Signaling across cellular membranes, the 826 human G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) govern a wide range of vital physiological processes, making GPCRs prominent drug targets. X-ray crystallography provided GPCR molecular architectures, which also revealed the need for additional structural dynamics data to support drug development. Here, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy with the wild-type-like A adenosine receptor (AAR) in solution provides a comprehensive characterization of signaling-related structural dynamics. All six tryptophan indole and eight glycine backbone N-H NMR signals in AAR were individually assigned. These NMR probes provided insight into the role of Asp52 as an allosteric link between the orthosteric drug binding site and the intracellular signaling surface, revealing strong interactions with the toggle switch Trp 246, and delineated the structural response to variable efficacy of bound drugs across AAR. The present data support GPCR signaling based on dynamic interactions between two semi-independent subdomains connected by an allosteric switch at Asp52.

The potentiometric and spectroscopic (EPR, UV-Vis, CD) data have shown that the chicken prion hexa-repeat (Ac-His-Asn-Pro-Gly-Tyr-Pro-NH(2)) is a very specific ligand for Cu(2+) ions. The His imidazole is an anchoring binding site, then the adjacent amide nitrogen coordinates as a second donor. The presence of Pro at position 3 induces binding of phenolate oxygen as a third donor atom. The tridentate coordination dominates around physiological pH. Similar to human octapeptide fragments, chicken tandem repeats exhibit a cooperative effect in binding Cu(2+) ions, although chicken peptides are much less effective in metal ion coordination.

Using microcoil NMR technology, the uniformly 2 H, 15 N-labeled integral membrane protein OmpX and the phosphocholine derivative detergent Fos-10 (n-decylphosphocholine), we investigated solutions of mixed protein-detergent micelles to determine the influence of the detergent concentration on the NMR spectra of the protein. In a first step, we identified key parameters that influence the composition of the micelle solutions, which resulted in a new protocol for the preparation of well-defined concentrated protein solutions. This led to the observation that highquality 2D [ 15 N, 1 H]-TROSY spectra of OmpX reconstituted in mixed micelles with Fos-10 were obtained only in a limited range of detergent concentrations. Outside of this range from about 90 mM to 180 mM, we observed a significant decrease of the average peak intensity. Relaxationoptimized NMR measurements of the rotational and translational diffusion coefficients of the OmpX/ Fos-10 mixed micelles, D r and D t , respectively, then showed that the stoichiometry and the effective hydrodynamic radius of the protein-containing micelles are not significantly affected by high Fos-10 concentrations, and that the deterioration of NMR spectra is due to the increased viscosity at high detergent concentrations. The paper thus provides a basis for refined guidelines on the preparation of integral membrane proteins for structural studies.

No abstract

Prion protein (PrP) misfolding is one of the pivotal issues in understanding the rudiments of neurodegenerative disorders. The conformational change of mammalian cellular PrP to scrapie PrP is caused by an unknown agent, but there is reasonable evidence supporting the key role of copper ions in this process. The structure of the avian PrP was found to be very similar to the mammalian protein, although there is only 30% homology in the secondary structure. This work shows that copper ions are very effectively bound by hexarepeat fragments of chicken prion protein, although not as effectively as it was found in the case of mammalian protein. By means of potentiometric and spectroscopic techniques (nuclear magnetic resonance, circular dichroism, UV-vis, and electronic paramagnetic resonance), it was shown that Cu(II) ions coordinate to the chicken PrP hexapeptide domain in physiological pH via imidazole nitrogen donors of His residue(s). The binding pattern changes the structure of peptide involved, indicating a possible impact of Cu(II) ions in the biology and pathology of nonmammalian PrP, which could be similar to that found for mammalian PrP. The present study shows that, similar to the human prion octapeptide repeats, chicken prion hexapeptide repeats might bind copper ions in two different ways, depending on the number of repeats and metal/ligand molar ratio: (i) an intra-repeat coordination mode in which copper ion is chelated by His imidazole and deprotonated amide nitrogen in monomeric peptide and (ii) an inter-repeat coordination mode in which a polymeric peptide ligand (dimer and trimer) forms polyimidazole complexes that are very stable at physiological pH. Two proline residues inserted into the hexapeptide unit have a critical impact on the metal-binding ability.