<p>Denitrification is an anaerobic process performed by several soil bacteria as an alternative to aerobic respiration. A key-step in denitrification (the N-N-bond is made) is catalyzed by nitric oxide reductase (NOR); 2NO + 2e^- + 2H⁺ → N₂O + H₂O. NOR from <i>Paracoccus denitrificans</i> is a member of the heme copper oxidase superfamily (HCuOs), where the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase is the classical example. NOR is situated in the cytoplasmic membrane and can, as a side reaction, catalyze the reduction of oxygen to water.</p><p>NORs have properties that make them divergent members of the HCuOs; the reactions they catalyze are not electrogenic and they do not pump protons. They also have five strictly conserved glutamates in their catalytic subunit (NorB) that are not conserved in the ‘classical’ HCuOs. It has been asked whether the protons used in the reaction really come from the periplasm and if so how do the protons proceed through the protein into the catalytic site?</p><p>In order to find out whether the protons are taken from the periplasm or the cytoplasm and in order to pinpoint the proton-route in NorB, we studied electron- and proton transfer during a single- as well as multiple turnovers, using time resolved optical spectroscopy. Wild type NOR and several variants of the five conserved glutamates were investigated in their solubilised form or/and reconstituted into vesicles.</p><p>The results demonstrate that protons needed for the reaction indeed are taken from the periplasm and that all but one of the conserved glutamates are crucial for the oxidative phase of the reaction that is limited by proton uptake to the active site.</p><p>In this thesis it is proposed, using a model of NorB, that two of the glutamates are located at the entrance of the proton pathway which also contains two of the other glutamates close to the active site.</p>

Bioinformatics is a fast-developing field, which makes use of computational methods to analyse and structure biological data. An important branch of bioinformatics is structure and function prediction of proteins, which is often based on finding relationships to already characterized proteins. It is known that two proteins with very similar sequences also share the same 3D structure. However, there are many proteins with similar structures that have no clear sequence similarity, which make it difficult to find these relationships. In this thesis, two methods for annotating protein domains are presented, one aiming at assigning the correct domain family or families to a protein sequence, and the other aiming at fold recognition. Both methods use hidden Markov models (HMMs) to find related proteins, and they both exploit the fact that structure is more conserved than sequence, but in two different ways. Most of the research presented in the thesis focuses on the structure-anchored HMMs, saHMMs. For each domain family, an saHMM is constructed from a multiple structure alignment of carefully selected representative domains, the saHMM-members. These saHMM-members are collected in the so called "midnight ASTRAL set", and are chosen so that all saHMM-members within the same family have mutual sequence identities below a threshold of about 20%. In order to construct the midnight ASTRAL set and the saHMMs, a pipe-line of software tools are developed. The saHMMs are shown to be able to detect the correct family relationships at very high accuracy, and perform better than the standard tool Pfam in assigning the correct domain families to new domain sequences. We also introduce the FI-score, which is used to measure the performance of the saHMMs, in order to select the optimal model for each domain family. The saHMMs are made available for searching through the FISH server, and can be used for assigning family relationships to protein sequences. The other approach presented in the thesis is secondary structure HMMs (ssHMMs). These HMMs are designed to use both the sequence and the predicted secondary structure of a query protein when scoring it against the model. A rigorous benchmark is used, which shows that HMMs made from multiple sequences result in better fold recognition than those based on single sequences. Adding secondary structure information to the HMMs improves the ability of fold recognition further, both when using true and predicted secondary structures for the query sequence. / Bioinformatik är ett område där datavetenskapliga och statistiska metoder används för att analysera och strukturera biologiska data. Ett viktigt område inom bioinformatiken försöker förutsäga vilken tredimensionell struktur och funktion ett protein har, utifrån dess aminosyrasekvens och/eller likheter med andra, redan karaktäriserade, proteiner. Det är känt att två proteiner med likande aminosyrasekvenser också har liknande tredimensionella strukturer. Att två proteiner har liknande strukturer behöver dock inte betyda att deras sekvenser är lika, vilket kan göra det svårt att hitta strukturella likheter utifrån ett proteins aminosyrasekvens. Den här avhandlingen beskriver två metoder för att hitta likheter mellan proteiner, den ena med fokus på att bestämma