Protein Crystal Contacts Research Articles

Crystals of TELSAM-target protein fusions that exhibit minimal crystal contacts and lack direct inter-TELSAM contacts.

While conducting pilot studies into the usefulness of fusion to TELSAM polymers as a potential protein crystallization strategy, we observed novel properties in crystals of two TELSAM-target protein fusions, as follows. (i) A TELSAM-target protein fusion can crystallize more rapidly and with greater propensity than the same target protein alone. (ii) TELSAM-target protein fusions can be crystallized at low protein concentrations. This unprecedented observation suggests a route to crystallize proteins that can only be produced in microgram amounts. (iii) The TELSAM polymers themselves need not directly contact one another in the crystal lattice in order to form well-diffracting crystals. This novel observation is important because it suggests that TELSAM may be able to crystallize target proteins too large to allow direct inter-polymer contacts. (iv) Flexible TELSAM-target protein linkers can allow target proteins to find productive binding modes against the TELSAM polymer. (v) TELSAM polymers can adjust their helical rise to allow fused target proteins to make productive crystal contacts. (vi). Fusion to TELSAM polymers can stabilize weak inter-target protein crystal contacts. We report features of these TELSAM-target protein crystal structures and outline future work needed to validate TELSAM as a crystallization chaperone and determine best practices for its use.

Controlling Protein Crystallization by Free Energy Guided Design of Interactions at Crystal Contacts

Protein crystallization can function as an effective method for protein purification or formulation. Such an application requires a comprehensive understanding of the intermolecular protein–protein interactions that drive and stabilize protein crystal formation to ensure a reproducible process. Using alcohol dehydrogenase from Lactobacillus brevis (LbADH) as a model system, we probed in our combined experimental and computational study the effect of residue substitutions at the protein crystal contacts on the crystallizability and the contact stability. Increased or decreased contact stability was calculated using molecular dynamics (MD) free energy simulations and showed excellent qualitative correlation with experimentally determined increased or decreased crystallizability. The MD simulations allowed us to trace back the changes to their physical origins at the atomic level. Engineered charge–charge interactions as well as engineered hydrophobic effects could be characterized and were found to improve crystallizability. For example, the simulations revealed a redesigning of a water mediated electrostatic interaction (“wet contact”) into a water depleted hydrophobic effect (“dry contact”) and the optimization of a weak hydrogen bonding contact towards a strong one. These findings explained the experimentally found improved crystallizability. Our study emphasizes that it is difficult to derive simple rules for engineering crystallizability but that free energy simulations could be a very useful tool for understanding the contribution of crystal contacts for stability and furthermore could help guide protein engineering strategies to enhance crystallization for technical purposes.

Structural insights into the membrane receptor ShuA in DDM micelles and in a model of gram-negative bacteria outer membrane as seen by SAXS and MD simulations

Successful crystallization of membrane proteins in detergent micelles depends on key factors such as conformational stability of the protein in micellar assemblies, the protein-detergent complex (PDC) monodispersity and favorable protein crystal contacts by suitable shielding of the protein hydrophobic surface by the detergent belt. With the aim of studying the influence of amphiphilic environment on membrane protein structure, stability and crystallizability, we combine molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with SEC-MALLS and SEC-SAXS (Size Exclusion Chromatography in line with Multi Angle Laser Light Scattering or Small Angle X-ray Scattering) experiments to describe the protein-detergent interactions that could help to rationalize PDC crystallization. In this context, we compare the protein-detergent interactions of ShuA from Shigella dysenteriae in n-Dodecyl-β-D-Maltopyranoside (DDM) with ShuA inserted in a realistic model of gram-negative bacteria outer membrane (OM) containing a mixture of bacterial lipopolysaccharide and phospholipids. To evaluate the quality of the PDC models, we compute the corresponding SAXS curves from the MD trajectories and compare with the experimental ones. We show that computed SAXS curves obtained from the MD trajectories reproduce better the SAXS obtained from the SEC-SAXS experiments for ShuA surrounded by 268 DDM molecules. The MD results show that the DDM molecules form around ShuA a closed belt whose the hydrophobic thickness appears slightly smaller (~22 Å) than the hydrophobic transmembrane domain of the protein (24.6 Å) suggested by Orientations of Proteins in Membranes (OPM) database. The simulations also show that ShuA transmembrane domain is remarkably stable in all the systems except for the extracellular and periplasmic loops that exhibit larger movements due to specific molecular interactions with lipopolysaccharides (LPS). We finally point out that this detergent behavior may lead to the occlusion of the periplasmic hydrophilic surface and poor crystal contacts leading to difficulties in crystallization of ShuA in DDM.

