes from analyzing crystal structures of open and closed conformations. Examining multiple crystal structures of a protein in different conformations has shown that domain motions can be classified into two extreme types, shear and hinge (Gerstein et al. 1994; Wriggers and Schulten 1997). In hinge-type motion, movement is perpendicular to the interdomain surface, whereas it is parallel in the shear type.
No analysis of the domain movements was made in our previous paper reporting the GlmS·Fru6P and GlmS·Glu6P·DON structures determination (Mouilleron et al. 2006). In order to further investigate the dynamics of E. coli GlmS, we analyze here the conformational change of GlmS occurring upon glutamine analog binding in terms of domain movements by comparing the two structures with DYNDOM (Table 2; Fig. 5A,B; Hayward and Berendsen 1998; Hayward 1999). The program DYNDOM, based on the idea that dynamic domains can be identified by their differing rotational properties, delineates the quasi-rigid domains and identifies the interdomain screw axes and the residues involved in the interdomain motion.
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of Asp29 (participating in the dimer interface) and 2.1 Å from C
of Trp74. The translation component of the screw operation describing the domain movement is 1.07 Å (±0.09 Å) so that the movement is essentially a pure domain rotation. The mean-square libration is 8.1°2 and 2.9°2 for the least constrained glutaminase domains of the GlmS·Fru6P and GlmS·Glc6P·DON structures, respectively, while the hinge motion that accompanies the conformational change upon DON binding is 22.8°, indicating that the scales of these two types of motions are different. The angle between the interdomain hinge rotation axis and the closest predominant axis of libration of the glutaminase domain of the least constrained monomer (C) of the GlmS·Fru6P complex is 40.5° (Fig. 5B,C). Yet, the libration motion of the GlmS·Glc6P·DON complex is very different and of smaller magnitude than that of the GlmS·Fru6P complex (Fig. 5D). In fact, in the GlmS·Glc6P·DON complex that mimicks the conformation of the enzyme with two bound substrates, the two active sites are linked by the ammonia channel and no major domain movement is expected at this stage of the reaction while, in the GlmS·Fru6P complex, a conformational change of the enzyme that shields the glutamine binding site is observed upon glutamine binding. Therefore, the libration motion of the GlmS·Fru6P complex, which is of high magnitude and not observed in the following state of the enzyme, seems to be functionally significant and may be related to the conformational change that occurs upon glutamine binding.
Conclusion
The isotropic refinement of the crystal structure of GlmS in complex with fructose-6P at 2.05 Å resolution yielded relative high crystallographic factors. In addition, the three non-crystallographic symmetry-related molecules in the asymmetric unit showed significantly different overall displacement parameters. Therefore, the GlmS·Fru6P structure represents a typical example where anisotropic refinement can improve the fit of the model to the diffraction data by taking into account anisotropic rigid-body displacements. As TLS refinement allows us to take out experimental information about the dynamical properties of macromolecules from X-ray data, it was also performed for the GlmS·Glc6P·DON complex, which represents the following step in the reaction. This allows us to understand the basis of the transitions from one state to the other.
The refinement of TLS parameters implemented in the macromolecular refinement program REFMAC (Winn et al. 2001) gave best results when one TLS group for each domain was used. Removing large-scale domain displacements while making residual B factors more meaningful results in a large reduction in R and Rfree factors. For the GlmS·Fru6P structure, there was a spectacular improvement of 3.4% and 3.8% in R and Rfree values, respectively. TLS refinement of the displacement parameters of both structures indicates that the two domains are dynamically distinct, with the glutaminase domain possessing significantly more flexibility than the synthase domain. One glutaminase domain of the GlmS·Fru6P structure, for which weak crystallographic contacts and low electronic density were observed, presented a markedly anisotropic behavior for the libration motion. Since this domain is involved in few crystal contacts, the internal dynamics of this domain probably reflect its mobility in solution.
To avoid wasteful escape of ammonia, glutamine amidotransferases shield their active sites against the surrounding water environment. This involves the closure of one domain onto the other upon substrate binding as well as loop closure to trap the substrates. The comparison of the anisotropic domain displacements observed in the crystals and the domain motion during the catalytic cycle suggests that the intramolecular mobility properties of the sugar-bound enzyme contribute to facilitate the structural change that is observed upon glutamine binding and have, therefore, a biological significance.
Although TLS tensors do not describe normal modes of vibration, they approximate the effects of a collective motion of theses modes as the first three low-frequency normal modes describe correlated domain movements. To further explore the conformational dynamics of E. coli GlmS, this work will be complemented by a normal mode analysis (N. Floquet, C.H. Robert, D. Perahia, B. Badet, and M.-A. Badet-Denisot, in prep.).
| Materials and methods |
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TLS refinement
All TLS refinements were performed in REFMAC5 (Murshudov et al. 1999; Winn et al. 2001) using data between 152.05 Å or 152.35 Å resolution for the GlmS·Fru6P and GlmS·Glu6P·DON crystals, respectively. When used, NCS restraints are applied with medium restraints for main-monomer atoms and loose restraints for side-monomer atoms. As the best results are usually observed when all atomic B factors are fixed at a constant value before refining the overall scale factor and TLS parameters (Winn et al. 2001), this procedure was adopted here. All TLS refinements used the same starting coordinates with all isotropic B factors set to 35 Å2. TLS refinements were carried out for 12 cycles of conjugate-gradient least-squares refinement against all measured data, with a matrix weighting term of 0.2. A bulk-solvent model was employed and an overall anisotropic scale factor was applied. After the TLS refinement was complete, additional 15 cycles of restrained conjugate-gradient least-squares of both coordinates and isotropic B factors were performed. The same 5% of the data were used to calculate Rfree through the CNS and REFMAC5 portions of the refinement. The CCP4 program TLSANL (Howlin et al. 1993) was used to determine the principal axes of the TLS tensors relative to an orthogonal frame with the center of reaction as origin as well as the magnitudes along these axes. The final model of the GlmS·Fru6P structure includes 64% and 92% of the side chains for the monomer C glutaminase and synthase domains, respectively. The number of contacts between the different domains has been calculated with NCONT from CCP4i (version 5).
Domain rotation analysis
The protein dynamical domains, hinge axes, and amino acids involved in the hinge bending motion upon DON binding were determined with the CCP4 program DYNDOM (Hayward and Berendsen 1998) based on the comparison of the GlmS·Fru6P and GlmS·Glc6P·DON structures. A sliding window of five residues was used in the analysis. The minimum value for the ratio of interdomain to intradomain displacement was set to 1.0 and the minimum domain size was 60 residues.
| Footnotes |
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Supplemental material: see www.proteinscience.org
Reprint requests to: Béatrice Golinelli-Pimpaneau, CNRS, Bâtiment 34, 1 Avenue de la Terrasse, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91198 Cedex, France; e-mail: beatrice.golinelli{at}lebs.cnrs-gif.fr; fax: 33-1-69823129.
Abbreviations: GlmS, glucosamine-6-phosphate synthase; Fru6P, D-fructose-6-phosphate; Glc6P, D-glucose-6-phosphate; DON, 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-nor-leucine; TLS, translation-libration-screw; NCS, non-crystallographic symmetry; RMSD, root-mean-square deviation.
Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.062598107.
| Acknowledgments |
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