Structural investigation of 2-naphthyl phenyl ether inhibitors bound to WT and Y181C reverse transcriptase highlights key features of the NNRTI binding site
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Inverted (pin) perovskite solar cells (PSCs) afford improved operating stability in comparison to their nip counterparts but have lagged in power conversion efficiency (PCE). The energetic losses responsible for this PCE deficit in pin PSCs occur primarily at the interfaces between the perovskite and the charge-transport layers. Additive and surface treatments that use passivating ligands usually bind to a single active binding site: This dense packing of electrically resistive passivants perpendicular to the surface may limit the fill factor in pin PSCs. We identified ligands that bind two neighboring lead(II) ion (Pb 2+ ) defect sites in a planar ligand orientation on the perovskite. We fabricated pin PSCs and report a certified quasi–steady state PCE of 26.15 and 24.74% for 0.05– and 1.04–square centimeter illuminated areas, respectively. The devices retain 95% of their initial PCE after 1200 hours of continuous 1 sun maximum power point operation at 65°C.
The oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) of photosystem II (PSII) is an oxomanganese cluster composed of four redox-active Mn ions, and one redox-inactive Ca 2+ ion, with two nearby bound Cl – ions. Sodium is a common counter-ion of both chloride and hydroxide anions, and a sodium-specific binding site has not been identified near the OEC. Furthermore, we find that the oxygen-evolution activity of spinach PSII increases with [Na + ], particularly at high pH. A Na + -specific binding site next to the OEC, upon deprotonation of the D1-H337 amino-acid residue, is suggested by the analysis of two recently published PSII cryo-EM maps in combination with quantum mechanical calculations and molecular dynamics simulations.
Microbial pathogens bind host complement regulatory proteins to evade the immune system. The bacterial pathogen Neisseria meningitidis, or meningococcus, binds several complement regulators, including human Factor H (FH). FH binding protein (FHbp) is a component of two licensed meningococcal vaccines and in mice FHbp elicits antibodies that inhibit binding of FH to FHbp, which defeat the bacterial evasion mechanism. However, humans vaccinated with FHbp develop antibodies that enhance binding of FH to the bacteria, which could limit the effectiveness of the vaccines. In the present study, we show that two vaccine-elicited antibody fragments (Fabs) isolated from different human subjects increase binding of complement FH to meningococcal FHbp by ELISA. The two Fabs have different effects on the kinetics of FH binding to immobilized FHbp as measured by surface plasmon resonance. The 1.7- and 2.0-Å resolution X-ray crystal structures of the Fabs in complexes with FHbp illustrate that the two Fabs bind to similar epitopes on the amino-terminal domain of FHbp, adjacent to the FH binding site. Superposition models of ternary complexes of each Fab with FHbp and FH show that there is likely minimal contact between the Fabs and FH. Collectively, the structures reveal that the Fabs enhance binding of FH to FHbp by altering the conformations and mobilities of two loops adjacent to the FH binding site of FHbp. In addition, the 1.5 Å-resolution structure of one of the isolated Fabs defines the structural rearrangements associated with binding to FHbp. The FH-enhancing human Fabs, which are mirrored in the human polyclonal antibody responses, have important implications for tuning the effectiveness of FHbp-based vaccines.
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Rhodotorula toruloides has been increasingly explored as a host for bioproduction of lipids, fatty acid derivatives and terpenoids. Various genetic tools have been developed, but neither a centromere nor an autonomously replicating sequence (ARS), both necessary elements for stable episomal plasmid maintenance, has yet been reported. In this study, cleavage under targets and release using nuclease (CUT&RUN), a method used for genome-wide mapping of DNA–protein interactions, was used to identify R. toruloides IFO0880 genomic regions associated with the centromeric histone H3 protein Cse4, a marker of centromeric DNA. Fifteen putative centromeres ranging from 8 to 19 kb in length were identified and analyzed, and four were tested for, but did not show, ARS activity. These centromeric sequences contained below average GC content, corresponded to transcriptional cold spots, were primarily nonrepetitive and shared some vestigial transposon-related sequences but otherwise did not show significant sequence conservation. Future efforts to identify an ARS in this yeast can utilize these centromeric DNA sequences to improve the stability of episomal plasmids derived from putative ARS elements.
