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T C Terwilliger

Publications and source records attributed to T C Terwilliger.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1998

Circular dichroism and electron microscopy of a core Y61F mutant of the F1 gene 5 single-stranded DNA-binding protein and theoretical analysis of CD spectra of four Tyr --> Phe substitutions.

A core Y61F mutant of the gene 5 single-stranded DNA-binding protein (g5p) of f1 bacterial virus aggregated when expressed from a plasmid, but, after refolding in vitro, it behaved much like wild-type and may be a stability or folding mutant. Circular dichroism (CD) titrations showed the same cooperative polynucleotide binding modes for Y61F and wild-type g5p. There are n = 4 and n congruent with 2.5 modes for binding to poly[d(A)] at low ionic strengths, but n = 4, n = 3, and n congruent with 2-2.5 modes for binding to fd single-stranded viral DNA (fd ssDNA), where n is the number of nucleotides occluded by each bound g5p monomer in a given mode. Y61F g5p has slightly reduced affinity in the n = 4 mode. Electron microscopy showed that Y61F g5p forms left-handed nucleoprotein superhelices indistinguishable from wild-type. Progression from binding to fd ssDNA in the n = 4 to n = 3 to n congruent with 2-2.5 mode is accompanied by an increase in the number of helical turns, an increase from (7.7 +/- 0.3) to (9.5 +/- 0.3) to ( approximately 10-13) g5p dimers per turn, and a decrease in the number of DNA nucleotides per turn. From CD spectra for four of five possible Y --> F g5p mutants, we infer that the fifth tyrosine, Tyr 56, contributes strongly to the CD. Retention of a strong 229 nm CD band in all mutants indicates that all retain elements of the native structure. Spectra of Y26F, Y34F, and Y61F g5p imply limited mobility of the replacement Phe. Comparison of measured with calculated CD spectra also suggests limited mobility for Tyr 26 and Tyr 34 in g5p in solution, and provides new information that the g5p structure in solution may be dominated by Tyr 41 rotamers differing from that stabilized in the crystal.

Amino Acid Substitution↗
PubMed1998

Class-directed structure determination: foundation for a protein structure initiative.

The recent sequencing of many complete genomes, combined with the development of methods that allow rapid structure determination for many proteins, has changed the way in which protein structure determinations can be approached. One-by-one determinations of individual protein structures will soon be augmented by class-directed structure analyses in which a group of proteins is targeted and structures of representative members are determined and used to represent the entire group. Such a shift in approach would be the foundation for a broad protein structure initiative targeting classes of proteins important for biotechnology and for a fundamental understanding of protein function.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

A nondenaturing purification scheme for the DNA-binding domain of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase, a structure-specific DNA-binding protein.

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) is thought to be involved in DNA repair given its ability to recognize and bind to DNA strand breaks. During apoptosis, PARP is proteolytically cleaved into two stable fragments, the N-terminal 25-kDa DNA-binding domain (DBD) and the 85-kDa fragment containing the automodification and catalytic domains. To understand the DNA-binding properties of PARP, we expressed a recombinant hexahistidine tagged protein (His-DBD) in Escherichia coli. We modified expression to facilitate protein folding by including zinc and reducing the induction temperature. Properly folded, the DNA-binding domain of PARP binds to single- and double-stranded DNA in a structure-specific manner. To eliminate contamination with bacterial DNA that occurred during the purification process, a purification procedure was developed to produce DNA-free protein. In addition, to remove the hexahistidine tag from the recombinant protein, thrombin cleavage was carried out while the recombinant protein was bound to a DNA column. This procedure stabilized the recombinant protein and resulted in nearly 100% cleavage with no appreciable loss to unwanted proteolytic degradation. This nondenaturing purification scheme results in high-quality, native PARP-DBD for use in structural and biochemical studies.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1998

Scission of DNA at a preselected sequence using a single-strand-specific chemical nuclease.

