Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 103, Issue 42, Pages 15457-15462Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0604871103
Keywords
protein design; protein structure; helix-helix interfaces; buried polar interactions; cavity
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Funding
- NIAID NIH HHS [R01 AI042382, AI42382, R56 AI042382] Funding Source: Medline
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Coiled-coil proteins contain a characteristic seven-residue sequence repeat whose positions are designated a to g. The interacting surface between alpha-helices in a classical coiled coil is formed by interspersing nonpolar side chains at the a and d positions with hydrophilic residues at the flanking e and g positions. To explore how the chemical nature of these core amino acids dictates the overall coiled-coil architecture, we replaced all eight e and g residues in the GCN4 leucine zipper with nonpolar alanine side chains. Surprisingly, the alanine-containing mutant forms a stable alpha-helical heptamer in aqueous solution. The 1.25-angstrom resolution crystal structure of the heptamer reveals a parallel seven-stranded coiled coil enclosing a large tubular channel with an unusual heptad register shift between adjacent staggered helices. The overall geometry comprises two interleaved hydrophobic helical screws of interacting cross-sectional a and d layers that have not been seen before. Moreover, asparagines at the a positions play an essential role in heptamer formation by participating in a set of buried interhelix hydrogen bonds. These results demonstrate that heptad repeats containing four hydrophobic positions can direct assembly of complex, higher-order coiled-coil structures with rich diversity for close packing of alpha-helices.
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