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Abstract Transcription factor decoy binding sites are short DNA sequences that can titrate a transcription factor away from its natural binding site, therefore regulating gene expression. In this study, we harness synthetic transcription factor decoy systems to regulate gene expression for metabolic pathways in Escherichia coli. We show that transcription factor decoys can effectively regulate expression of native and heterologous genes. Tunability of the decoy can be engineered via changes in copy number or modifications to the DNA decoy site sequence. Using arginine biosynthesis as a showcase, we observed a 16-fold increase in arginine production when we introduced the decoy system to steer metabolic flux towards increased arginine biosynthesis, with negligible growth differences compared to the wild type strain. The decoy-based production strain retains high genetic integrity; in contrast to a gene knock-out approach where mutations were common, we detected no mutations in the production system using the decoy-based strain. We further show that transcription factor decoys are amenable to multiplexed library screening by demonstrating enhanced tolerance to pinene with a combinatorial decoy library. Our study shows that transcription factor decoy binding sites are a powerful and compact tool for metabolic engineering.
The substrate-binding protein YfeA (also known as YPO2439 or y1897) is a polyspecific metal-binding protein that is crucial for nutrient acquisition and virulence in Yersinia pestis, the causative microbe of plague. YfeA folds into a monomeric c-clamp like other substrate-binding proteins and has two metal-binding sites (sites 1 and 2). Site 2 is a bidentate surface site capable of binding Zn and Mn atoms and is a unique feature of YfeA. Occasionally, the site 2 residues of two YfeA molecules will cooperate with the histidine tag of a third YfeA molecule in coordinating the same metal and lead to metal-dependent crystallographic packing. Here, three crystal structures of YfeA are presented at 1.85, 2.05 and 2.25 Å resolution. A comparison of the structures reveals that the metal can be displaced at five different locations ranging from ~4 to ~16 Å away from the canonical site 2. These observations reveal different configurations of site 2 that enable cooperative metal binding and demonstrate how site 2 is dynamic and freely available for inter-protein metal coordination.
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Abstract Background Due to the complexity of the biological systems, the prediction of the potential DNA binding sites for transcription factors remains a difficult problem in computational biology. Genomic DNA sequences and experimental results from parallel sequencing provide available information about the affinity and accessibility of genome and are commonly used features in binding sites prediction. The attention mechanism in deep learning has shown its capability to learn long-range dependencies from sequential data, such as sentences and voices. Until now, no study has applied this approach in binding site inference from massively parallel sequencing data. The successful applications of attention mechanism in similar input contexts motivate us to build and test new methods that can accurately determine the binding sites of transcription factors. Results In this study, we propose a novel tool (named DeepGRN) for transcription factors binding site prediction based on the combination of two components: single attention module and pairwise attention module. The performance of our methods is evaluated on the ENCODE-DREAM in vivo Transcription Factor Binding Site Prediction Challenge datasets. The results show that DeepGRN achieves higher unified scores in 6 of 13 targets than any of the top four methods in the DREAM challenge. We also demonstrate that the attention weights learned by the model are correlated with potential informative inputs, such as DNase-Seq coverage and motifs, which provide possible explanations for the predictive improvements in DeepGRN. Conclusions DeepGRN can automatically and effectively predict transcription factor binding sites from DNA sequences and DNase-Seq coverage. Furthermore, the visualization techniques we developed for the attention modules help to interpret how critical patterns from different types of input features are recognized by our model.