BACKGROUND: We were interested in developing a protocol for cleaving large DNAs specifically. Previous attempts to develop such methods have failed to work because of high levels of nonspecific background scission. RESULTS: R-loop formation was chosen for sequence-specific targeting, a method of hybridization whereby an RNA displaces a DNA strand of identical sequence in 70% formamide using Watson-Crick base-pairing, leading to a three-stranded structure. R-loops are stabilized in aqueous solution by modifying the bases with chemical reagents. The R-loop was cleaved using a novel nuclease prepared from the Thr48-->Cys mutant of the single-strand-specific M-13 gene V protein (GVP), which was alkylated with 5-(iodoacetamido-beta-alanyl)1,10-phenanthroline. The cleavage products of the pGEM plasmid were cloned in to the pCR 2.1-TOPO vector. Adenovirus 2 DNA (35.8 kb; tenfold larger than the pGEM plasmid) was also cleaved quantitatively at a preselected sequence. CONCLUSIONS: A new method for cleaving duplex DNA at any preselected sequence was developed. The cleavage method relies on the chemical conversion of M-13 GVP into a nuclease, reflecting GVP's specificity for single-stranded DNA. The GVP chimera is the first example of a semisynthetic secondary structure specific nuclease. The chemical nuclease activity of 1,10-phenanthroline-copper is uniquely suited to this technique because it oxidizes the deoxyribose moiety without generating diffusible intermediates, providing clonable DNA fragments. The protocol could be useful in generating large DNA fragments for mapping the contiguity of probes or defining the exon-intron structure of transcription units.

Adenoviridae↗
PubMed1997

Bayesian correlated MAD phasing.

A Bayesian treatment for phase calculation in the multiwavelength anomalous diffraction (MAD) technique is presented. This approach explicitly treats effects of errors correlated among measurements at different wavelengths and between Bijvoet pairs. The resulting method, which is called Bayesian correlated MAD phasing, gives proper statistical consideration to all data and does not give special treatment to data from a particular wavelength. Results obtained using Bayesian correlated MAD phasing and two other strategies on both a model test case and on data obtained in two actual MAD experiments are compared. Although all procedures performed well when the completeness of the data was high, it is shown that Bayesian correlated MAD phasing is more robust with respect to incompleteness of data than the other methods are. At 60% completeness the improvement over other methods for the examples given was nearly 50% in the correlation coefficients, and made a substantial difference in the interpretability of an electron-density map.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1997

Analyses of the stability and function of three surface mutants (R82C, K69H, and L32R) of the gene V protein from Ff phage by X-ray crystallography.

The high-resolution crystal structure of the gene V protein (GVP) from the Ff filamentous phages (M13, fl, fd) has been solved recently for the wild-type and two surface mutant (Y41F and Y41H) proteins, leading to a plausible model for the polymeric GVP-ssDNA complex (Guan Y, Zhang H, Wang AHJ, 1995, Protein Sci 4:187-197). The model of the complex shows extensive contacts between neighboring dimer GVPs involving electrostatic interactions between the K69 from one and the D79 and R82 from the next dimer. In addition, hydrophobic interactions between the amino acids L32 and L44 from one and G23 from the next dimer also contribute to the dimer-dimer interactions. Mutations at the L32, K69, and R82 amino acid sites generally destabilize the protein and many of these affect the function of the phage. We have studied the structural effects of three mutant proteins involving those sites, i.e., L32R, K69H, and R82C, by X-ray crystallographic analysis at 2.0 A resolution. In L32R GVP, the structural perturbation is localized, whereas in K69H and R82C GVPs, some long-range effects are also detected in addition to the local perturbation. We have interpreted the protein stability and the functional properties associated with those mutations in terms of the observed structural perturbations.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1996

Gene V protein dimerization and cooperativity of binding of poly(dA).

