Principles and methods used to grow and optimize crystals of protein-metallodrug adducts, to determine metal binding sites and to assign metal ligands

The characterization of the interactions between biological macromolecules (proteins and nucleic acids) and metal-based drugs is a fundamental prerequisite for understanding their mechanisms of action. X-ray crystallography enables the structural analysis of such complexes with atomic level detail. However, this approach requires the preparation of highly diffracting single crystals, the measurement of diffraction patterns and the structural analysis and interpretation of macromolecule-metal interactions from electron density maps. In this review, we describe principles and methods used to grow and optimize crystals of protein-metallodrug adducts, to determine metal binding sites and to assign and validate metal ligands. Examples from the literature and experience in our own laboratory are provided and key challenges are described, notably crystallization and molecular model refinement against the X-ray diffraction data.

Chlamydia protein Pgp3 studied at high resolution in a new crystal form

The protein Pgp3 is implicated in the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia and comprises an extended complex arrangement of a C-terminal domain (CTD) and an N-terminal domain (NTD) linked by a triple-helix coiled coil (THCC). Here, the X-ray crystal structure of Pgp3 from an LGV1 strain is reported at the highest X-ray diffraction resolution obtained to date for the full protein. The protein was crystallized using a high concentration of potassium bromide, which resulted in a new crystal form with relatively low solvent content that diffracted to a resolution of 1.98 Å. The three-dimensional structure of this new crystal form is described and compared with those of other crystal forms, and the potassium bromide binding sites and the relevance to chlamydia isolates from around the globe are described. The crystal packing is apparently driven by the CTDs. Since the threefold axes of the THCC and NTD are not collinear with the threefold axis of a CTD, this naturally leads to disorder in the THCC and the portion of the NTD that does not directly interact with the CTD via crystal packing. The key avenue to resolving these oddities in the crystal structure analysis was a complete new analysis in space group P1 and determining the space group as P212121. This space-group assignment was that originally determined from the diffraction pattern but was perhaps complicated by translational noncrystallographic symmetry. This crystal structure of a three-domain multi-macromolecular complex with two misaligned threefold axes was a unique challenge and has not been encountered before. It is suggested that a specific intermolecular interaction, possibly of functional significance in receptor binding in chlamydia, might allow the design of a new chemotherapeutic agent against chlamydia.

The science is in the data

Understanding published research results should be through one's own eyes and include the opportunity to work with raw diffraction data to check the various decisions made in the analyses by the original authors. Today, preserving raw diffraction data is technically and organizationally viable at a growing number of data archives, both centralized and distributed, which are empowered to register data sets and obtain a preservation descriptor, typically a 'digital object identifier'. This introduces an important role of preserving raw data, namely understanding where we fail in or could improve our analyses. Individual science area case studies in crystallography are provided.

The emergent rhizosphere: imaging the development of the porous architecture at the root-soil interface

The rhizosphere is the zone of soil influenced by a plant root and is critical for plant health and nutrient acquisition. All below ground resources must pass through this dynamic zone prior to their capture by plant roots. However, researching the undisturbed rhizosphere has proved very challenging. Here we compare the temporal changes to the intact rhizosphere pore structure during the emergence of a developing root system in different soils. High resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) was used to quantify the impact of root development on soil structural change, at scales relevant to individual micro-pores and aggregates (µm). A comparison of micro-scale structural evolution in homogenously packed soils highlighted the impacts of a penetrating root system in changing the surrounding porous architecture and morphology. Results indicate the structural zone of influence of a root can be more localised than previously reported (µm scale rather than mm scale). With time, growing roots significantly alter the soil physical environment in their immediate vicinity through reducing root-soil contact and crucially increasing porosity at the root-soil interface and not the converse as has often been postulated. This 'rhizosphere pore structure' and its impact on associated dynamics are discussed.