Protein crystal lattices are dynamic assemblies: the role of conformational entropy in the protein condensed phase.

Until recently, the occurrence of conformational entropy in protein crystal contacts was considered to be a very unlikely event. A study based on the most accurately refined protein structures demonstrated that side-chain conformational entropy and static disorder might be common in protein crystal lattices. The present investigation uses structures refined using ensemble refinement to show that although paradoxical, conformational entropy is likely to be the major factor in the emergence and integrity of the protein condensed phase. This study reveals that the role of shape entropy and local entropic forces expands beyond the onset of crystallization. For the first time, the complete pattern of intermolecular interactions by protein atoms in crystal lattices is presented, which shows that van der Waals interactions dominate in crystal formation.

タンパク質結晶におけるモルフォロジーと分子間接触の相関( バイオクリスタルにおける核形成・成長の制御機構)

タンパク質結晶におけるモルフォロジーと分子間接触の相関( バイオクリスタルにおける核形成・成長の制御機構)

Recent Advances in the Understanding of the Influence of Electric and Magnetic Fields on Protein Crystal Growth

In this contribution we use nonconventional methods that help to increase the success rate of a protein crystal growth, and consequently of structural projects using X-ray diffraction techniques. In order to achieve this purpose, this contribution presents new approaches involving more sophisticated techniques of protein crystallization, not just for growing protein crystals of different sizes by using electric fields, but also for controlling crystal size and orientation. This latter was possible through the use of magnetic fields that allow to obtain protein crystals suitable for both high-resolution X-ray and neutron diffraction crystallography where big crystals are required. This contribution discusses some pros, cons and realities of the role of electromagnetic fields in protein crystallization research, and their effect on protein crystal contacts. Additionally, we discuss the importance of room and low temperatures during data collection. Finally, we also discuss the effect of applying a rather st...

Characterizing protein crystal contacts and their role in crystallization: rubredoxin as a case study.

The fields of structural biology and soft matter have independently sought out fundamental principles to rationalize protein crystallization. Yet the conceptual differences and the limited overlap between the two disciplines have thus far prevented a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon to emerge. We conduct a computational study of proteins from the rubredoxin family that bridges the two fields. Using atomistic simulations, we characterize the protein crystal contacts, and accordingly parameterize patchy particle models. Comparing the phase diagrams of these schematic models with experimental results enables us to critically examine the assumptions behind the two approaches. The study also reveals features of protein–protein interactions that can be leveraged to crystallize proteins more generally.

Protein interface classification by evolutionary analysis

BackgroundDistinguishing biologically relevant interfaces from lattice contacts in protein crystals is a fundamental problem in structural biology. Despite efforts towards the computational prediction of interface character, many issues are still unresolved.ResultsWe present here a protein-protein interface classifier that relies on evolutionary data to detect the biological character of interfaces. The classifier uses a simple geometric measure, number of core residues, and two evolutionary indicators based on the sequence entropy of homolog sequences. Both aim at detecting differential selection pressure between interface core and rim or rest of surface. The core residues, defined as fully buried residues (>95% burial), appear to be fundamental determinants of biological interfaces: their number is in itself a powerful discriminator of interface character and together with the evolutionary measures it is able to clearly distinguish evolved biological contacts from crystal ones. We demonstrate that this definition of core residues leads to distinctively better results than earlier definitions from the literature. The stringent selection and quality filtering of structural and sequence data was key to the success of the method. Most importantly we demonstrate that a more conservative selection of homolog sequences - with relatively high sequence identities to the query - is able to produce a clearer signal than previous attempts.ConclusionsAn evolutionary approach like the one presented here is key to the advancement of the field, which so far was missing an effective method exploiting the evolutionary character of protein interfaces. Its coverage and performance will only improve over time thanks to the incessant growth of sequence databases. Currently our method reaches an accuracy of 89% in classifying interfaces of the Ponstingl 2003 datasets and it lends itself to a variety of useful applications in structural biology and bioinformatics. We made the corresponding software implementation available to the community as an easy-to-use graphical web interface at http://www.eppic-web.org.

The role of entropy and polarity in intermolecular contacts in protein crystals.