Detailed crystallographic characterization of a tri-aspartate metal-binding site previously identified on the three-fold symmetry axis of a hexameric enzyme, LarE from Lactobacillus plantarum, was conducted. By screening an array of monovalent, divalent, and trivalent metal ions, we demonstrated that this metal binding site stoichiometrically binds Ca 2+ , Mn 2+ , Fe 2+ /Fe 3+ , Co 2+ , Ni 2+ , Cu 2+ , Zn 2+ , and Cd 2+ , but not monovalent metal ions, Cr 3+ , Mg 2+ , Y 3+ , Sr 2+ or Ba 2+ . Extensive database searches resulted in only 13 similar metal binding sites in other proteins, indicative of the rareness of tri-aspartate architectures, which allows for engineering such a selective multivalent metal ion binding site into target macromolecules for structural and biophysical characterization.
[Q A – – Q A ] Fourier transform infrared difference spectra have previously been obtained using purple bacterial reaction centers from Rhodobacter sphaeroides with unlabeled, 18 O and 13 C isotope labeled phylloquinone (PhQ, also known as vitamin K 1 ) incorporated into the QA protein binding site (Breton, (1997), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94 11318–11323). The nature of the bands in these spectra and the isotope induced band shifts are poorly understood, especially for the phyllosemiquinone anion (PhQ – ) state. Here, to aid in the interpretation of the bands in these experimental spectra, ONIOM type QM/MM vibrational frequency calculations were undertaken. Calculations were also undertaken for PhQ – in solution. Surprisingly, both sets of calculated spectra are similar and agree well with the experimental spectra. This similarity suggests pigment-protein interactions do not perturb the electronic structure of the semiquinone in the Q A binding site. This is not found to be the case for the neutral PhQ species in the same protein binding site. PhQ also occupies the A 1 protein binding site in photosystem I, and the vibrational properties of PhQ – in the Q A and A 1 binding sites are compared and shown to exhibit considerable differences. These differences probably arise because of changes in the degree of asymmetry of hydrogen bonding of PhQ – in the A 1 and Q A binding sites.
Characterizing the tissue-specific binding sites of transcription factors (TFs) is essential to reconstruct gene regulatory networks and predict functions for non-coding genetic variation. DNase-seq footprinting enables the prediction of genome-wide binding sites for hundreds of TFs simultaneously. Despite the public availability of high-quality DNase-seq data from hundreds of samples, a comprehensive, up-to-date resource for the locations of genomic footprints is lacking. Here, we develop a scalable footprinting workflow using two state-of-the-art algorithms: Wellington and HINT. We apply our workflow to detect footprints in 192 ENCODE DNase-seq experiments and predict the genomic occupancy of 1,515 human TFs in 27 human tissues. We validate that these footprints overlap true-positive TF binding sites from ChIP-seq. We demonstrate that the locations, depth, and tissue specificity of footprints predict effects of genetic variants on gene expression and capture a substantial proportion of genetic risk for complex traits.
ATP-sensitive potassium (K ATP ) channels, composed of four pore-lining Kir6.2 subunits and four regulatory sulfonylurea receptor 1 (SUR1) subunits, control insulin secretion in pancreatic β-cells. K ATP channel opening is stimulated by PIP 2 and inhibited by ATP. Mutations that increase channel opening by PIP 2 reduce ATP inhibition and cause neonatal diabetes. Although considerable evidence has implicated a role for PIP 2 in K ATP channel function, previously solved open-channel structures have lacked bound PIP 2 , and mechanisms by which PIP 2 regulates K ATP channels remain unresolved. Here, we report the cryoEM structure of a K ATP channel harboring the neonatal diabetes mutation Kir6.2-Q52R, in the open conformation, bound to amphipathic molecules consistent with natural C18:0/C20:4 long-chain PI(4,5)P 2 at two adjacent binding sites between SUR1 and Kir6.2. The canonical PIP 2 binding site is conserved among PIP 2 -gated Kir channels. The non-canonical PIP 2 binding site forms at the interface of Kir6.2 and SUR1. Functional studies demonstrate both binding sites determine channel activity. Kir6.2 pore opening is associated with a twist of the Kir6.2 cytoplasmic domain and a rotation of the N-terminal transmembrane domain of SUR1, which widens the inhibitory ATP binding pocket to disfavor ATP binding. The open conformation is particularly stabilized by the Kir6.2-Q52R residue through cation-π bonding with SUR1-W51. Together, these results uncover the cooperation between SUR1 and Kir6.2 in PIP 2 binding and gating, explain the antagonistic regulation of K ATP channels by PIP 2 and ATP, and provide a putative mechanism by which Kir6.2-Q52R stabilizes an open channel to cause neonatal diabetes.
