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Publication Abstract from PubMed

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is the causative agent of the deadly disease tuberculosis. Iron acquisition, regulation and storage are critical for the survival of this pathogen within a host. Thus, understanding the mechanisms of iron metabolism in Mtb will shed light on its pathogenic nature, as iron is important for infection. Ferritins are a superfamily of protein nanocages that function in both iron detoxification and storage, and Mtb contains both a predicted ferritin and a bacterioferritin. Here, the cloning, expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of the ferritin homolog (Mtb BfrB, Rv3841) is reported. An Mtb BfrB crystal grown at pH 6.5 using the hanging-drop vapor-diffusion technique diffracted to 2.50 A resolution and belonged to space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a=226.2, b=226.8, c=113.7 A, beta=94.7 degrees and with 24 subunits per asymmetric unit. Furthermore, modeling the crystal structure of a homologous ferritin into a low-resolution small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) electron-density envelope is consistent with the presence of 24 subunits in the BfrB protein cage quaternary structure.

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic analysis of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis ferritin homolog, BfrB.,McMath LM, Habel JE, Sankaran B, Yu M, Hung LW, Goulding CW Acta Crystallogr Sect F Struct Biol Cryst Commun. 2010 Dec 1;66(Pt 12):1657-61., doi: 10.1107/S1744309110042958. Epub 2010 Nov 26. PMID:21139218^[2]

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