4hic

Publication Abstract from PubMed

Conjugative plasmid transfer presents a serious threat to human health as the most important means of spreading antibiotic resistance and virulence genes among bacteria. The required direct cell-cell contact is established by a multi-protein complex, the conjugative type IV secretion system (T4SS). The conjugative core complex spans the cellular envelope and serves as a channel for macromolecular secretion. T4SSs of Gram-negative (G-) origin have been studied in great detail. In contrast, T4SSs of Gram-positive (G+) bacteria have only received little attention thus far, despite the medical relevance of numerous G+ pathogens (e.g. enterococci, staphylococci and streptococci). This study provides structural information on the type IV secretion (T4S) protein TraK of the G+ broad host range Enterococcus conjugative plasmid pIP501. The crystal structure of the N-terminally truncated construct TraKDelta was determined to 3.0 A resolution and exhibits a novel fold. Immunolocalization demonstrated that the protein localizes to the cell wall facing towards the cell exterior, but does not exhibit surface accessibility. Circular dichroism, dynamic light scattering and size-exclusion chromatography confirmed the protein to be a monomer. With the exception of proteins from closely related T4SSs, no significant sequence or structural relatives were found. This observation marks the protein as a very exclusive, specialized member of the pIP501 T4SS.

The type IV secretion protein TraK from the Enterococcus conjugative plasmid pIP501 exhibits a novel fold.,Goessweiner-Mohr N, Fercher C, Arends K, Birner-Gruenberger R, Laverde-Gomez D, Huebner J, Grohmann E, Keller W Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr. 2014 Apr;70(Pt 4):1124-35. doi:, 10.1107/S1399004714001606. Epub 2014 Mar 21. PMID:24699656^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.