Functional insights from structures of coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 domains

Abstract

Coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1), a protein arginine methyltransferase recruited by several transcription factors, methylates a large variety of proteins and plays a critical role in gene expression. We report, in this paper, four crystal structures of isolated modules of CARM1. The 1.7 Å crystal structure of the N-terminal domain of CARM1 reveals an unexpected PH domain, a scaffold frequently found to regulate protein-protein interactions in a large variety of biological processes. Three crystal structures of the CARM1 catalytic module, two free and one cofactor-bound forms (refined at 2.55 Å , 2.4 Å and 2.2 Å , respectively) reveal large structural modifications including disorder to order transition, helix to strand transition and active site modifications. The N-terminal and the C-terminal end of CARM1 catalytic module contain molecular switches that may inspire how CARM1 regulates its biological activities by protein-protein interactions.