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Outer surface protein C (OspC) is a major antigen on the surface of the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, when it is being transmitted to humans. Crystal structures of OspC have been determined for strains HB19 and B31 to 1.8 and 2.5 Å resolution, respectively. The three‐dimensional structure is predominantly helical. This is in contrast to the structure of OspA, a major surface protein mainly present when spirochetes are residing in the midgut of unfed ticks, which is mostly β‐sheet. The surface of OspC that would project away from the spirochete's membrane has a region of strong negative electrostatic potential which may be involved in binding to positively charged host ligands. This feature is present only on OspCs from strains known to cause invasive human disease.

The New York SGX Research Center for Structural Genomics (NYSGXRC) of the NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) has applied its high-throughput X-ray crystallographic structure determination platform to systematic studies of all human protein phosphatases and protein phosphatases from biomedically-relevant pathogens. To date, the NYSGXRC has determined structures of 21 distinct protein phosphatases: 14 from human, 2 from mouse, 2 from the pathogen Toxoplasma gondii, 1 from Trypanosoma brucei, the parasite responsible for African sleeping sickness, and 2 from the principal mosquito vector of malaria in Africa, Anopheles gambiae. These structures provide insights into both normal and pathophysiologic processes, including transcriptional regulation, regulation of major signaling pathways, neural development, and type 1 diabetes. In conjunction with the contributions of other international structural genomics consortia, these efforts promise to provide an unprecedented database and materials repository for structureguided experimental and computational discovery of inhibitors for all classes of protein phosphatases.

The seven antigenically distinct serotypes of Clostridium botulinum neurotoxins cleave specific soluble N-ethylmaleimidesensitive factor attachment protein receptor complex proteins and block the release of neurotransmitters that cause flaccid paralysis and are considered potential bioweapons. Botulinum neurotoxin type A is the most potent among the clostridial neurotoxins, and to date there is no post-exposure therapeutic intervention available. To develop inhibitors leading to drug design, it is imperative that critical interactions between the enzyme and the substrate near the active site are known. Although enzyme-substrate interactions at exosites away from the active site are mapped in detail for botulinum neurotoxin type A, information about the active site interactions is lacking. Here, we present the crystal structures of botulinum neurotoxin type A catalytic domain in complex with four inhibitory substrate analog tetrapeptides, viz. RRGC, RRGL, RRGI, and RRGM at resolutions of 1.6 -1.8 Å . These structures show for the first time the interactions between the substrate and enzyme at the active site and delineate residues important for substrate stabilization and catalytic activity. We show that OH of Tyr 366 and NH 2 of Arg 363 are hydrogen-bonded to carbonyl oxygens of P1 and P1 of the substrate analog and position it for catalytic activity. Most importantly, the nucleophilic water is replaced by the amino group of the N-terminal residue of the tetrapeptide. Furthermore, the S1 site is formed by

The Woronin body is a dense-core vesicle specific to filamentous ascomycetes (Euascomycetes), where it functions to seal the septal pore in response to cellular damage. The HEX-1 protein self-assembles to form this solid core of the vesicle. Here, we solve the crystal structure of HEX-1 at 1.8 A, which provides the structural basis of its self-assembly. The structure reveals the existence of three intermolecular interfaces that promote the formation of a three-dimensional protein lattice. Consistent with these data, self-assembly is disrupted by mutations in intermolecular contact residues and expression of an assembly-defective HEX-1 mutant results in the production of aberrant Woronin bodies, which possess a soluble noncrystalline core. This mutant also fails to complement a hex-1 deletion in Neurospora crassa, demonstrating that the HEX-1 protein lattice is required for Woronin body function. Although both the sequence and the tertiary structure of HEX-1 are similar to those of eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF-5A), the amino acids required for HEX-1 self-assembly and peroxisomal targeting are absent in eIF-5A. Thus, we propose that a new function has evolved following duplication of an ancestral eIF-5A gene and that this may define an important step in fungal evolution.

The seven antigenically distinct serotypes of Clostridium botulinum neurotoxins, the causative agents of botulism, block the neurotransmitter release by specifically cleaving one of the three SNARE proteins and induce flaccid paralysis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared them as Category A biowarfare agents. The most potent among them, botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT/A), cleaves its substrate synaptosome-associated protein of 25 kDa (SNAP-25). An efficient drug for botulism can be developed only with the knowledge of interactions between the substrate and enzyme at the active site. Here, we report the crystal structures of the catalytic domain of BoNT/A with its uncleavable SNAP-25 peptide 197QRATKM202 and its variant 197RRATKM202 to 1.5 Å and 1.6 Å, respectively. This is the first time the structure of an uncleavable substrate bound to an active botulinum neurotoxin is reported and it has helped in unequivocally defining S1 to S5′ sites. These substrate peptides make interactions with the enzyme predominantly by the residues from 160, 200, 250 and 370 loops. Most notably, the amino nitrogen and carbonyl oxygen of P1 residue (Gln197) chelate the zinc ion and replace the nucleophilic water. The P1′-Arg198, occupies the S1′ site formed by Arg363, Thr220, Asp370, Thr215, Ile161, Phe163 and Phe194. The S2′ subsite is formed by Arg363, Asn368 and Asp370, while S3′ subsite is formed by Tyr251, Leu256, Val258, Tyr366, Phe369 and Asn388. P4′-Lys201 makes hydrogen bond with Gln162. P5′-Met202 binds in the hydrophobic pocket formed by the residues from the 250 and 200 loop. Knowledge of interactions between the enzyme and substrate peptide from these complex structures should form the basis for design of potent inhibitors for this neurotoxin.