The integrity and X-ray diffraction quality of protein crystals depend on the three-dimensional order of relatively weak but reproducible intermolecular contacts. Despite their importance, relatively little attention has been paid to the chemical and physical nature of these contacts, which are often regarded as stochastic and thus not different from randomly selected protein surface patches. Here, logistic regression was used to analyze crystal contacts in a database of 821 unambiguously monomeric proteins with structures determined to 2.5 A resolution or better. It is shown that the propensity of a surface residue for incorporation into a crystal contact is not a linear function of its solvent-accessible surface area and that amino acids with low exposed surfaces, which are typically small and hydrophobic, have been underestimated with respect to their contact-forming potential by earlier area-based calculations. For any given solvent-exposed surface, small and hydrophobic residues are more likely to be involved in crystal contacts than large and charged amino acids. Side-chain entropy is the single physicochemical property that is most negatively correlated with the involvement of amino acids in crystal contacts. It is also shown that crystal contacts with larger buried surfaces containing eight or more amino acids have cores that are depleted of polar amino acids.

Molecular Dynamics Characterization of Protein Crystal Contacts in Aqueous Solutions

We employ nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation to characterize the effective interactions between lysozyme molecules involved in the formation of two hydrophobic crystal contacts. We show that the effective interactions between crystal contacts do not exceed a few kT, the range of the attractive part of the potential is less than 4 angstroms, and, within this range, there is a significant depletion of water density between two protein contacts. Our findings highlight the different natures of protein crystallization and protein recognition processes.

'Crystal lattice engineering,' an approach to engineer protein crystal contacts by creating intermolecular symmetry: crystallization and structure determination of a mutant human RNase 1 with a hydrophobic interface of leucines.

A protein crystal lattice consists of surface contact regions, where the interactions of specific groups play a key role in stabilizing the regular arrangement of the protein molecules. In an attempt to control protein incorporation in a crystal lattice, a leucine zipper-like hydrophobic interface (comprising four leucine residues) was introduced into a helical region (helix 2) of the human pancreatic ribonuclease 1 (RNase 1) that was predicted to form a suitable crystallization interface. Although crystallization of wild-type RNase 1 has not yet been reported, the RNase 1 mutant having four leucines (4L-RNase 1) was successfully crystallized under several different conditions. The crystal structures were subsequently determined by X-ray crystallography by molecular replacement using the structure of bovine RNase A. The overall structure of 4L-RNase 1 is quite similar to that of the bovine RNase A, and the introduced leucine residues formed the designed crystal interface. To characterize the role of the introduced leucine residues in crystallization of RNase 1 further, the number of leucines was reduced to three or two (3L- and 2L-RNase 1, respectively). Both mutants crystallized and a similar hydrophobic interface as in 4L-RNase 1 was observed. A related approach to engineer crystal contacts at helix 3 of RNase 1 (N4L-RNase 1) was also evaluated. N4L-RNase 1 also successfully crystallized and formed the expected hydrophobic packing interface. These results suggest that appropriate introduction of a leucine zipper-like hydrophobic interface can promote intermolecular symmetry for more efficient protein crystallization in crystal lattice engineering efforts.

2P449 Improvement of the method for discriminating between biological and crystal-packing contacts in protein crystals(48. Bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics (II),Poster Session,Abstract,Meeting Program of EABS & BSJ 2006)

2P449 Improvement of the method for discriminating between biological and crystal-packing contacts in protein crystals(48. Bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics (II),Poster Session,Abstract,Meeting Program of EABS & BSJ 2006)

Specific and non-specific contacts in protein crystals.

Statistical analysis of protein-protein interfaces in a database of pure peptide crystals shows that the distribution of the contact area contains two components: a major exponential distribution and a minor flat distribution. Analysis of two sub-databases provides evidence that the two components represent specific and non-specific contacts, respectively. The probability of an interface with a given area being specific can be estimated. A scaled quantity (contact ratio) is introduced that is more useful than contact area for discriminating specific and non-specific contacts in protein crystals.

Statistical analysis on protein-protein interface in crystals: Specific and non-specific interfaces are differentially distributed

The distribution of contact areas, or fractions of contacting, of protein-protein interfaces in crystals of pure polypeptides contains two components: a major exponential distribution and a minor flatter distribution. Suppose the two components belong to specific and non-specific contacts, respectively, then the probability of a contact with a given area, or fraction of contacting, can be estimated. By dividing the whole database into two sub-databases, one of them is known to contain more specific contacts than the other, this hypothesis is confirmed and it is also proved that the fraction of contacting is more effective than the contact area on discriminating specific and non-specific contacts in protein crystals.

