Rapid and accurate structure determination of coiled-coil domains using NMR dipolar couplings: application to...

Coiled-coil motifs play essential roles in protein assembly and molecular recognition, and are therefore the targets of many ongoing structural and functional studies. However, owing to the dynamic nature of many of the smaller coiled-coil domains, crystallization for X-ray studies is very challenging. Determination of elongated structures using standard NMR approaches is inefficient and usually yields low-resolution structures due to accumulation of small errors over long distances. Here we describe a solution NMR approach based on residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) for rapid and accurate structure determination of coiled-coil dimers. Using this approach, we were able to determine the high-resolution structure of the coiled-coil domain of cGMP-dependent protein kinase Ialpha, a protein of previously unknown structure that is critical for physiological relaxation of vascular smooth muscle. This approach can be extended to solve coiled-coil structures with higher order assemblies.