New developments in crystallography: exploring its technology, methods and scope in the molecular biosciences

Since the Protein Data Bank (PDB) was founded in 1971, there are now over 120,000 depositions, the majority of which are from X-ray crystallography and 90% of those made use of synchrotron beamlines. At the Cambridge Structure Database (CSD), founded in 1965, there are more than 800,000 'small molecule' crystal structure depositions and a very large number of those are relevant in the biosciences as ligands or cofactors. The technology for crystal structure analysis is still developing rapidly both at synchrotrons and in home labs. Determination of the details of the hydrogen atoms in biological macromolecules is well served using neutrons as probe. Large multi-macromolecular complexes cause major challenges to crystallization; electrons as probes offer unique advantages here. Methods developments naturally accompany technology change, mainly incremental but some, such as the tuneability, intensity and collimation of synchrotron radiation, have effected radical changes in capability of biological crystallography. In the past few years, the X-ray laser has taken X-ray crystallography measurement times into the femtosecond range. In terms of applications many new discoveries have been made in the molecular biosciences. The scope of crystallographic techniques is indeed very wide. As examples, new insights into chemical catalysis of enzymes and relating ligand bound structures to thermodynamics have been gained but predictive power is seen as not yet achieved. Metal complexes are also an emerging theme for biomedicine applications. Our studies of coloration of live and cooked lobsters proved to be an unexpected favourite with the public and schoolchildren. More generally, public understanding of the biosciences and crystallography's role within the field have been greatly enhanced by the United Nations International Year of Crystallography coordinated by the International Union of Crystallography. This topical review describes each of these areas along with illustrative results to document the scope of each methodology.

New leads for fragment-based design of rhenium/technetium radiopharmaceutical agents

Multiple possibilities for the coordination of fac-[Re(CO)3(H2O)3]+ to a protein have been determined and include binding to Asp, Glu, Arg and His amino-acid residues as well as to the C-terminal carboxylate in the vicinity of Leu and Pro. The large number of rhenium metal complex binding sites that have been identified on specific residues thereby allow increased target identification for the design of future radiopharmaceuticals. The core experimental concept involved the use of state-of-art tuneable synchrotron radiation at the Diamond Light Source to optimize the rhenium anomalous dispersion signal to a large value (f'' of 12.1 electrons) at its LI absorption edge with a selected X-ray wavelength of 0.9763 Å. At the Cu Kα X-ray wavelength (1.5418 Å) the f'' for rhenium is 5.9 electrons. The expected peak-height increase owing to the optimization of the Re f'' was therefore 2.1. This X-ray wavelength tuning methodology thereby showed the lower occupancy rhenium binding sites as well as the occupancies of the higher occupancy rhenium binding sites.

X-ray Structure of the Carboplatin-Loaded Apo-Ferritin Nanocage

The second-generation Pt anticancer agent carboplatin (CBDCA) was encapsulated within the apo horse spleen ferritin (AFt) nanocage, and the X-ray structure of the drug-loaded protein was refined at 1.49 Å resolution. Two Pt binding sites, different from the one observed in the cisplatin-encapsulated AFt, were identified in Ft subunits by inspection of anomalous electron density maps at two wavelengths and difference Fourier electron density maps, which provide the necessary sensitivity to discriminate between Pt from CBDCA and Cd ions that are present in the crystallization conditions. Pt centers coordinate to the NE2 atom of His49 and to the NE2 atom of His132, both on the inner surface of the Ft nanocage.

Raw diffraction data preservation and reuse: overview, update on practicalities and metadata requirements

A topical review is presented of the rapidly developing interest in and storage options for the preservation and reuse of raw data within the scientific domain of the IUCr and its Commissions, each of which operates within a great diversity of instrumentation. A résumé is included of the case for raw diffraction data deposition. An overall context is set by highlighting the initiatives of science policy makers towards an 'Open Science' model within which crystallographers will increasingly work in the future; this will bring new funding opportunities but also new codes of procedure within open science frameworks. Skills education and training for crystallographers will need to be expanded. Overall, there are now the means and the organization for the preservation of raw crystallographic diffraction data via different types of archive, such as at universities, discipline-specific repositories (Integrated Resource for Reproducibility in Macromol-ecular Crystallography, Structural Biology Data Grid), general public data repositories (Zenodo, ResearchGate) and centralized neutron and X-ray facilities. Formulation of improved metadata descriptors for the raw data types of each of the IUCr Commissions is in progress; some detailed examples are provided. A number of specific case studies are presented, including an example research thread that provides complete open access to raw data.