Gene V protein of bacteriophage f1 is a dimeric protein that binds cooperatively to single-stranded nucleic acids. In order to determine whether a monomer-dimer equilibrium has an appreciable effect upon the thermodynamics of gene V protein binding to nucleic acids, the dissociation constant for the protein dimer was investigated using size-exclusion chromatography. At concentrations ranging from 5 x 10(-10) to 1.2 x 10(-5) M, the Stokes radius of the protein was that expected of the dimer of the gene V protein. The Stokes radius of the protein was also independent of salt concentration from 0.2 to 1.0 M NaCl in a buffer containing 10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.4, and 1 mM EDTA. The binding of the dimeric gene V protein to poly(dA) was studied using a simplified lattice model for protein-protein interactions adapted for use with a dimeric protein that binds simultaneously to two strands of nucleic acid. Interpretation of the salt dependence, C = [d log(Kint omega)]/[d log(NaCl)], of binding of such a dimeric protein to nucleic acid using the theory of Record et al. (Record, M. T., et al. (1976) J. Mol. Biol. 107, 145-158) indicates that C is a function of the numbers of cations and anions released from protein and nucleic acid upon binding of the dimer, not of the monomer. Cooperativity of gene V protein binding to poly(dA) was studied with titration experiments that are sensitive to the degree of cooperativity of binding. The cooperativity factor omega, defined as the ratio of the binding constant for a site adjacent to a previously bound dimer to that for an isolated site, was found to be relatively insensitive to salt, with a value in the range of 2000-7000 for binding to poly(dA) at 3 degrees C and at 23 degrees C. This high cooperativity factor supports the suggestion that protein-protein contacts play a major role in the formation of the superhelical gene V protein-single-stranded nucleic acid complex.

Bacteriophage M13↗
PubMed1996

Potential use of additivity of mutational effects in simplifying protein engineering.

The problem of rationally engineering protein molecules can be simplified where effects of mutations on protein function are additive. Crystal structures of single and double mutants in the hydrophobic core of gene V protein indicate that structural and functional effects of core mutations are additive when the regions structurally influenced by the mutations do not substantially overlap. These regions of influence can provide a simple basis for identifying sets of mutations that will show additive effects.

Coliphages↗
PubMed1996

Bayesian difference refinement.

Interest in a pair of highly isomorphous structures often focuses on the differences between them. In cases where substantial correlated model errors exist or where there are differences in the quality of the two experimental data sets (cases quite common in macromolecular crystallography), independent refinement of the two structures does not lead to the most accurate estimate of the differences between them. An alternative procedure that has proven effective in some such cases is difference refinement, in which the residual between observed and calculated differences in structure-factor amplitudes between the two structures is minimized. A Bayesian approach has been used to extend the range of applicability of difference refinement to cases where there is only partial correlation in model errors and where the overlap between the data sets is limited. The resulting method, Bayesian difference refinement, uses residuals to be minimized that vary smoothly between difference refinement and independent refinement. When the errors in the two structural models are very similar, difference refinement is used; when they are very different, independent refinement is used; and when they are partially correlated, a combination of the two is used. The procedure is very simple to apply and does not significantly increase the computational demands of refinement.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1996

Raman spectroscopy of the Ff gene V protein and complexes with poly(dA): nonspecific DNA recognition and binding.

Raman spectra of crystals and solutions of the single-stranded DNA binding protein of bacteriophage Ff (gene V protein, gVp) and of solution complexes of gVp with single-stranded poly-(deoxyadenylic acid) [poly(dA)] reveal the following: (i) The gVp secondary and tertiary structures are similar in solution and in the crystal and are dominated by beta-sheet domains, in agreement with NMR and X-ray findings. (ii) Subunit conformation and side chain environments of gVp are virtually unchanged over a wide range of salt concentration (0 < [NaCl] < 100 mM); however, the solution conformation of poly(dA) exhibits sensitivity to added salt. The perturbed Raman markers indicate subtle changes in helix backbone geometry with accompanying small differences in base stacking as the concentration of NaCl is changed. (iii) In complexes with poly(dA), neither the conformation of gVp nor its side chain environments are altered significantly in comparison to the free protein. This is the case at both high salt (nucleotide-to-subunit binding stoichiometry n = 4) and low salt (n = 3). (iv) The Raman signature of poly(dA) undergoes small perturbations upon gVp binding, indicative of small changes in base stacking and phosphodiester backbone conformation. The present results show that the different stoichiometric binding modes of gVp to poly(dA) are accomplished without significant changes in gVp subunit structure and with only modest changes in the single-stranded poly(dA) ligand. This contrasts sharply with sequence-specific double-stranded DNA binding proteins, such as the phage lambda and D108 repressors, which undergo substantial structural changes upon DNA binding, and which also alter more dramatically the Raman fingerprints of their DNA target sites. Thus, nonspecific and specific nucleic acid recognition modes are distinguishable by Raman spectroscopy. The Raman signature of gVp also allows examination of hydrogen bonding interactions of unique side chains within the hydrophobic core (cysteine 33) and at the binding interface (tyrosine 41). These are discussed in relation to the recently published gVp crystal structure.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1996

Direct measurement of oligonucleotide binding stoichiometry of gene V protein by mass spectrometry.

