Drosophila Rrp1 domain structure as defined by limited proteolysis and biophysical analyses

Drosophila Rrp1 is a DNA repair nuclease whose C-terminal region shares extensive homology with Escherichia coli exonuclease III, has nuclease activity, and provides resistance to oxidative and alkylating agents in repair-deficient E. coli strains. The N-terminal 421 amino acid region of Rrp1, which binds and renatures homologous single-stranded DNA, does not share homology with any known protein. Proteolysis by endoproteinase Glu-C (protease V8) reduces the Rrp1 protein to a single, cleavage-resistant peptide. The peptide (referred to as Rrp1-C274) begins with the sequence TKTTV, corresponding to cleavage between Glu-405 and Thr-406 of Rrp1. We determined that nuclease activity is intrinsic to Rrp1-C274 although altered when compared with Rrp1; 3'-exonuclease activity is reduced 210-fold, 3'-phosphodiesterase activity is reduced 6.8-fold, and no difference in apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease activity is observed. Rrp1 and Rrp1-C274 are both monomers with frictional coefficients of 2.2 and 1.4, respectively. Circular dichroism results indicate that Rrp1-C274 is predominantly alpha-helical, while the N-terminal 399 amino acids is predominantly random coil. These results suggest that Rrp1 may have a bipartite structural organization; a highly organized, globular C-terminal domain; and an asymmetric, protease-sensitive random coil-enriched N-terminal region. A shape model for this bipartite structure is proposed and discussed.