Correcting the record of structural publications requires joint effort of the community and journal editors

Seriously flawed and even fictional models of biomolecular crystal structures, although rare, still persist in the record of structural repositories and databases. The ensuing problems of database contamination and persistence of publications based on incorrect structure models must be effectively addressed. The burden cannot be simply left to the critical voices who take the effort to contribute dissenting comments that are mostly ignored. The entire structural biology community, and particularly the journal editors who exercise significant power in this respect, must engage in a constructive dialog lest structural biology lose its credibility as an evidence-based empirical science.

Re-refinement of 4xan: hen egg-white lysozyme with carboplatin in sodium bromide solution

An addendum is published to Tanley et al. [(2014), Acta Cryst. F70, 1135–1142].

A re-refinement of 4xan, hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) with carboplatin crystallized in NaBr solution, has been made and is published here as an addendum to Tanley et al. [(2014), Acta Cryst. F70, 1135–1142]. This follows a previous re-refinement and PDB deposition (4yem) by Shabalin et al. [(2015), Acta Cryst. D71, 1965–1979]. The critical evaluation of the original PDB deposition (4xan), and the subsequent critical examination of the re-refined structure (4yem), has led to an improved model (PDB code 5hmj).

Re-refinement of 4g4a: room-temperature X-ray diffraction study of cisplatin and its binding to His15 of HEWL after 14 months chemical exposure in the presence of DMSO

A re-refinement of 4g4a, the room-temperature X-ray diffraction study of cisplatin and its binding to His15 of HEWL after 14 months chemical exposure in the presence of DMSO is published as an addendum to Tanley et al. [(2012), Acta Cryst. F68, 1300-1306]. This example illustrates the benefits of sharing raw diffraction images, as well as structure factors and molecular coordinates, as the diffraction resolution of the study is now much improved at 1.70 Å.

Safeguarding Structural Data Repositories against Bad Apples

Structural biology research generates large amounts of data, some deposited in public databases or repositories, but a substantial remainder never becomes available to the scientific community. In addition, some of the deposited data contain less or more serious errors that may bias the results of data mining. Thorough analysis and discussion of these problems is needed to ameliorate this situation. This perspective is an attempt to propose some solutions and encourage both further discussion and action on the part of the relevant organizations, in particular the PDB and various bodies of the International Union of Crystallography.

Crystallographic raw data, education and refereeing

This article provides an overview of the preservation of raw diffraction data, then addresses the impact on future plans in the education and training of our community with respect to raw diffraction data and its potential reuse, and, thirdly presents the issue of referee access to the underpinning diffraction data and coordinates, as well as the Protein Data Bank Validation Report, in the review process of structural biology articles submitted for publication. Overall I pay tribute to the scientific achievements of Alex Wlodawer, who is also an ardent advocate of the importance of experimental data.

Online_DPI: a web server to calculate the diffraction precision index for a protein structure

An online computing server,Online_DPI(where DPI denotes the diffraction precision index), has been created to calculate the `Cruickshank DPI' value for a given three-dimensional protein or macromolecular structure. It also estimates the atomic coordinate error for all the atoms available in the structure. It is an easy-to-use web server that enables users to visualize the computed values dynamically on the client machine. Users can provide the Protein Data Bank (PDB) identification code or upload the three-dimensional atomic coordinates from the client machine. The computed DPI value for the structure and the atomic coordinate errors for all the atoms are included in the revised PDB file. Further, users can graphically view the atomic coordinate error along with `temperature factors' (i.e.atomic displacement parameters). In addition, the computing engine is interfaced with an up-to-date local copy of the Protein Data Bank. New entries are updated every week, and thus users can access all the structures available in the Protein Data Bank. The computing engine is freely accessible online at http://cluster.physics.iisc.ernet.in/dpi/.

