Computational analysis of a cys-loop ligand gated ion channel from the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Abstract

Plants possess several neurotransmitters with well-known physiological roles. Currently only receptors for glutamate were reported to be found in plants, while receptors for acetylcholine, serotonin and GABA have not yet been reported. In animals, these neurotransmitters act via one class of ligand binding ion channels called Cys-loop receptors which play a major role in fast synaptic transmission. They show the presence of two domains namely Neurotransmitter-gated ion-channel ligand-binding domain (Pfam: PF02931) and Neurotransmitter-gated transmembrane domain (Pfam: PF02932). Cys-loop receptors are also known in prokaryotes. No cys-loop receptor has been characterized from plants yet. In this study, the Ensembl plants database was searched for proteins with these two domains in the sequenced plant genomes, what resulted in only one protein (LIC1) from the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. BLAST and profile HMM searches against the pdb structure database showed that this protein is related to animal and prokaryotic cys-loop receptors, although the cysteine residues characteristic of the cys-loop are absent. Physico-chemical and sequence analysis indicate that LIC1 is an anionic receptor. A model of this protein was generated using homology modeling based on a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor of Torpedo marmorata. The characteristic extracellular domain (ECD) and transmembrane domain (TMD) are well structured but the intercellular region is poorly formed. This is the first report on a detailed characterization of a cys-loop receptor from the plant kingdom.