Exploring the atomic structure and conformational flexibility of a 320 Å long engineered viral fiber using X-ray crystallography.

Authors

Anshul Bhardwaj, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow
Sherwood R Casjens, University of Utah
Gino Cingolani, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2014

Comments

This article has been peer reviewed. It was published in: Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography

Volume 70, Part 2, February 2014, pages: 342-353.

The published version is available at DOI: 10.1107/S1399004713027685. Copyright © International Union of Crystallography

Abstract

Protein fibers are widespread in nature, but only a limited number of high-resolution structures have been determined experimentally. Unlike globular proteins, fibers are usually recalcitrant to form three-dimensional crystals, preventing single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. In the absence of three-dimensional crystals, X-ray fiber diffraction is a powerful tool to determine the internal symmetry of a fiber, but it rarely yields atomic resolution structural information on complex protein fibers. An 85-residue-long minimal coiled-coil repeat unit (MiCRU) was previously identified in the trimeric helical core of tail needle gp26, a fibrous protein emanating from the tail apparatus of the bacteriophage P22 virion. Here, evidence is provided that an MiCRU can be inserted in frame inside the gp26 helical core to generate a rationally extended fiber (gp26-2M) which, like gp26, retains a trimeric quaternary structure in solution. The 2.7 Å resolution crystal structure of this engineered fiber, which measures ∼320 Å in length and is only 20-35 Å wide, was determined. This structure, the longest for a trimeric protein fiber to be determined to such a high resolution, reveals the architecture of 22 consecutive trimerization heptads and provides a framework to decipher the structural determinants for protein fiber assembly, stability and flexibility.

Recommended Citation

Bhardwaj, Anshul; Casjens, Sherwood R; and Cingolani, Gino, "Exploring the atomic structure and conformational flexibility of a 320 Å long engineered viral fiber using X-ray crystallography." (2014). Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Faculty Papers. Paper 78.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/bmpfp/78

PubMed ID

24531468