Synchrotron radiation macromolecular crystallography: science and spin-offs

A current overview of synchrotron radiation (SR) in macromolecular crystallography (MX) instrumentation, methods and applications is presented. Automation has been and remains a central development in the last decade, as have the rise of remote access and of industrial service provision. Results include a high number of Protein Data Bank depositions, with an increasing emphasis on the successful use of microcrystals. One future emphasis involves pushing the frontiers of using higher and lower photon energies. With the advent of X-ray free-electron lasers, closely linked to SR developments, the use of ever smaller samples such as nanocrystals, nanoclusters and single molecules is anticipated, as well as the opening up of femtosecond time-resolved diffraction structural studies. At SR sources, a very high-throughput assessment for the best crystal samples and the ability to tackle just a few micron and sub-micron crystals will become widespread. With higher speeds and larger detectors, diffraction data volumes are becoming long-term storage and archiving issues; the implications for today and the future are discussed. Together with the rise of the storage ring to its current pre-eminence in MX data provision, the growing tendency of central facility sites to offer other centralized facilities complementary to crystallography, such as cryo-electron microscopy and NMR, is a welcome development.

X-ray diffraction in temporally and spatially resolved biomolecular science

Time-resolved Laue protein crystallography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) opened up the field of sub-nanosecond protein crystal structure analyses. There are a limited number of such time-resolved studies in the literature. Why is this? The X-ray laser now gives us femtosecond (fs) duration pulses, typically 10 fs up to ∼50 fs. Their use is attractive for the fastest time-resolved protein crystallography studies. It has been proposed that single molecules could even be studied with the advantage of being able to measure X-ray diffraction from a 'crystal lattice free' single molecule, with or without temporal resolved structural changes. This is altogether very challenging R&D. So as to assist this effort we have undertaken studies of metal clusters that bind to proteins, both 'fresh' and after repeated X-ray irradiation to assess their X-ray-photo-dynamics, namely Ta6Br12, K2PtI6 and K2PtBr6 bound to a test protein, hen egg white lysozyme. These metal complexes have the major advantage of being very recognisable shapes (pseudo spherical or octahedral) and thereby offer a start to (probably very difficult) single molecule electron density map interpretations, both static and dynamic. A further approach is to investigate the X-ray laser beam diffraction strength of a well scattering nano-cluster; an example from nature being the iron containing ferritin. Electron crystallography and single particle electron microscopy imaging offers alternatives to X-ray structural studies; our structural studies of crustacyanin, a 320 kDa protein carotenoid complex, can be extended either by electron based techniques or with the X-ray laser representing a fascinating range of options. General outlook remarks concerning X-ray, electron and neutron macromolecular crystallography as well as 'NMR crystallography' conclude the article.

Watt C. On the origin and variation of colors in lobster carapace

We present evidence that astaxanthin enolate may form in a protein complex environment, and is associated with a large bathochromic absorption shift to give the blue–black color of lobsters.

Experiences with making diffraction image data available: what metadata do we need to archive?

Recently, the IUCr (International Union of Crystallography) initiated the formation of a Diffraction Data Deposition Working Group with the aim of developing standards for the representation of raw diffraction data associated with the publication of structural papers. Archiving of raw data serves several goals: to improve the record of science, to verify the reproducibility and to allow detailed checks of scientific data, safeguarding against fraud and to allow reanalysis with future improved techniques. A means of studying this issue is to submit exemplar publications with associated raw data and metadata. In a recent study of the binding of cisplatin and carboplatin to histidine in lysozyme crystals under several conditions, the possible effects of the equipment and X-ray diffraction data-processing software on the occupancies and B factors of the bound Pt compounds were compared. Initially, 35.3 GB of data were transferred from Manchester to Utrecht to be processed with EVAL. A detailed description and discussion of the availability of metadata was published in a paper that was linked to a local raw data archive at Utrecht University and also mirrored at the TARDIS raw diffraction data archive in Australia. By making these raw diffraction data sets available with the article, it is possible for the diffraction community to make their own evaluation. This led to one of the authors of XDS (K. Diederichs) to re-integrate the data from crystals that supposedly solely contained bound carboplatin, resulting in the analysis of partially occupied chlorine anomalous electron densities near the Pt-binding sites and the use of several criteria to more carefully assess the diffraction resolution limit. General arguments for archiving raw data, the possibilities of doing so and the requirement of resources are discussed. The problems associated with a partially unknown experimental setup, which preferably should be available as metadata, is discussed. Current thoughts on data compression are summarized, which could be a solution especially for pixel-device data sets with fine slicing that may otherwise present an unmanageable amount of data.

