No abstract

The genome of avian sarcoma virus CT1O encodes a fusion protein in which viral Gag sequences are fused to cellular Crk sequences containing primarily Src homology 2 (SH2) and Src homology 3 (SH3) domains. Transformation of chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) with the Gag-Crk fusion protein results in the elevation of tyrosine phosphorylation on specific cellular proteins with molecular weights of 130,000, 110,000, and 70,000 (p130, p110, and p70, respectively), an event which has been correlated with cell transformation. In this study, we have identified the 70-kDa yrosine-phosphorylated protein in CT10-transformed CEF (CT10-CEF) as paxillin, a cytoskeletal protein suggested to be important for organizing the focal adhesion. Tyrosinephosphorylated paxillin was found to be complexed with v-Crk in vivo as evident from coimmunoprecipitation studies. Moreover, a bacterially expressed recombinant glutathione S-transferase (GST)-CrkSH2 fragment bound paxillin in vitro with a subnanomolar affinity, suggesting that the SH2 domain of v-Crk is sufficient for binding. Mapping of the sequence specificity of a GST-CrkSH2 fusion protein with a partially degenerate phosphopeptide library determined a motif consisting of pYDXP, and in competitive coprecipitation studies, an acetylated A(p)YDAPA hexapeptide was able to quantitatively inhibit the binding of GST-CrkSH2 to paxillin and p130, suggesting that it meets the minimal structural requirements necessary for the interaction of CrkSH2 with physiological targets. To investigate the mechanism by which v-Crk elevates the tyrosine phosphorylation of paxillin in vivo, we have treated normal CEF and CT10-CEF with sodium vanadate to inhibit protein tyrosine phosphatase activity. Although many additional cellular proteins became hyperphosphorylated on tyrosine in the vanadate-treated CT10-CEF, the GST-CrkSH2 fragment still bound preferentially to the paxillin and 130-kDa proteins, suggesting a high degree of specificity in the interaction of CrkSH2 with these proteins. Paxillin phosphorylation was highly sensitive to vanadate treatment in both normal CEF and CT1O-CEF, and the elevation in tyrosine phosphorylation resulted in increased binding to GST-CrkSH2. Moreover, binding of full-length GST-v-Crk to tyrosine-phosphorylated paxillin in vitro protected paxillin from dephosphorylation by cellular protein tyrosine phosphatase activity. These data suggest that paxillin is involved in a highly dynamic kinase-phosphatase interplay in normal CEF and that v-Crk binding may interrupt this balance to increase the steady-state level of tyrosine phosphorylation. By contrast, the 130-kDa protein was not tyrosine phosphorylated upon vanadate treatment of normal CEF and only weakly affected in the CT10-CEF, suggesting that a different mechanism may be involved in its phosphorylation.

The pentapeptide repeat protein (PRP) family has more than 500 members in the prokaryotic and eukaryotic kingdoms. These proteins are composed of, or contain domains composed of, tandemly repeated amino acid sequences with a consensus sequence of [S,T,A,V][D,N][L,F][S,T,R][G]. The biochemical function of the vast majority of PRP family members is unknown. The three-dimensional structure of the first member of the PRP family was determined for the fluoroquinolone resistance protein (MfpA) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The structure revealed that the pentapeptide repeats encode the folding of a novel right-handed quadrilateral beta-helix. MfpA binds to DNA gyrase and inhibits its activity. The rod-shaped, dimeric protein exhibits remarkable similarity in size, shape, and electrostatics to DNA.

Summary One major objective of structural genomics efforts, including the NIH-funded Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), has been to increase the structural coverage of protein sequence space. Here, we present the target selection strategy used during the second phase of PSI (PSI-2). This strategy, jointly devised by the bioinformatics groups associated with the PSI-2 large-scale production centres, targets representatives from large, structurally uncharacterised protein domain families, and from structurally uncharacterised subfamilies in very large and diverse families with incomplete structural coverage. These very large families are extremely diverse both structurally and functionally, and are highly over-represented in known proteomes. On the basis of several metrics, we then discuss to what extent PSI-2, during its first three years, has increased the structural coverage of genomes, and contributed structural and functional novelty. Together, the results presented here suggest that PSI-2 is successfully meeting its objectives and provides useful insights into structural and functional space.