Adenine deaminase (ADE) catalyzes the conversion of adenine to hypoxanthine and ammonia. The enzyme isolated from Escherichia coli using standard expression conditions was low for the deamination of adenine (k cat = 2.0 s −1 ; k cat /K m = 2.5 × 10 3 M −1 s −1 ). However, when iron was sequestered with a metal chelator and the growth medium was supplemented with Mn 2+ prior to induction, the purified enzyme was substantially more active for the deamination of adenine with values of k cat and k cat /K m of 200 s −1 and 5 × 10 5 M −1 s −1 , respectively. The apo-enzyme was prepared and reconstituted with Fe 2+ , Zn 2+ , or Mn 2+ . In each case, two enzyme-equivalents of metal were necessary for reconstitution of the deaminase activity. This work provides the first example of any member within the deaminase sub-family of the amidohydrolase superfamily (AHS) to utilize a binuclear metal center for the catalysis of a deamination reaction. [Fe II /Fe II ]-ADE was oxidized to [Fe III /Fe III ]-ADE with ferricyanide with inactivation of the deaminase activity. Reducing [Fe III /Fe III ]-ADE with dithionite restored the deaminase activity and thus the di-ferrous form of the enzyme is essential for catalytic activity. No evidence for spin-coupling between metal ions was evident by EPR or Mössbauer spectroscopies. The three-dimensional structure of adenine deaminase from Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Atu4426) was determined by Xray crystallography at 2.2 Å resolution and adenine was modeled into the active site based on homology to other members of the amidohydrolase superfamily. Based on the model of the adenine-ADE complex and subsequent mutagenesis experiments, the roles for each of the highly conserved residues were proposed. Solvent isotope effects, pH rate profiles and solvent viscosity were utilized to propose a chemical reaction mechanism and the identity of the rate limiting steps. † This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (GM 71790, GM074945, and GM 46441). The X-ray coordinates and structure factors for Atu4426 have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB accession code: 3nqb) * To whom correspondence may be sent: (FMR) Figure S1). This material is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptBiochemistry. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2012 March 22.Published in final edited form as: Biochemistry. 2011 March 22; 50(11): 1917-1927. doi:10.1021/bi101788n. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptAdenine deaminase (ADE 1 ) catalyzes the conversion of adenine to hypoxanthine and ammonia as shown in Scheme 1 (1,2). ADE is part of the purine degradation pathway where hypoxanthine is subsequently oxidized to uric acid by xanthine oxidase via a xanthine intermediate (3). This enzyme also participates in the purine salvage pathway for the synthesis of guanine nucleotides (1). ADE from Escherichia coli is a member of the amidohydrolase superfamily (AHS) and is clustered within cog1001 in ...

The seven serotypes of botulinum neurotoxins (A-G) produced by Clostridium botulinum share significant sequence homology and structural similarity. The functions of their individual domains and the modes of action are also similar. However, the substrate specificity and the peptide bond cleavage selectivity of their catalytic domains are different. The reason for this unique specificity of botulinum neurotoxins is still baffling. If an inhibitor leading to a therapeutic drug common to all serotypes is to be developed, it is essential to understand the differences in their three-dimensional structures that empower them with this unique characteristic. Accordingly, high-resolution structures of all serotypes are required, and toward achieving this goal the crystal structure of the catalytic domain of C. botulinum neurotoxin type E has been determined to 2.1 A resolution. The crystal structure of the inactive mutant Glu212-->Gln of this protein has also been determined. While the overall conformation is unaltered in the active site, the position of the nucleophilic water changes in the mutant, thereby causing it to lose its ability to activate the catalytic reaction. The structure explains the importance of the nucleophilic water and the charge on Glu212. The structural differences responsible for the loss of activity of the mutant provide a common model for the catalytic pathway of Clostridium neurotoxins since Glu212 is conserved and has a similar role in all serotypes. This or a more nonconservative mutant (e.g., Glu212-->Ala) could provide a novel, genetically modified protein vaccine for botulinum.