Carboplatin binding to histidine

Carboplatin is a second-generation platinum anticancer agent used for the treatment of a variety of cancers. Previous X-ray crystallographic studies of carboplatin binding to histidine (in hen egg-white lysozyme; HEWL) showed the partial conversion of carboplatin to cisplatin owing to the high NaCl concentration used in the crystallization conditions. HEWL co-crystallizations with carboplatin in NaBr conditions have now been carried out to confirm whether carboplatin converts to the bromine form and whether this takes place in a similar way to the partial conversion of carboplatin to cisplatin observed previously in NaCl conditions. Here, it is reported that a partial chemical transformation takes place but to a transplatin form. Thus, to attempt to resolve purely carboplatin binding at histidine, this study utilized co-crystallization of HEWL with carboplatin without NaCl to eliminate the partial chemical conversion of carboplatin. Tetragonal HEWL crystals co-crystallized with carboplatin were successfully obtained in four different conditions, each at a different pH value. The structural results obtained show carboplatin bound to either one or both of the N atoms of His15 of HEWL, and this particular variation was dependent on the concentration of anions in the crystallization mixture and the elapsed time, as well as the pH used. The structural details of the bound carboplatin molecule also differed between them. Overall, the most detailed crystal structure showed the majority of the carboplatin atoms bound to the platinum centre; however, the four-carbon ring structure of the cyclobutanedicarboxylate moiety (CBDC) remained elusive. The potential impact of the results for the administration of carboplatin as an anticancer agent are described.

Chemical conversion of cisplatin and carboplatin with histidine in a model protein crystallized under sodium iodide conditions

Crystals of HEWL with cisplatin and HEWL with carboplatin grown in sodium iodide conditions both show a partial chemical transformation of cisplatin or carboplatin to a transiodoplatin (PtI₂X₂) form. The binding is only at the N^δ atom of His15. A further Pt species (PtI₃X) is also seen, in both cases bound in a crevice between symmetry-related protein molecules.

Cisplatin and carboplatin are platinum anticancer agents that are used to treat a variety of cancers. Previous X-ray crystallographic studies of carboplatin binding to histidine in hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) showed a partial chemical conversion of carboplatin to cisplatin owing to the high sodium chloride concentration used in the crystallization conditions. Also, the co-crystallization of HEWL with carboplatin in sodium bromide conditions resulted in the partial conversion of carboplatin to the transbromoplatin form, with a portion of the cyclobutanedicarboxylate (CBDC) moiety still present. The results of the co-crystallization of HEWL with cisplatin or carboplatin in sodium iodide conditions are now reported in order to determine whether the cisplatin and carboplatin converted to the iodo form, and whether this took place in a similar way to the partial conversion of carboplatin to cisplatin in NaCl conditions or to transbromoplatin in NaBr conditions as seen previously. It is reported here that a partial chemical transformation has taken place to a transplatin form for both ligands. The NaI-grown crystals belonged to the monoclinic space group P2₁ with two molecules in the asymmetric unit. The chemically transformed cisplatin and carboplatin bind to both His15 residues, i.e. in each asymmetric unit. The binding is only at the N^δ atom of His15. A third platinum species is also seen in both conditions bound in a crevice between symmetry-related molecules. Here, the platinum is bound to three I atoms identified based on their anomalous difference electron densities and their refined occupancies, with the fourth bound atom being a Cl atom (in the cisplatin case) or a portion of the CBDC moiety (in the carboplatin case).