Increasing evidence shows the oncogenic function of FAM83D in human cancer, but how FAM83D exerts its oncogenic function remains largely unclear. Here, we investigated the importance of FAM83D/FBXW7 interaction in breast cancer (BC). We systematically mapped the FBXW7-binding sites on FAM83D through a comprehensive mutational analysis together with co-immunoprecipitation assay. Mutations at the FBXW7-binding sites on FAM83D led to that FAM83D lost its capability to promote the ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of FBXW7; cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro; and tumor growth and metastasis in vivo, indicating that the FBXW7-binding sites on FAM83D are essential for its oncogenic functions. A meta-evaluation of FAM83D revealed that the prognostic impact of FAM83D was independent on molecular subtypes. The higher expression of FAM83D has poorer prognosis. Moreover, high expression of FAM83D confers resistance to chemotherapy in BCs, which is experimentally validated in vitro. We conclude that identification of FBXW7-binding sites on FAM83D not only reveals the importance for FAM83D oncogenic function, but also provides valuable insights for drug target.
Abstract One striking feature of enzyme is its controllable ability to trap substrates via synergistic or cooperative binding in the enzymatic pocket, which renders the shape‐selectivity of product by the confined spatial environment. The success of shape‐selective catalysis relies on the ability of enzyme to tune the thermodynamics and kinetics for chemical reactions. In emulation of enzyme's ability, we showcase herein a targeting strategy with the substrate being anchored on the internal pore wall of metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs), taking full advantage of the sterically kinetic control to achieve shape‐selectivity for the reactions. For this purpose, a series of binding site‐accessible metal metalloporphyrin‐frameworks (MMPFs) have been investigated to shed light on the nature of enzyme‐mimic catalysis. They exhibit a different density of binding sites that are well arranged into the nanospace with corresponding distances of opposite binding sites. Such a structural specificity results in a facile switch in selectivity from an exclusive formation of the thermodynamically stable product to the kinetic product. Thus, the proposed targeting strategy, based on the combination of porous materials and binding events, paves a new way to develop highly efficient heterogeneous catalysts for shifting selectivity.
Abstract To advance our ability to predict impacts of the protein scaffold on catalysis, robust classification schemes to define features of proteins that will influence reactivity are needed. One of these features is a protein's metal‐binding ability, as metals are critical to catalytic conversion by metalloenzymes. As a step toward realizing this goal, we used convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to enable the classification of a metal cofactor binding pocket within a protein scaffold. CNNs enable images to be classified based on multiple levels of detail in the image, from edges and corners to entire objects, and can provide rapid classification. First, six CNN models were fine‐tuned to classify the 20 standard amino acids to choose a performant model for amino acid classification. This model was then trained in two parallel efforts: to classify a 2D image of the environment within a given radius of the central metal binding site, either an Fe ion or a [2Fe‐2S] cofactor, with the metal visible (effort 1) or the metal hidden (effort 2). We further used two sub‐classifications of the [2Fe‐2S] cofactor: (1) a standard [2Fe‐2S] cofactor and (2) a Rieske [2Fe‐2S] cofactor. The accuracy for the model correctly identifying all three defined features was >95%, despite our perception of the increased challenge of the metalloenzyme identification. This demonstrates that machine learning methodology to classify and distinguish similar metal‐binding sites, even in the absence of a visible cofactor, is indeed possible and offers an additional tool for metal‐binding site identification in proteins.