The binding stoichiometry of gene V protein from bacteriophage f1 to several oligonucleotides was studied using electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Using mild mass spectrometer interface conditions that preserve noncovalent associations in solution, gene V protein was observed as dimer ions from a 10 mM NH4OAc solution. Addition of oligonucleotides resulted in formation of protein-oligonucleotide complexes with stoichiometry of approximately four nucleotides (nt) per protein monomer. A 16-mer oligonucleotide gave predominantly a 4:1 (protein monomer: oligonucleotide) complex while oligonucleotides shorter than 15 nt showed stoichiometries of 2:1. Stoichiometries and relative binding constants for a mixture of oligonucleotides were readily measured using mass spectrometry. The binding stoichiometry of the protein with the 16-mer oligonucleotide was measured independently using size-exclusion chromatography and the results were consistent with the mass spectrometric data. These results demonstrate, for the first time, the observation and stoichiometric measurement of protein-oligonucleotide complexes using ESI-MS. The sensitivity and high resolution of ESI-MS should make it a useful too] in the study of protein-DNA interactions.

Base Sequence↗
PubMed1996

Correlated phasing of multiple isomorphous replacement data.

Substantial highly correlated differences sometimes exist between a series of heavy-atom derivatives of a macromolecule and the native structure. Use of such a series of derivatives for phase determination by multiple isomorphous replacement (MIR) has been difficult because MIR analysis has treated errors as independent. A simple Bayesian approach has been used to derive probability distributions for the phase in the case where a group of MIR derivatives have correlated errors. The utility of the resulting 'correlated-phasing' method has been examined by applying it to both simulated and real MIR data sets that contain sizeable correlated errors and it has been found that it can dramatically improve MIR phase estimates in these cases. Correlated phasing is applicable to situations where derivatives exhibit substantial correlated changes in protein conformation or crystal packing or where correlated errors in heavy-atom models are large. Correlated phasing does not substantially increase the complexity of phase computation and is suitable for routine use.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1996

Bayesian weighting for macromolecular crystallographic refinement.

A simple weighting scheme for atomic refinement is discussed. The approach, called 'Bayesian weighting', is designed to be robust with respect to the bias that arises from the incomplete nature of the atomic model, which in macromolecular crystallography is typically quite serious. Bayesian weights are based on the mean-squared residual errors over shells of resolution, with centric and acentric reflections considered separately and with allowances made for experimental uncertainties. Use of Bayesian weighting is shown in test cases typical for macromolecular crystallography to improve the accuracy of the refined coordinates when compared with schemes employing unit weights or experimental variances.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1996

Context dependence of mutational effects in a protein: the crystal structures of the V35I, I47V and V35I/I47V gene V protein core mutants.

The basis for the context dependence of the effects of core mutations on protein stability was investigated by comparing the structures of three gene V protein mutants with that of the wild-type protein. We previously examined a "swapped" mutant in which core residues Val35 and Ile47 were simply reversed so that the mutant had no hydrophobicity change from the native protein. The swapped mutant was destabilized by 3 kcal/mol per gene V protein dimer relative to the wild-type protein, demonstrating that factors other than hydrophobicity must make substantial contributions to the effects of mutations on the stability of the protein. Here we have determined the structure of this swapped mutant (V35I/I47V) as well as those of the two constituent mutants (V35I and I47V). We find that the structures of the mutant proteins are very similar to that of the wild-type protein except for the necessary addition or deletion of methylene groups and for slight positional shifts of atoms around each mutated residue. The structure of the double mutant is a composite of the structures of the two single mutants. In the mutant structures, the V35I mutation fills a cavity that exists in the wild-type protein and the I47V mutation creates a new cavity. The structures of the mutants indicate further that the reason the V35I and I47V mutations do not have opposite effects on stability is that the cavity in the wild-type protein filled by the V35I mutation is not optimally shaped for accommodating the additional methylene group of the isoleucine. These results support the concepts that the details of core packing have substantial influence on the effects of core mutations on protein stability and that these packing effects are major determinants of the context dependence of core mutation effects on stability.

Crystallography, X-Ray↗
PubMed1995

Circular dichroism spectroscopy of three tyrosine-to-phenylalanine substitutions of fd gene 5 protein.

