Structural investigation of the ligand binding domain of the zebrafish VDR in complexes with 1α,25(OH)2D3 and Gemini:: purification, crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis

The nuclear receptor of Vitamin D can be activated by a large number of agonist molecules with a wide spectrum in their stereochemical framework. Up to now most of our structural information related to the protein-ligand complex formation is based on an engineered ligand binding domain (LBD) of the human receptor. We now have extended our database, using a wild-type LBD from zebrafish that confirms the previously reported results and allows to investigate the binding of ligands that induce significant conformational changes at the protein level. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.