1em8
From Proteopedia
Crystal structure of chi and psi subunit heterodimer from DNA POL III
Structural highlights
Function[HOLC_ECOLI] DNA polymerase III is a complex, multichain enzyme responsible for most of the replicative synthesis in bacteria. This DNA polymerase also exhibits 3' to 5' exonuclease activity. [HOLD_ECOLI] DNA polymerase III is a complex, multichain enzyme responsible for most of the replicative synthesis in bacteria. This DNA polymerase also exhibits 3' to 5' exonuclease activity. The exact function of the psi subunit is unknown. Evolutionary Conservation Check, as determined by ConSurfDB. You may read the explanation of the method and the full data available from ConSurf. Publication Abstract from PubMedThe chi (chi) and psi (psi) subunits of Escherichia coli DNA polymerase III form a heterodimer that is associated with the ATP-dependent clamp-loader machinery. In E. coli, the chi:psi heterodimer serves as a bridge between the clamp-loader complex and the single-stranded DNA-binding protein. We determined the crystal structure of the chi:psi heterodimer at 2.1 A resolution. Although neither chi (147 residues) nor psi (137 residues) bind to nucleotides, the fold of each protein is similar to the folds of mononucleotide-(chi) or dinucleotide-(psi) binding proteins, without marked similarity to the structures of the clamp-loader subunits. Genes encoding chi and psi proteins are found to be readily identifiable in several bacterial genomes and sequence alignments showed that residues at the chi:psi interface are highly conserved in both proteins, suggesting that the heterodimeric interaction is of functional significance. The conservation of surface-exposed residues is restricted to the interfacial region and to just two other regions in the chi:psi complex. One of the conserved regions was found to be located on chi, distal to the psi interaction region, and we identified this as the binding site for a C-terminal segment of the single-stranded DNA-binding protein. The other region of sequence conservation is localized to an N-terminal segment of psi (26 residues) that is disordered in the crystal structure. We speculate that psi is linked to the clamp-loader complex by this flexible, but conserved, N-terminal segment, and that the chi:psi unit is linked to the single-stranded DNA-binding protein via the distal surface of chi. The base of the clamp-loader complex has an open C-shaped structure, and the shape of the chi:psi complex is suggestive of a loose docking within the crevice formed by the open faces of the delta and delta' subunits of the clamp-loader. Crystal structure of the chi:psi sub-assembly of the Escherichia coli DNA polymerase clamp-loader complex.,Gulbis JM, Kazmirski SL, Finkelstein J, Kelman Z, O'Donnell M, Kuriyan J Eur J Biochem. 2004 Jan;271(2):439-49. PMID:14717711[1] From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. See AlsoReferences
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