Chemical shift assignment of the alternative scaffold protein IscA

The IscA protein (11.5 kDa) is an essential component of the iron sulphur cluster biogenesis machine. In bacteria, the machine components are clustered in operons, amongst which the most important is the isc operon. Bacterial IscA has direct homologues also in eukaryotes. Like the protein IscU, IscA is thought to assist cluster formation as an alternative scaffold protein which receives the cluster before transferring it further to the final acceptors. Several crystal structures have been published. They all report an IscA dimeric form, although the packing of the protomers in the dimers differs amongst structures. No solution studies have currently been reported. Here we report the (1)H, (13)C and (15)N backbone and side-chain chemical shift assignments of the cluster-free E. coli IscA as a starting point for further studies of the structure and functions of this still poorly characterized protein. We show that IscA exists in solution as an equilibrium between different species. Spectrum assignment was thus challenging given the heterogeneous nature of the sample but doable through judicious choice of selective labelling and concentration dependent studies.