BACKGROUND: Lectins are proteins of non-immune origin capable of binding saccharide structures with high specificity and affinity. Considering the high encoding capacity of oligosaccharides, this makes lectins important for adhesion and recognition. The present study is devoted to the PA-IIL lectin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an opportunistic human pathogen capable of causing lethal complications in cystic fibrosis patients. The lectin may play an important role in the process of virulence, recognizing specific saccharide structures and subsequently allowing the bacteria to adhere to the host cells. It displays high values of affinity towards monosaccharides, especially fucose--a feature caused by unusual binding mode, where two calcium ions participate in the interaction with saccharide. Investigating and understanding the nature of lectin-saccharide interactions holds a great potential of use in the field of drug design, namely the targeting and delivery of active compounds to the proper site of action. RESULTS: In vitro site-directed mutagenesis of the PA-IIL lectin yielded three single point mutants that were investigated both structurally (by X-ray crystallography) and functionally (by isothermal titration calorimetry). The mutated amino acids (22-23-24 triad) belong to the so-called specificity binding loop responsible for the monosaccharide specificity of the lectin. The mutation of the amino acids resulted in changes to the thermodynamic behaviour of the mutants and subsequently in their relative preference towards monosaccharides. Correlation of the measured data with X-ray structures provided the molecular basis for rationalizing the affinity changes. The mutations either prevent certain interactions to be formed or allow formation of new interactions--both of afore mentioned have strong effects on the saccharide preferences. CONCLUSION: Mutagenesis of amino acids forming the specificity binding loop allowed identification of one amino acid that is crucial for definition of the lectin sugar preference. Altering specificity loop amino acids causes changes in saccharide-binding preferences of lectins derived from PA-IIL, via creation or blocking possible binding interactions. This finding opens a gate towards protein engineering and subsequent protein design to refine the desired binding properties and preferences, an approach that could have strong potential for drug design.
- MeSH
- bakteriální adheziny genetika chemie MeSH
- chromatografie afinitní MeSH
- financování organizované MeSH
- jednonukleotidový polymorfismus MeSH
- konformace proteinů MeSH
- krystalografie rentgenová MeSH
- lektiny genetika chemie MeSH
- molekulární modely MeSH
- monosacharidy chemie MeSH
- mutageneze cílená MeSH
- proteinové inženýrství MeSH
- Pseudomonas aeruginosa genetika MeSH
- Ralstonia solanacearum chemie MeSH
- rekombinantní proteiny genetika izolace a purifikace MeSH
- rostlinné lektiny chemie MeSH
- substituce aminokyselin MeSH
- vazebná místa MeSH
The purple pigmented bacterium Chromobacterium violaceum is a dominant component of tropical soil microbiota that can cause rare but fatal septicaemia in humans. Its sequenced genome provides insight into the abundant potential of this organism for biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications and allowed an ORF encoding a protein that is 60% identical to the fucose binding lectin (PA-IIL) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the mannose binding lectin (RS-IIL) from Ralstonia solanacearum to be identified. The lectin, CV-IIL, has recently been purified from C. violaceum [Zinger-Yosovich, K., Sudakevitz, D., Imberty, A., Garber, N. C., and Gilboa-Garber, N. (2006) Microbiology 152, 457-463] and has been confirmed to be a tetramer with subunit size of 11.86 kDa and a binding preference for fucose. We describe here the cloning of CV-IIL and its expression as a recombinant protein. A complete structure-function characterization has been made in an effort to analyze the specificity and affinity of CV-IIL for fucose and mannose. Crystal structures of CV-IIL complexes with monosaccharides have yielded the molecular basis of the specificity. Each monomer contains two close calcium cations that mediate the binding of the monosaccharides, which occurs in different orientations for fucose and mannose. The thermodynamics of binding has been analyzed by titration microcalorimetry, giving dissociation constants of 1.7 and 19 microM for alpha-methyl fucoside and alpha-methyl mannoside, respectively. Further analysis demonstrated a strongly favorable entropy term that is unusual in carbohydrate binding. A comparison with both PA-IIL and RS-IIL, which have binding preferences for fucose and mannose, respectively, yielded insights into the monosaccharide specificity of this important class of soluble bacterial lectins.
- MeSH
- bakteriální proteiny genetika chemie izolace a purifikace MeSH
- Chromobacterium chemie metabolismus MeSH
- entropie MeSH
- financování organizované MeSH
- fukosa metabolismus MeSH
- krystalizace MeSH
- lektin vázající mannosu genetika chemie izolace a purifikace MeSH
- lektiny genetika chemie izolace a purifikace MeSH
- mannosa metabolismus MeSH
- molekulární modely MeSH
- rekombinantní proteiny metabolismus MeSH
- rozpustnost MeSH
- sekundární struktura proteinů MeSH
- senzitivita a specificita MeSH
- statická elektřina MeSH
- vápník chemie MeSH
- vazba proteinů MeSH
- vazebná místa MeSH
- vodíková vazba MeSH
- vztahy mezi strukturou a aktivitou MeSH
- Publikační typ
- srovnávací studie MeSH
- MeSH
- afinitní značky metabolismus MeSH
- finanční podpora výzkumu jako téma MeSH
- fukosa genetika metabolismus MeSH
- galaktosa genetika metabolismus MeSH
- lektiny genetika chemie MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mutageneze genetika MeSH
- Pseudomonas aeruginosa metabolismus MeSH
- Ralstonia solanacearum metabolismus MeSH
- výpočetní biologie metody MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- MeSH
- lektiny analýza MeSH
- oligosacharidy chemie MeSH
- Pseudomonas aeruginosa enzymologie MeSH
- techniky in vitro MeSH
- Publikační typ
- kongresy MeSH