vilken familj av proteindomäner, med känd 3D-struktur, en given sekvens tillhör, medan den andra försöker förutsäga ett proteins veckning, d.v.s. ge en grov bild av proteinets struktur. Båda metoderna använder s.k. dolda Markov modeller (hidden Markov models, HMMer), en statistisk metod som bland annat kan användas för att beskriva proteinfamiljer. Med hjälp en HMM kan man förutsäga om en viss proteinsekvens tillhör den familj modellen representerar. Båda metoderna använder också strukturinformation för att öka modellernas förmåga att känna igen besläktade sekvenser, men på olika sätt. Det mesta av arbetet i avhandlingen handlar om strukturellt förankrade HMMer (structure-anchored HMMs, saHMMer). För att bygga saHMMerna används strukturbaserade sekvensöverlagringar, vilka genereras utifrån hur proteindomänerna kan läggas på varandra i rymden, snarare än utifrån vilka aminosyror som ingår i deras sekvenser. I varje proteinfamilj används bara ett särskilt, representativt urval av domäner. Dessa är valda så att då sekvenserna jämförs parvis, finns det inget par inom familjen med högre sekvensidentitet än ca 20%. Detta urval görs för att få så stor spridning som möjligt på sekvenserna inom familjen. En programvaruserie har utvecklats för att välja ut representanter för varje familj och sedan bygga saHMMer baserade på dessa. Det visar sig att saHMMerna kan hitta rätt familj till en hög andel av de testade sekvenserna, med nästan inga fel. De är också bättre än den ofta använda metoden Pfam på att hitta rätt familj till helt nya proteinsekvenser. saHMMerna finns tillgängliga genom FISH-servern, vilken alla kan använda via Internet för att hitta vilken familj ett intressant protein kan tillhöra. Den andra metoden som presenteras i avhandlingen är sekundärstruktur-HMMer, ssHMMer, vilka är byggda från vanliga multipla sekvensöverlagringar, men också från information om vilka sekundärstrukturer proteinsekvenserna i familjen har. När en proteinsekvens jämförs med ssHMMen används en förutsägelse om sekundärstrukturen, och den beräknade sannolikheten att sekvensen tillhör familjen kommer att baseras både på sekvensen av aminosyror och på sekundärstrukturen. Vid en jämförelse visar det sig att HMMer baserade på flera sekvenser är bättre än sådana baserade på endast en sekvens, när det gäller att hitta rätt veckning för en proteinsekvens. HMMerna blir ännu bättre om man också tar hänsyn till sekundärstrukturen, både då den riktiga sekundärstrukturen används och då man använder en teoretiskt förutsagd. / Jeanette Hargbo.

Organohalide-respiring Bacteria (OHRB) play key roles in the reductive dehalogenation of natural organohalides and anthropogenic chlorinated contaminants. Reductive dehalogenases (RDases) catalyze the cleavage of carbon-halogen bonds, enabling respiratory energy conservation and growth. Large numbers of RDase genes, a majority lacking experimental characterization of function, are found on the genomes of OHRB. In silico genomics tools were employed to identify shared sequence features among RDase genes and proteins, predict RDase functionality, and elucidate RDase evolutionary history. These analyses showed that the RDase superfamily could be divided into proteins exported to the membrane and cytoplasmic proteins, indicating that not all RDases function in respiration. Further, Hidden Markov models (HMMs) and multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) based upon biochemically characterized RDases identified previously uncharacterized members of an RDase superfamily, delineated protein domains and amino acid motifs serving to distinguish RDases from unrelated iron-sulfur proteins. Such conserved and discriminatory features among RDases may facilitate monitoring of organohalide-degrading microbial communities or improve accuracy of genome annotation. Phylogenetic analyses of RDase superfamily sequences provided evidence of convergent evolution and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) across distinct OHRB genera. Yet, the low frequency of RDase transfer outside the genus level and the absence of RDase transfer between phyla indicate that RDases evolve primarily by vertical evolution or HGT is restricted among related OHRB strains. Polyphyletic evolutionary lineages within the RDase superfamily comprise distantly-related RDases, some exhibiting activities towards the same substrates, suggesting a longstanding history of OHRB adaptation to natural organohalides. Similar functional and phylogenetic analyses provided evidence that nitrous oxide (N₂O, a potent greenhouse gas) reductase (nosZ) genes from versatile OHRB members of the Anaeromyxobacter and Desulfomonile genera comprised a nosZ sub-family evolutionarily distinct from nosZ found in non-OHRB denitrifiers. Hence, elucidation of RDase and NosZ sequence diversity may enhance the mitigation of anthropogenic organohalides and greenhouse gases (i.e., N₂O), respectively. The tetrachloroethene-respiring bacterium Geobacter lovleyi strain SZ exhibited genomic features distinguishing it from non-organohalide-respiring members of the Geobacter genus, including a conjugative pilus transfer gene cluster, a chromosomal genomic island harboring