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Monitoring the Assembly of a Secreted Bacterial Virulence Factor Using Site-specific Crosslinking
Published on: December 17, 2013
Structural and Biochemical Analysis of Protein-Protein Interactions Between the Acyl-Carrier Protein and Product
Jesus F Barajas1, Kara Finzel2, Timothy R Valentic1
1Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
Abstract:
In fungal non-reducing polyketide synthases (NR-PKS) the acyl-carrier protein (ACP) carries the growing polyketide intermediate through iterative rounds of elongation, cyclization and product release. This process occurs through a controlled, yet enigmatic coordination of the ACP with its partner enzymes. The transient nature of ACP interactions with these catalytic domains imposes a major obstacle for investigation of the influence of protein-protein interactions on polyketide product outcome. To further our understanding about how the ACP interacts with the product template (PT) domain that catalyzes polyketide cyclization, we developed the first mechanism-based crosslinkers for NR-PKSs. Through in vitro assays, in silico docking and bioinformatics, ACP residues involved in ACP-PT recognition were identified. We used this information to improve ACP compatibility with non-cognate PT domains, which resulted in the first gain-of-function ACP with improved interactions with its partner enzymes. This advance will aid in future combinatorial biosynthesis of new polyketides.
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