PubMed · 9538685
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R J Ellis. 1998. Steric chaperones.. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0968-0004(98)01175-x
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Post-translational control enables rapid and precise regulation of cell behavior. Despite these advantages, general strategies to build phosphorylation-based synthetic circuits are limited. Here we reasoned that engineered allostery, a technique that has been applied to design light- and chemically gated protein switches, could also be used to engineer phosphorylation-controlled protein switches (phospho-switches). Using an allosterically controllable Gal4 transcription factor as a scaffold, we show that a classic kinase Förster resonance energy transfer biosensor architecture can be used as a starting point for phospho-switch design. We optimize all features of the phospho-switch to develop an ERK-controlled transcription factor with a 20-fold phosphorylation-dependent change in transcriptional output. The resulting synthetic ERK-responsive transcription factor responds with comparable sensitivity to the c-fos promoter and reveals spatial ERK signaling patterns in mammalian developmental organoids. We further show that our switch architecture can be generalized to other input kinases and allosterically controlled targets. This work provides a general platform for a new generation of kinase-responsive tools for biosensing and synthetic biology applications.
The microbial polysaccharide HS-142-1 has been documented as an antagonist of natriuretic peptides. It inhibits activation and peptide binding to both guanylate receptors natriuretic peptide receptor (NPR)-A and NPR-B, but has no effect on the non-cyclase receptor NPR-C. At first sight the effect of HS-142-1 on peptide binding appears to be surmountable, suggesting that it might be competitive despite its chemically divergent nature. We explored its mode of action on wild-type NPR-A (WT), on a disulphide-bridged constitutively active mutant (C423S) and on truncated mutants lacking either their cytoplasmic domain (DeltaKC) or both the cytoplasmic and the transmembrane domains (ECD). On the WT, HS-142-1 inhibited atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) binding with a pK value of 6.51 +/- 0.07 (K(d)=0.31 microM). It displayed a similar effect on the C423S mutant (pK=6.31 +/- 0.11), indicating that its action might not be due to interference with receptor dimerization. HS-142-1 also inhibited ANP binding to DeltaKC with a pK of 7.05 +/- 0.05 (K(d)=0.089 microM), but it was inactive on ANP binding to ECD at a concentration of 10(-4) M, suggesting that the antagonism was not competitive at the peptide-binding site located on the ECD and that the transmembrane domain might be required. HS-142-1 also enhanced dissociation of NPR-A-bound (125)I-ANP in the presence of excess unlabelled ANP, implying an allotopic (allosteric) mode of action for the antagonist.
L-Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) from Lactobacillus pentosus is a non-allosteric enzyme, which shows, however, high sequence similarity to allosteric LDHs from certain bacteria. To elucidate the structural basis of the absence of allostery of L. pentosus LDH (LPLDH), we determined the crystal structure of LPLDH at 2.3 A resolution. Bacterial LDHs are tetrameric enzymes composed of identical subunits and exhibit 222 symmetry. The quaternary structure of LPLDH was similar to the active conformation of allosteric LDHs. Structural analysis revealed that the subunit interfaces of LPLDH are optimized mainly through hydrophilic interactions rather than hydrophobic interactions, compared with other LDHs. The subunit interfaces of LPLDH are more specifically stabilized by increased numbers of intersubunit salt bridges and hydrogen bonds, and higher geometrical complementarity. Such high specificity at the subunit interfaces should hinder the rearrangement of the quaternary structure needed for allosteric regulation and thus explain the "non-allostery" of LPLDH.