two RDase genes, and a diminished set of c-type cytochrome genes. The G. lovleyi strain SZ genome also harbored a 77 kbp plasmid carrying 15 out of the 24 genes involved in biosynthesis of corrinoid, likely related to this strains ability to degrade PCE to cis-DCE in the absence of supplied corrinoid (i.e., vitamin B₁₂). Although corrinoids are essential cofactors to RDases, the strictly organohalide-respiring Dehalococcoides mccartyi strains are corrinoid auxotrophs and depend upon uptake of extracellular corrinoids via Archaeal and Bacterial salvage pathways. A key corrinoid salvage gene in D. mccartyi, cbiZ, occurs at duplicated loci adjacent to RDase genes and appears to have been horizontally-acquired from Archaea. These comparative genome analyses highlight RDase dependencies upon corrinoids and also suggest mobile genomic elements (e.g., plasmids) are associated with organohalide respiration and corrinoid acquisition among OHRB. In summary, analyses of OHRB genomes promise to enable more complete modeling of metabolic and evolutionary processes associated with the turnover of organohalides in anoxic environments. These efforts also expand knowledge of biomarkers for monitoring OHRB activity in anoxic environments, and will improve our understanding of the fate of chlorinated contaminants.

Denitrification is an anaerobic process performed by several soil bacteria as an alternative to aerobic respiration. A key-step in denitrification (the N-N-bond is made) is catalyzed by nitric oxide reductase (NOR); 2NO + 2e- + 2H+ → N2O + H2O. NOR from Paracoccus denitrificans is a member of the heme copper oxidase superfamily (HCuOs), where the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase is the classical example. NOR is situated in the cytoplasmic membrane and can, as a side reaction, catalyze the reduction of oxygen to water. NORs have properties that make them divergent members of the HCuOs; the reactions they catalyze are not electrogenic and they do not pump protons. They also have five strictly conserved glutamates in their catalytic subunit (NorB) that are not conserved in the ‘classical’ HCuOs. It has been asked whether the protons used in the reaction really come from the periplasm and if so how do the protons proceed through the protein into the catalytic site? In order to find out whether the protons are taken from the periplasm or the cytoplasm and in order to pinpoint the proton-route in NorB, we studied electron- and proton transfer during a single- as well as multiple turnovers, using time resolved optical spectroscopy. Wild type NOR and several variants of the five conserved glutamates were investigated in their solubilised form or/and reconstituted into vesicles. The results demonstrate that protons needed for the reaction indeed are taken from the periplasm and that all but one of the conserved glutamates are crucial for the oxidative phase of the reaction that is limited by proton uptake to the active site. In this thesis it is proposed, using a model of NorB, that two of the glutamates are located at the entrance of the proton pathway which also contains two of the other glutamates close to the active site.

The venom of cone snails (predatory marine molluscs of the genus Conus) has yielded a rich source of novel neuroactive peptides or “conotoxins”. Conotoxins are bioactive peptides found in the venom duct of Conus spp. Like other neuropeptides, conotoxins are expressed as propeptides that undergo posttranslational proteolytic processing. Peptides derived from propeptides are typically cleaved at a pair of dibasic residues (Lys-Arg, Arg-Arg, Lys-Lys or Arg-Lys) by proteases found in secretory vesicles. However, many precursor peptides contain multiple sets of basic residues, suggesting that highly substrate specific or differentially expressed proteases can determine processing outcomes. As many of the substrate-specific proteases remain unidentified, predicting new bioactive peptides from cDNA sequences is presently difficult, if not impossible. In order to understand more about the substrate specificity of conotoxin substrate-specific proteases a characterisation study of one such endoprotease isolated from the venom duct of Conus textile was undertaken. The C. textile mollusc was chosen as a good source from which to isolate the endoprotease for two reasons; firstly, these cone shells are found in great abundance on the Great Barrier Reef (Queensland, Australia) and are readily obtainable and secondly, a number of conotoxin precursors and their cleavage products have been previously identified in the venom duct. In order to purify the endoprotease an activity-guided fractionation protocol that included a para-nitroanilide (p-NA) substrate assay was developed. The p-NA substrate mimicked the cleavage site of the conotoxin TxVIA, a member of the C. textile O-superfamily of toxins. The protocol included a number of chromatographic techniques including ion exchange, size-exclusion and reverse-phased HPLC and resulted in isolation of an active protease, termed Tex31, to >95% purity. The purification of microgram quantities of Tex31 made it possible to characterise the proteolytic