Position and Orientation of Phalloidin in F-Actin Determined by X-Ray Fiber Diffraction Analysis

Abstract

Knowledge of the phalloidin binding position in F-actin and the relevant understanding of the mechanism of F-actin stabilization would help to define the structural characteristics of the F-actin filament. To determine the position of bound phalloidin experimentally, x-ray fiber diffraction data were obtained from well-oriented sols of F-actin and the phalloidin-F-actin complex. The differences in the layer-line intensity distributions, which were clearly observed even at low resolution (8 Å), produced well-resolved peaks corresponding to interphalloidin vectors in the cylindrically averaged difference-Patterson map, from which the radial binding position was determined to be ∼10 Å from the filament axis. Then, the azimuthal and axial positions were determined by single isomorphous replacement phasing and a cross-Patterson map in radial projection to be ∼84° and 0.5 Å relative to the actin mass center. The refined position was close to the position found by prior researchers. The position of rhodamine attached to phalloidin in the rhodamine-phalloidin-F-actin complex was also determined, in which the conjugated Leu(OH) 7 residue was found to face the outside of the filament. The position and orientation of the bound phalloidin so determined explain the increase in the interactions between long-pitch strands of F-actin and would also account for the inhibition of phosphate release, which might also contribute to the F-actin stabilization. The method of analysis developed in this study is applicable for the determination of binding positions of other drugs, such as jasplakinolide and dolastatin 11.