Refined crystal structure of pseudoazurin from Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 at 1.5 A resolution

The crystal structure of pseudoazurin from Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 (PAZAM1) has been solved by the molecular replacement method using copper-copper distances as translation parameters, which were obtained from difference Patterson maps calculated with the synchrotron radiation data containing the multiwavelength anomalous-dispersion effect. The structure refinement was carried out by the use of molecular dynamics optimization and the restrained least-squares method. The final crystallographic R factor was 19.9% for the 14 365 reflections greater than 3sigma between 1.5 and 8.0 A resolution. This report describes the characteristic features of the structure of PAZAM 1 as well as the effectiveness of synchrotron radiation for structure analysis of metalloproteins. The environment of the metal active site and the structural differences among blue-copper proteins are discussed.