Phytochelatin synthase (PCS) is a key enzyme for heavy-metal detoxification in plants. PCS catalyzes the production of glutathione (GSH)-derived peptides (called phytochelatins or PCs) that bind heavy-metal ions before vacuolar sequestration. The enzyme can also hydrolyze GSH and GS-conjugated xenobiotics. In the cyanobacterium Nostoc, the enzyme (NsPCS) contains only the catalytic domain of the eukaryotic synthase and can act as a GSH hydrolase and weakly as a peptide ligase. The crystal structure of NsPCS in its native form solved at a 2.0-Å resolution shows that NsPCS is a dimer that belongs to the papain superfamily of cysteine proteases, with a conserved catalytic machinery. Moreover, the structure of the protein solved as a complex with GSH at a 1.4-Å resolution reveals a ␥-glutamyl cysteine acyl-enzyme intermediate stabilized in a cavity of the protein adjacent to a second putative GSH binding site. GSH hydrolase and PCS activities of the enzyme are discussed in the light of both structures.cysteine protease ͉ heavy-metal detoxification ͉ phytochelatin synthase

High-resolution X-ray structures of the complexes of Aspergillus flavus urate oxidase (Uox) with three inhibitors, 8-azaxanthin (AZA), 9-methyl uric acid (MUA) and oxonic acid (OXC), were determined in an orthorhombic space group (I222). In addition, the ligand-free enzyme was also crystallized in a monoclinic form (P2(1)) and its structure determined. Higher accuracy in the three new enzyme-inhibitor complex structures (Uox-AZA, Uox-MUA and Uox-OXC) with respect to the previously determined structure of Uox-AZA (PDB code 1uox) leads to a reversed position of the inhibitor in the active site of the enzyme. The corrected anchoring of the substrate (uric acid) allows an improvement in the understanding of the enzymatic mechanism of urate oxidase.

We present the experimental and theoretical background of a method to characterize the protein-protein attractive potential induced by one of the mostly used crystallizing agents in the protein-field, the poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG). This attractive interaction is commonly called, in colloid physics, the depletion interaction. Small-Angle X-ray Scattering experiments and numerical treatments based on liquid-state theories were performed on urate oxidase-PEG mixtures with two different PEGs (3350 Da and 8000 Da). A "two-component" approach was used in which the polymer-polymer, the protein-polymer and the protein-protein pair potentials were determined. The resulting effective protein-protein potential was characterized. This potential is the sum of the free-polymer protein-protein potential and of the PEG-induced depletion potential. The depletion potential was found to be hardly dependent upon the protein concentration but strongly function of the polymer size and concentration. Our results were also compared with two models, which give an analytic expression for the depletion potential.

The determination of the three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules by X-ray diffraction generally requires large good-quality crystals, which are often dif®cult to obtain as crystal nucleation and growth depend upon a great number of physicochemical parameters. In the future, the emergence of structural genomic projects will require new and rapid methods to determine crystallization conditions. Until now, the prediction of crystallization conditions has essentially been based on the knowledge of interparticular interactions in solutions inferred from studies on small soluble proteins in the presence of salts. The present study, by smallangle X-ray scattering, of urate oxidase from Aspergillus avus, a homotetrameric enzyme of 128 kDa, allowed the extension of the results to the crystallization of large proteins in the presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG). The protein crystallization, the nucleation rate and the different morphological crystal shapes obtained were correlated with the second virial coef®cient (A 2 ), which was found to be in a restricted range at the low end of the`crystallization slot' proposed by George & Wilson [(1994). Acta Cryst. D50, 361± 365].

In contrast with most inhalational anesthetics, the anesthetic gases xenon (Xe) and nitrous oxide (N(2)O) act by blocking the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor. Using x-ray crystallography, we examined the binding characteristics of these two gases on two soluble proteins as structural models: urate oxidase, which is a prototype of a variety of intracellular globular proteins, and annexin V, which has structural and functional characteristics that allow it to be considered as a prototype for the NMDA receptor. The structure of these proteins complexed with Xe and N(2)O were determined. One N(2)O molecule or one Xe atom binds to the same main site in both proteins. A second subsite is observed for N(2)O in each case. The gas-binding sites are always hydrophobic flexible cavities buried within the monomer. Comparison of the effects of Xe and N(2)O on urate oxidase and annexin V reveals an interesting relationship with the in vivo pharmacological effects of these gases, the ratio of the gas-binding sites' volume expansion and the ratio of the narcotic potency being similar. Given these data, we propose that alterations of cytosolic globular protein functions by general anesthetics would be responsible for the early stages of anesthesia such as amnesia and hypnosis and that additional alterations of ion-channel membrane receptor functions are required for deeper effects that progress to "surgical" anesthesia.