1
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Yee SW, Macdonald CB, Mitrovic D, Zhou X, Koleske ML, Yang J, Buitrago Silva D, Rockefeller Grimes P, Trinidad DD, More SS, Kachuri L, Witte JS, Delemotte L, Giacomini KM, Coyote-Maestas W. The full spectrum of SLC22 OCT1 mutations illuminates the bridge between drug transporter biophysics and pharmacogenomics. Mol Cell 2024; 84:1932-1947.e10. [PMID: 38703769 DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2024.04.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2023] [Revised: 01/04/2024] [Accepted: 04/15/2024] [Indexed: 05/06/2024]
Abstract
Mutations in transporters can impact an individual's response to drugs and cause many diseases. Few variants in transporters have been evaluated for their functional impact. Here, we combine saturation mutagenesis and multi-phenotypic screening to dissect the impact of 11,213 missense single-amino-acid deletions, and synonymous variants across the 554 residues of OCT1, a key liver xenobiotic transporter. By quantifying in parallel expression and substrate uptake, we find that most variants exert their primary effect on protein abundance, a phenotype not commonly measured alongside function. Using our mutagenesis results combined with structure prediction and molecular dynamic simulations, we develop accurate structure-function models of the entire transport cycle, providing biophysical characterization of all known and possible human OCT1 polymorphisms. This work provides a complete functional map of OCT1 variants along with a framework for integrating functional genomics, biophysical modeling, and human genetics to predict variant effects on disease and drug efficacy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sook Wah Yee
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Christian B Macdonald
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Darko Mitrovic
- Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 12121 Solna, Stockholm, Stockholm County 114 28, Sweden
| | - Xujia Zhou
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Megan L Koleske
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Jia Yang
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Dina Buitrago Silva
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Patrick Rockefeller Grimes
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Donovan D Trinidad
- Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Swati S More
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Linda Kachuri
- Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - John S Witte
- Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Lucie Delemotte
- Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 12121 Solna, Stockholm, Stockholm County 114 28, Sweden.
| | - Kathleen M Giacomini
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
| | - Willow Coyote-Maestas
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA; Quantitative Biosciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA; Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA 94148, USA.
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2
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Gelman S, Johnson B, Freschlin C, D'Costa S, Gitter A, Romero PA. Biophysics-based protein language models for protein engineering. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.03.15.585128. [PMID: 38559182 PMCID: PMC10980077 DOI: 10.1101/2024.03.15.585128] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/04/2024]
Abstract
Protein language models trained on evolutionary data have emerged as powerful tools for predictive problems involving protein sequence, structure, and function. However, these models overlook decades of research into biophysical factors governing protein function. We propose Mutational Effect Transfer Learning (METL), a protein language model framework that unites advanced machine learning and biophysical modeling. Using the METL framework, we pretrain transformer-based neural networks on biophysical simulation data to capture fundamental relationships between protein sequence, structure, and energetics. We finetune METL on experimental sequence-function data to harness these biophysical signals and apply them when predicting protein properties like thermostability, catalytic activity, and fluorescence. METL excels in challenging protein engineering tasks like generalizing from small training sets and position extrapolation, although existing methods that train on evolutionary signals remain powerful for many types of experimental assays. We demonstrate METL's ability to design functional green fluorescent protein variants when trained on only 64 examples, showcasing the potential of biophysics-based protein language models for protein engineering.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sam Gelman
- Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Morgridge Institute for Research
| | - Bryce Johnson
- Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Morgridge Institute for Research
| | | | - Sameer D'Costa
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
| | - Anthony Gitter
- Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Morgridge Institute for Research
- Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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3
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Chamness LM, Kuntz CP, McKee AG, Penn WD, Hemmerich CM, Rusch DB, Woods H, Dyotima, Meiler J, Schlebach JP. Divergent Folding-Mediated Epistasis Among Unstable Membrane Protein Variants. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.08.25.554866. [PMID: 37662415 PMCID: PMC10473758 DOI: 10.1101/2023.08.25.554866] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/05/2023]
Abstract
Many membrane proteins are prone to misfolding, which compromises their functional expression at the plasma membrane. This is particularly true for the mammalian gonadotropin-releasing hormone receptor GPCRs (GnRHR). We recently demonstrated that evolutionary GnRHR modifications appear to have coincided with adaptive changes in cotranslational folding efficiency. Though protein stability is known to shape evolution, it is unclear how cotranslational folding constraints modulate the synergistic, epistatic interactions between mutations. We therefore compared the pairwise interactions formed by mutations that disrupt the membrane topology (V276T) or tertiary structure (W107A) of GnRHR. Using deep mutational scanning, we evaluated how the plasma membrane expression of these variants is modified by hundreds of secondary mutations. An analysis of 251 mutants in three genetic backgrounds reveals that V276T and W107A form distinct epistatic interactions that depend on both the severity and the mechanism of destabilization. V276T forms predominantly negative epistatic interactions with destabilizing mutations in soluble loops. In contrast, W107A forms positive interactions with mutations in both loops and transmembrane domains that reflect the diminishing impacts of the destabilizing mutations in variants that are already unstable. These findings reveal how epistasis is remodeled by conformational defects in membrane proteins and in unstable proteins more generally.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura M. Chamness
- Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
| | - Charles P. Kuntz
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
| | - Andrew G. McKee
- Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
| | - Wesley D. Penn
- Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
| | | | - Douglas B. Rusch
- Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
| | - Hope Woods
- Department of Chemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
- Chemical and Physical Biology Program, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Dyotima
- Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
| | - Jens Meiler
- Department of Chemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
- Institute for Drug Discovery, Leipzig University, Leipzig, SAC, Germany
| | - Jonathan P. Schlebach
- Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
- Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
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4
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Yee SW, Macdonald C, Mitrovic D, Zhou X, Koleske ML, Yang J, Silva DB, Grimes PR, Trinidad D, More SS, Kachuri L, Witte JS, Delemotte L, Giacomini KM, Coyote-Maestas W. The full spectrum of OCT1 (SLC22A1) mutations bridges transporter biophysics to drug pharmacogenomics. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.06.06.543963. [PMID: 37333090 PMCID: PMC10274788 DOI: 10.1101/2023.06.06.543963] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/20/2023]
Abstract
Membrane transporters play a fundamental role in the tissue distribution of endogenous compounds and xenobiotics and are major determinants of efficacy and side effects profiles. Polymorphisms within these drug transporters result in inter-individual variation in drug response, with some patients not responding to the recommended dosage of drug whereas others experience catastrophic side effects. For example, variants within the major hepatic Human organic cation transporter OCT1 (SLC22A1) can change endogenous organic cations and many prescription drug levels. To understand how variants mechanistically impact drug uptake, we systematically study how all known and possible single missense and single amino acid deletion variants impact expression and substrate uptake of OCT1. We find that human variants primarily disrupt function via folding rather than substrate uptake. Our study revealed that the major determinants of folding reside in the first 300 amino acids, including the first 6 transmembrane domains and the extracellular domain (ECD) with a stabilizing and highly conserved stabilizing helical motif making key interactions between the ECD and transmembrane domains. Using the functional data combined with computational approaches, we determine and validate a structure-function model of OCT1s conformational ensemble without experimental structures. Using this model and molecular dynamic simulations of key mutants, we determine biophysical mechanisms for how specific human variants alter transport phenotypes. We identify differences in frequencies of reduced function alleles across populations with East Asians vs European populations having the lowest and highest frequency of reduced function variants, respectively. Mining human population databases reveals that reduced function alleles of OCT1 identified in this study associate significantly with high LDL cholesterol levels. Our general approach broadly applied could transform the landscape of precision medicine by producing a mechanistic basis for understanding the effects of human mutations on disease and drug response.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sook Wah Yee
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Christian Macdonald
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Darko Mitrovic
- Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 12121 Solna, Sweden
| | - Xujia Zhou
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Megan L Koleske
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Jia Yang
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Dina Buitrago Silva
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Patrick Rockefeller Grimes
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Donovan Trinidad
- Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Swati S More
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
- Current address: Center for Drug Design (CDD), College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, United States
| | - Linda Kachuri
- Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University, California, United States
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
| | - John S Witte
- Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University, California, United States
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
| | - Lucie Delemotte
- Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 12121 Solna, Sweden
| | - Kathleen M Giacomini
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Willow Coyote-Maestas
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, United States
- Quantitative Biosciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, United States
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5
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Macdonald CB, Nedrud D, Grimes PR, Trinidad D, Fraser JS, Coyote-Maestas W. DIMPLE: deep insertion, deletion, and missense mutation libraries for exploring protein variation in evolution, disease, and biology. Genome Biol 2023; 24:36. [PMID: 36829241 PMCID: PMC9951526 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-02880-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2022] [Accepted: 02/16/2023] [Indexed: 02/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Insertions and deletions (indels) enable evolution and cause disease. Due to technical challenges, indels are left out of most mutational scans, limiting our understanding of them in disease, biology, and evolution. We develop a low cost and bias method, DIMPLE, for systematically generating deletions, insertions, and missense mutations in genes, which we test on a range of targets, including Kir2.1. We use DIMPLE to study how indels impact potassium channel structure, disease, and evolution. We find deletions are most disruptive overall, beta sheets are most sensitive to indels, and flexible loops are sensitive to deletions yet tolerate insertions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian B Macdonald
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | | | | | - Donovan Trinidad
- Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | - James S Fraser
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, USA.,Quantitative Biosciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | - Willow Coyote-Maestas
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, USA. .,Quantitative Biosciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
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6
