Molecular Playground/Hexameric ClpX

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Revision as of 04:56, 11 December 2010

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ClpX is a CBI Molecules being studied in the Chemistry-Biology Interface Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It will be on display at Molecular Playground, with the banner "ClpX ‘spring cleans’ by dumping some proteins and refolding others."

Introduction

ClpX belongs to the AAA+ (ATPases Associated with diverse cellular Activities) family of proteins that are able utilize chemical energy obtained from ATP hydrolysis for their mechanical activity. ClpX is known to function as a molecular chaperone that unfolds native proteins, and as a protein degradation machinery when it forms a complex with the protease ClpP.

In the cell, ClpX forms a ring homo-hexamer that resembles a (electron micrographs). The top of the ring contain regions that recognize specific proteins. These proteins are unfolded through the central pore, and sent out of the bottom of the ring.

The crystal structure of hexameric ClpX without ATP and with ATP from Escherichia coli was solved in 2009 ([1]). Before that, there was only the crystal structure of monomeric ClpX from Helicobacter pylori, therefore information about the mechanistic abilities of hexameric ClpX was limited.

Structure

Notably, hexameric ClpX has a highly and . The central pore contain that help transport proteins [2], [3]. The are approximately 2-fold rotational symmetric [4]. Each consist of a large AAA+ domain, small AAA+ domain, and a linker that joins the two domain.

Even though the structure is literally a homo-hexamer, the subunits are structurally heterogenous. Two are known as Type-1 subunits where ADP nucleotides were found, and Type-2 subunits which do not contain ADP nucleotides. There are altogether four type-1 subunits and two type-2 subunits in a hexameric ClpX, fashioned in a cyclic 1-1-2-1-1 manner[5]. In sum, there are only four sites for ATP/ADP nucleotide binding, instead of six sites given that there are six ClpX monomers units, and this is not surprising because of previous experimental findings that ClpX hexamer bind a maximum number of four ATP only.

The positioning of Leucine 317 in the linker region is responsible for ADP (or ATP) binding. The contacts the adenine base of the nucleotide ADP , while the faces the opposite direction, causing conformation changes that prevents ADP binding .

Interestingly, the large domain in the two types of subunits are structurally similar, however structural variability is obvious in the small domain ( |

Taken together, these structure characteristics attribute to the mechanistic motion of hexameric ClpX ().

My research interest

To further define the specificity of ClpX function and determine its influences beyond cell cycle regulation.

References

Structures of asymmetric ClpX hexamers reveal nucleotide-dependent motions in a AAA+ protein-unfolding machine. Glynn et al. Cell (2009) 139 (4): 744-56 [6].

ConSurf 2010: calculating evolutionary conservation in sequence and structure of proteins and nucleic acids. Ashkenazy H., Erez E., Martz E., Pupko T. and Ben-Tal N. (2010) Nucleic Acids Res; DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkq399; PMID: 20478830 [7].

The morph server: a standardized system for analyzing and visualizing macromolecular motions in a database framework. WG Krebs, M Gerstein (2000) Nucleic Acids Res 28: 1665-75[8].

Acknowledgment

Emeritus Professor Eric Martz, for his kind consultation.