nature of Tex31 and to further characterise the O-superfamily conopeptide propeptide cleavage site specificity. Specificity experiments showed Tex31 requires a minimum of four residues including a leucine in the P4 position (LNKR↓) for efficient substrate processing. The complete sequence of Tex31 was determined from cDNA. A BLAST search revealed Tex31 to have high amino acid sequence similarity to the CAP (abbreviated from CRISP (Cysteine-rich secretory protein), Antigen 5 and PR-1 (pathogenesis-related protein)) superfamily and most closely related to the CRISP family of mammalian and venom proteins that, like Tex31, have a cysteine-rich C-terminal domain. The CAP superfamily is widely distributed in the animal, plant and fungal kingdoms, and is implicated in processes as diverse as human brain tumour growth and plant pathogenesis. This is the first report of a biological role for the N-terminal domain of CAP proteins. A homology model of Tex31 constructed from two PR-1 proteins, Antigen 5 and P14a, revealed the highly conserved and likely catalytic residues, His78, Ser99 and Glu115. These three amino acids fall within a structurally conserved N-terminal domain found in all CAP proteins. It is possible that other CAP proteins are also substrate-specific proteases. With no homology to any known proteases, Tex31 may belong to a new class of protease. The sequence alignment of five Tex31-like proteins cloned from C. marmoreus, C. litteratus, C. arentus, C. planboris, and C. omaria show very high sequence similarity to Tex31 (~80%), but only one weakly conserved serine residue was identified when the conserved residues of the new Tex31-like protein sequences were aligned with members of the CAP superfamily. Future work to identify members of catalytic diad or triad, e.g. by site-directed mutagenesis, will rely on the expression of active recombinant Tex31. In this study neither Escherichia coli nor Pichia pastoris expression systems yielded active recombinant Tex31 protein, possibly due to the number of cysteine residues hindering the expression of correctly folded active Tex31. This study has shown Tex31 to be highly sequence specific in its cleavage site and it is likely that this high substrate specificity has confounded previous attempts to identify the proteolytic nature of other CAP proteins. With the proteolytic nature of one member of the CAP protein family confirmed, it is hoped this important discovery may lead the way to discovering the role of other CAP family members.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

The Major Facilitator Superfamily groups a vast number of secondary transporters that import or export distinct substrates. Among these, multidrug antiporters constitute a peculiar class of transporters, both because of their multispecificity, recognizing structurally very diverse substrates, and because of their transport mechanism, that relies on bilayer-mediated extrusion of cytotoxic compounds. An accurate and detailed description of the conformational changes that underlie the transport cycle is still lacking and the structural basis for energetic coupling in these transporters has not been elucidated, with so far only limited crystallographic evidence available. We investigate the molecular basis of secondary multidrug transport with biochemical and biophysical studies on LmrP, a Major Facilitator Superfamily multidrug transporter from Lactococcus lactis. We used extensive continuous-wave electron paramagnetic resonance and double electron-electron resonance measurements on a library of spin-labeled LmrP mutants to uncover the conformational states involved in transport and to investigate how protons and ligands shift the equilibrium between conformers to enable transport. We find that the transporter switches between outward-open and outward-closed conformations depending on the protonation states of specific acidic residues forming a transmembrane protonation relay. We observe that substrate binding restricts the conformational freedom of LmrP and induces localized conformational changes. Our data allows to build a model of secondary multidrug transport wherein substrate binding initiates the transport cycle by opening the extracellular side to protons. Subsequent protonation of membrane-embedded acidic residues induces substrate release to the extracellular side and triggers a cascade of conformational changes that culminates in a proton release to the intracellular side. Parallel to this, we have optimized our purification and expression protocol in order to set up crystallization trials on LmrP. Through extensive screening and optimization of the lipidation state of LmrP, using ad hoc methods for sample preparation, we were able to obtain low-resolution diffracting crystals. By improving our lipidation technique and modifying the lipid composition we further improved crystal quality. Other factors such as ligand addition, the presence of secondary detergent and additives for controlling phase separation and nucleation were tested, paving the way to high resolution structure determination of LmrP. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

No description available.