Circular dichroism spectroscopy was used to study mutants of phage fd gene 5 protein (Y26F, Y34F, and Y41F) in which three of the five tyrosines, Tyr-26, Tyr-34, and Tyr-41, were individually substituted with phenylalanine. The tyrosine 229 nm CD bands of the wild type, Y26F, and Y41F gene 5 proteins decreased in magnitude during complex formation with either fd ssDNA or poly[d(A)]. However, the Y34F gene 5 protein showed no decrease in the 229 nm band during titrations of these nucleic acids. This suggested that Tyr-34 of the wild type gene 5 protein dominated the 229 nm CD changes upon binding to single-stranded DNA. Titrations of poly[d(A)] or fd ssDNA with wild type, Y26F, Y34F, or Y41F gene 5 proteins resulted in perturbations of the nucleic acid near-UV CD bands, specific for the particular nucleic acid, but similar for all four proteins (in 2 mM sodium phosphate buffer, pH 7.0). For both nucleic acids, the addition of protein beyond a certain [protein monomer]/[nucleotide] ratio (0.25 for poly[d(A)] or 0.33 for fd ssDNA) resulted in a partial reversal of the CD change of the nucleic acid. These data are interpreted to mean that, in addition to the two well-known n = 4 and n = 3 stoichiometric modes of binding, there is a third mode of binding in which the nucleic acid is in limited contact with the protein. As shown by salt dissociation studies of complexes with poly[d(A)], the binding affinities, K omega, of the proteins were in the order: wild type > Y26F >> Y34F > or = Y41F (for the n = 4 binding mode in 0.1-0.2 M NaCl). Our data indicate that Tyr-34 plays a more important role in forming a complex with ssDNA than is apparent in current models of the g5p.ssDNA complex. We suggest that the hydroxyl moieties of Tyr-34 and Tyr-41 are both somehow involved in stabilizing the interface of bound protein dimers.

Circular Dichroism↗
PubMed1995

Relationship between in vivo activity and in vitro measures of function and stability of a protein.

The in vivo activities of mutant proteins are readily measured and can potentially be used to estimate changes in in vitro properties such as stability or function, but this connection has not been rigorously established. Gene V protein is a small protein produced by bacteriophage f1 that binds to single-stranded DNA and to RNA and for which fitness can be assayed both in vivo and in vitro. We have assembled a large number of temperature-sensitive mutants of the gene V protein of bacteriophage f1 and measured their ability to support phage growth and replication in vivo. We have also purified many of these mutant gene V proteins and measured their stabilities and ssDNA binding affinities in vitro. Mutations at surface residues frequently yielded temperature-sensitive mutants, but remarkably, no overall correlation between in vivo activity and in vitro measures of either stability or function was found for this group. Mutations at buried residues often lead to the temperature-sensitive phenotype. At buried sites temperature sensitivity was strongly correlated with in vitro stability changes, but not with in vitro ssDNA binding affinity. The implication of these observations for protein engineering efforts is that phenotypes conferred by amino acid substitutions at buried sites can be used to identify mutants whose stabilities fall into ranges of interest, while phenotypes of mutants with surface substitutions may be much less readily interpreted, even in the case of a single-stranded-DNA-binding protein.

Binding Sites↗
PubMed1995

Difference refinement: obtaining differences between two related structures.

There are many examples in macromolecular crystallography where interest focuses on the differences between a previously determined 'native' structure and a nearly isomorphous 'variant'. In such cases, a useful approach to atomic refinement of the variant structure is through weighted least-squares minimization of the residual between the observed and calculated differences in amplitudes of structure factors, a strategy first used in the refinement of deoxycobalt hemoglobin [Fermi, Perutz, Dickinson & Chien (1982). J. Mol. Biol. 155, 495-505] and termed 'difference refinement'. For cases in which the modeling errors for the native and variant structures are correlated, theoretical arguments indicate that difference refinement should lead to improved estimates of structural differences when compared with conventional independent refinement. Tests employing simulated peptide data sets and real data from a wild-type protein and a mutant show that difference refinement can substantially reduce errors in the differences between structures when compared with independent refinement. The algorithm is very easy to implement and does not increase the computational demands of refinement.

Journal Article↗