Morphology and the strength of intermolecular contacts in protein crystals.

The strengths of intermolecular contacts (macrobonds) and the areas occupied by each contact on the molecular surface were estimated in four polymorphic modifications of lysozyme crystals based on the bond strengths between individual atomic pairs belonging to the molecules in contact. It has been shown that the periodic bond chains of these macrobonds account for the morphology of protein crystals. The Coulombic contribution to the macrobond strength has also been estimated. Making use of the contact strengths and taking into account bond hydration, crystal-water interfacial energies were also estimated for different crystal faces. The areas of all contacts are mapped on the molecular surface, making use of a polar-coordinate representation of the contact. Comparing the locations of the intermolecular contacts in the different polymorphic crystal modifications, it is shown that these contacts can form a wide variety of patches on the molecular surface. The patches are located practically everywhere on the surface except for the inside of a concave active site. It is also shown that the contacts, which frequently involve water molecules, are formed by specific intermolecular hydrogen bonds on a background of non-specific attractive electrostatic interactions. Typical values of the macrobond strength are compared with the strength of association in other protein-complex systems.

Ionic strength and intermolecular contacts in protein crystals

The ionic strengths of crystallization solutions for 206 proteins were observed to form a bimodal distribution. The data was divided into two sets at an ionic strength of 4.4 M, and knowledge-based potentials were calculated to determine contact preferences at intermolecular crystal interfaces. Consistent with previous observations over all ionic strengths, intermolecular crystal contacts tend to exclude nonpolar amino acids; lysine is the least favored polar amino acid at crystal contacts; and arginine and glutamine are the two most favored amino acid at crystal contacts. However, some aspects of intermolecular contact preferences within protein crystals are significantly dependent on ionic strength. Arginine is the most favored residue at low ionic strength, but it takes second place to glutamine at high ionic strength. Other major ionic strength-dependent differences in protein crystal contacts can be explained by the binding of cations or anions. While others have shown the importance of ion binding experimentally in selected protein crystals, these statistical results indicate that intermolecular interface formation must involve ion-mediated contacts in a large number of protein crystals.

Effects of Interfacial Binding Kinetics on Two-Dimensional Streptavidin Crystallization

The two-dimensional crystallization of streptavidin at biotinylated interfaces provides a model system for elucidating the role of interfacial binding dynamics in determining crystal morphologies and phases. In this study, a library of eight well-characterized site-directed mutants with increased biotin dissociation rates has been compared to core streptavidin (dissociation half-life of 59 h). The W79F, W120F, Y43F, and S27A mutants, with half-lives of 9.8 h, 38 min, 20 min, and 10 min, respectively, all displayed the “X”-shaped crystal morphology that is characteristic of core streptavidin. A sharp change in morphology is observed with the N23E (7.2 min) and N23A (4.8 min) mutants. The N23E mutant crystallizes in rectangular shapes, and the N23A displays square crystal morphology. The D128A mutant (1.7 min) crystallizes in elongated needles, but this is the one mutant which displays significant three-dimensional structural alterations. The W120A (<1 min) mutant did not display significant interfacial binding and did not crystallize. Quantitative Brewster angle microscopy was used to characterize the crystallization process. The noncrystalline background remained in equilibrium with the crystalline regions, and thus all the mutants crystallized as a first-order phase transition. The critical surface concentration for crystallization remained constant until the half-life reached 10.4 min for S27A. The square-shaped N23A crystal displayed the lowest critical surface concentration, which was equivalent to the values observed previously for square-shaped crystals obtained via metal binding. Fourier analysis of transmission electron microscopy images demonstrated that all of the mutants crystallized with the same C222 space group characteristic of core streptavidin. The change in crystal shape over a sharp range of dissociation rates is consistent with a change in a rate-limiting microscopic kinetic step that underlies macroscopic morphology. Alternatively, the altered shapes observed with the Asn 23 mutants could be the result of changing structural and energetic coupling between biotin binding and the directly adjacent Thr 20 and Tyr 22 residues which hydrogen bond to each other across the protein−protein crystal contacts.

Analysis of lattice contacts in protein crystals

Analysis of lattice contacts in protein crystals