No description available.

Kohlenhydrat-bindende Module (CBMs) sind die bekanntesten nicht-katalytischen Module, die mit Enzymen assoziiert sind, welche die pflanzliche Zellwand hydrolysieren. Die beta-Mannanase 26 von Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus, Stamm Rt8B.4, ist eine thermostabile modulare Glycosidhydrolase, die N-terminal zwei dicht aufeinander folgende nicht-katalytische kohlenhydratbindende Module besitzt. Diese spezifisch beta-Mannan bindenden CBMs wurden kürzlich als Mitglieder der CBM-Familie 27 klassifiziert. Im ersten Teil dieser Arbeit wird die Kristallisation und Strukturanalyse des ersten kohlenhydratbindenden Moduls der ß-Mannanase aus C. saccharolyticus (CsCBM27-1) mit einer gebundenen Mannohexaose und in ligandfreier Form beschrieben. Grundlage für diese Arbeit waren Daten aus der isothermen Titrationskalorimetrie zur Quantifizierung der Affinität von CsCBM27-1 für lösliche Mannooligosaccharide. Die hier präsentierte hochaufgelöste Kristallstruktur des ungebundenen und Mannohexaose gebundenen CsCBM27-1 erlaubt weitere Einblicke in die Interaktion ß-Mannan bindender CBMs mit ihren entsprechenden Liganden. CsCBM27-1 zeigt eine typische ß-sandwich jellyroll-Struktur mit gebundenen Kalziumion. Die Mannohexaosebindung wird durch drei dem Lösungsmittel zugängliche Tryptophanreste und einige direkte Wasserstoffbrückenbindungen vermittelt. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Reinigung und Kristallisation der ATPase Virb11 HP0525 aus Helicobacter pylori. Das native Protein HP0525 ließ sich gut rekombinant herstellen und reinigen. Es wurde aus einer von mehreren Kristallisationsbedingungen durch Optimierung der Kristallisationskomponenten ausreichend große Kristalle erhalten, die gute Diffraktionseigenschaften zeigten. Neben dem nativen Protein wurde Selenomethionin-substituiertes Protein synthetisiert und gereinigt. Von diesem Protein SeMet-HP0525, resultierten hexagonale Kristalle. Zur Derivat-Datensatzsammlung ist es aufgrund der Publikation der Kristallstruktur dieser hexameren ATPase HP0525 nicht mehr gekommen. Weitere strukturelle Untersuchungen an diesem Protein wurden als nicht mehr erforderlich angesehen. / Carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs) are the most common non-catalytic modules associated with enzymes active in plant cell-wall hydrolysis. Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus strain Rt8B.4 Man26 is a thermostable modular glycoside hydrolase beta-mannanase which contains two non-catalytic modules in tandem at its N-terminus. These modules were recently shown to function primarily as ß-mannan-binding modules and have accordingly been classified as members of a novel family of CBMs, family 27. In the first part of this study, the crystallization and crystal structure analysis of the first carbohydrate binding module (CsCBM27-1) of the beta-mannanase from C. saccharolyticus in native and mannohexaose-bound form is described. The basis for this study were data from isothermal titration calorimetry for quantifying the binding affinity of CsCBM27-1 for soluble mannooligosaccharidesBoth structures permit further insights into the interaction of beta-mannan binding CBMs with their corresponding ligands. CsCBM27-1 shows the typical beta-sandwich jellyroll fold observed in other CBMs with a single calcium ion bound opposite to the ligand binding site. This arrangement is similar to topologies of other CBM families. The crystal structures reveal that the overall fold of CsCBM27-1 remains virtually unchanged upon sugar binding and that binding is mediated by three solvent-exposed tryptophan residues and few direct hydrogen bonds. The second part of this study addressed the purification and crystallization of the VirB11 ATPase HP0525 of Helicobacter pylori. The native HP0525 protein was produced in recombinant Escherichia coli and purified for crystallization. One of several crystallization experiments yielded large crystals by optimization of the concentration of the crystallization components. The crystals revealed good diffraction behavior. In addition to the native protein, selenomethionine-substituted HP0525 was produced and purified. Hexagonal crystals were obtained from the SeMet-HP0525. No derivative datasets were collected, because the crystal structure of the hexameric ATPase HP0525 was published by Yeo et al. (2000). Further structural investigations for the protein HP0525 were judged unnecessary.