The structure of the transcriptional antiterminator NusB from Escherichia coli

We have determined the solution structure of NusB, a transcription antitermination protein from Escherichia coli. The structure reveals a novel, all alpha-helical protein fold. NusB mutations that cause a loss of function (NusB5) or alter specificity for RNA targets (NusB101) are localized to surface residues and likely affect RNA-protein or protein-protein interactions. Residues that are highly conserved among homologs stabilize the protein core. The solution structure of E. coli NusB presented here resembles that of Mycobacterium tuberculosis NusB determined by X-ray diffraction, but differs substantially from a solution structure of E. coli NusB reported earlier.