The rat zinc-finger antiviral protein (ZAP) was recently identified as a host protein conferring resistance to retroviral infection. We analyzed ZAP's ability to inhibit viruses from other families and found that ZAP potently inhibits the replication of multiple members of the Alphavirus genus within the Togaviridae, including Sindbis virus, Semliki Forest virus, Ross River virus, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. However, expression of ZAP did not induce a broad-spectrum antiviral state as some viruses, including vesicular stomatitis virus, poliovirus, yellow fever virus, and herpes simplex virus type 1, replicated to normal levels in ZAP-expressing cells. We determined that ZAP expression inhibits Sindbis virus replication after virus penetration and entry, but before the amplification of newly synthesized plus strand genomic RNA. Using a temperature-sensitive Sindbis virus mutant expressing luciferase, we further showed that translation of incoming viral RNA is blocked by ZAP expression. Elucidation of the antiviral mechanism by which ZAP inhibits Sindbis virus translation may lead to the development of agents with broad activity against alphaviruses.A previously unknown rat protein, designated zinc-finger antiviral protein (ZAP), was recently found to exhibit antiviral activity against Moloney murine leukemia virus (MMLV), a member of the Retroviridae. When challenged with an ecotropic MMLV carrying a luciferase reporter, cells expressing ZAP expressed 30 times less luciferase than did control cells. Expression of either the full-length rat ZAP or the aminoterminal one-third fused to the product of the zeocin resistance gene (NZAP-Zeo) was inhibitory, and the mechanism of the block was found to be a dramatic and specific loss of viral mRNAs from the cytoplasm, but not the nuclei, of cells (5). In our effort to better understand virus-host interactions, we tested ZAP's ability to inhibit infection by other viruses. Our studies indicate that, in addition to inhibiting MMLV replication, ZAP's range of targets also includes multiple members of the Alphavirus genus of the Togaviridae.Alphaviruses cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide (reviewed in reference 7). The broad host range for these viruses includes vertebrates and invertebrates, with arthropods being the usual vectors of transmission to mammals. Infection with Sindbis virus (SIN), the type alphavirus, can lead to a painful polyarthritis, while disease caused by Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE) ranges from a mild influenzatype illness to fatal encephalitis. Alphaviruses are small, enveloped RNA viruses with an icosahedral nucleocapsid (reviewed in reference 22). The SIN genome consists of a single, capped, positive-sense RNA molecule of approximately 11.7 kb and contains a 5Ј untranslated region (UTR) as well as a 3Ј UTR and a poly(A) tail. The 5Ј-terminal two-thirds of the genomic 49S RNA is directly translated to produce the four nonstructural proteins (nsPs), while the structural proteins are encoded by a subgenomic 26S ...

SUMMARY Formation of microtubule architectures, required for cell shape maintenance in yeast, directional cell expansion in plants and cytokinesis in eukaryotes, depends on antiparallel microtubule crosslinking by the conserved MAP65 protein family. Here, we combine structural and single molecule fluorescence methods to examine how PRC1, the human MAP65, crosslinks antiparallel microtubules. We find that PRC1's microtubule binding is mediated by a structured domain with a spectrin-fold and an unstructured Lys/Arg-rich domain. These two domains, at each end of a homodimer, are connected by a linkage that is flexible on single microtubules, but forms well-defined crossbridges between antiparallel filaments. Further, we show that PRC1 crosslinks do not substantially resist filament sliding by motor proteins in vitro. Together, our data show how MAP65s, by combining structural flexibility and rigidity, tune microtubule associations to establish compliant crosslinks that selectively `mark' antiparallel overlap in dynamic cytoskeletal networks.

The regular arrangements of β-strands around a central axis in β-barrels and of α-helices in coiled coils contrast with the irregular tertiary structures of most globular proteins, and have fascinated structural biologists since they were first discovered. Simple parametric models have been used to design a wide range of α-helical coiled-coil structures, but to date there has been no success with β-barrels. Here we show that accurate de novo design of β-barrels requires considerable symmetry-breaking to achieve continuous hydrogen-bond connectivity and eliminate backbone strain. We then build ensembles of β-barrel backbone models with cavity shapes that match the fluorogenic compound DFHBI, and use a hierarchical grid-based search method to simultaneously optimize the rigid-body placement of DFHBI in these cavities and the identities of the surrounding amino acids to achieve high shape and chemical complementarity. The designs have high structural accuracy and bind and fluorescently activate DFHBI in vitro and in Escherichia coli, yeast and mammalian cells. This de novo design of small-molecule binding activity, using backbones custom-built to bind the ligand, should enable the design of increasingly sophisticated ligand-binding proteins, sensors and catalysts that are not limited by the backbone geometries available in known protein structures.

Heterodimeric interaction specificity between two DNA strands, and between protein and DNA, is often achieved by varying side chains or bases coming off the protein or DNA backbone -- for example, the bases participating in Watson-Crick base pairing in the double helix, or the side chains of protein contacting DNA in TALEN-DNA complexes. This modularity enables the generation of an essentially unlimited number of orthogonal DNA-DNA and protein-DNA heterodimers. In contrast, protein-protein interaction specificity is often achieved through backbone shape complementarity 1, which is less modular and hence harder to generalize. Coiled coil heterodimers are an exception, but the restricted geometry of interactions across the heterodimer interface (primarily at the heptad a and d positions 2) limits the number of orthogonal pairs that can be created simply by varying sidechain interactions 3,4. Here we demonstrate that heterodimeric interaction specificity can be achieved using extensive and modular buried hydrogen bond networks. We used the Crick generating equations 5 to produce millions of four helix backbones with varying degrees of supercoiling around a central axis, identified those accommodating extensive hydrogen bond networks, and used Rosetta to connect pairs of helices with short loops and optimize the remainder of the sequence. 65 of 97 such designs expressed in E. coli formed constitutive heterodimers, and crystal structures of four designs were in close agreement with the computational models and confirmed the designed hydrogen bond networks. In cells, a set of six heterodimers were found to be fully orthogonal, and in vitro, following mixing of 32 chains from sixteen heterodimer designs, denaturation in 5M GdnHCl and reannealing, the vast majority of the interactions observed by native mass spectrometry were between the designed cognate pairs. The ability to design orthogonal protein heterodimers should enable sophisticated protein based control logic for synthetic biology, and illustrates that nature has not fully explored the possibilities for programmable biomolecular interaction modalities.