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Fu Y, Bedő J, Papenfuss AT, Rubin AF. Integrating deep mutational scanning and low-throughput mutagenesis data to predict the impact of amino acid variants. Gigascience 2022; 12:giad073. [PMID: 37721410 PMCID: PMC10506130 DOI: 10.1093/gigascience/giad073] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2023] [Revised: 07/02/2023] [Accepted: 08/23/2023] [Indexed: 09/19/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Evaluating the impact of amino acid variants has been a critical challenge for studying protein function and interpreting genomic data. High-throughput experimental methods like deep mutational scanning (DMS) can measure the effect of large numbers of variants in a target protein, but because DMS studies have not been performed on all proteins, researchers also model DMS data computationally to estimate variant impacts by predictors. RESULTS In this study, we extended a linear regression-based predictor to explore whether incorporating data from alanine scanning (AS), a widely used low-throughput mutagenesis method, would improve prediction results. To evaluate our model, we collected 146 AS datasets, mapping to 54 DMS datasets across 22 distinct proteins. CONCLUSIONS We show that improved model performance depends on the compatibility of the DMS and AS assays, and the scale of improvement is closely related to the correlation between DMS and AS results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunfan Fu
- The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Bioinformatics Division, 1G Royal Pde, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
- The University of Melbourne, Department of Medical Biology, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
| | - Justin Bedő
- The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Bioinformatics Division, 1G Royal Pde, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
- The University of Melbourne, Department of Medical Biology, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
| | - Anthony T Papenfuss
- The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Bioinformatics Division, 1G Royal Pde, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
- The University of Melbourne, Department of Medical Biology, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
- Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
| | - Alan F Rubin
- The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Bioinformatics Division, 1G Royal Pde, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
- The University of Melbourne, Department of Medical Biology, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
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7
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Azbukina N, Zharikova A, Ramensky V. Intragenic compensation through the lens of deep mutational scanning. Biophys Rev 2022; 14:1161-1182. [PMID: 36345285 PMCID: PMC9636336 DOI: 10.1007/s12551-022-01005-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2022] [Accepted: 09/26/2022] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
A significant fraction of mutations in proteins are deleterious and result in adverse consequences for protein function, stability, or interaction with other molecules. Intragenic compensation is a specific case of positive epistasis when a neutral missense mutation cancels effect of a deleterious mutation in the same protein. Permissive compensatory mutations facilitate protein evolution, since without them all sequences would be extremely conserved. Understanding compensatory mechanisms is an important scientific challenge at the intersection of protein biophysics and evolution. In human genetics, intragenic compensatory interactions are important since they may result in variable penetrance of pathogenic mutations or fixation of pathogenic human alleles in orthologous proteins from related species. The latter phenomenon complicates computational and clinical inference of an allele's pathogenicity. Deep mutational scanning is a relatively new technique that enables experimental studies of functional effects of thousands of mutations in proteins. We review the important aspects of the field and discuss existing limitations of current datasets. We reviewed ten published DMS datasets with quantified functional effects of single and double mutations and described rates and patterns of intragenic compensation in eight of them. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12551-022-01005-w.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadezhda Azbukina
- Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1-73, Leninskie Gory, 119991 Moscow, Russia
| | - Anastasia Zharikova
- Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1-73, Leninskie Gory, 119991 Moscow, Russia
- National Medical Research Center for Therapy and Preventive Medicine, Petroverigsky per., 10, Bld.3, 101000 Moscow, Russia
| | - Vasily Ramensky
- Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1-73, Leninskie Gory, 119991 Moscow, Russia
- National Medical Research Center for Therapy and Preventive Medicine, Petroverigsky per., 10, Bld.3, 101000 Moscow, Russia
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8
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Coyote-Maestas W, Nedrud D, He Y, Schmidt D. Determinants of trafficking, conduction, and disease within a K + channel revealed through multiparametric deep mutational scanning. eLife 2022; 11:76903. [PMID: 35639599 PMCID: PMC9273215 DOI: 10.7554/elife.76903] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/08/2022] [Accepted: 05/27/2022] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
A long-standing goal in protein science and clinical genetics is to develop quantitative models of sequence, structure, and function relationships to understand how mutations cause disease. Deep mutational scanning (DMS) is a promising strategy to map how amino acids contribute to protein structure and function and to advance clinical variant interpretation. Here, we introduce 7429 single-residue missense mutations into the inward rectifier K+ channel Kir2.1 and determine how this affects folding, assembly, and trafficking, as well as regulation by allosteric ligands and ion conduction. Our data provide high-resolution information on a cotranslationally folded biogenic unit, trafficking and quality control signals, and segregated roles of different structural elements in fold stability and function. We show that Kir2.1 surface trafficking mutants are underrepresented in variant effect databases, which has implications for clinical practice. By comparing fitness scores with expert-reviewed variant effects, we can predict the pathogenicity of 'variants of unknown significance' and disease mechanisms of known pathogenic mutations. Our study in Kir2.1 provides a blueprint for how multiparametric DMS can help us understand the mechanistic basis of genetic disorders and the structure-function relationships of proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Willow Coyote-Maestas
- Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of MinnesotaMinneapolisUnited States
| | - David Nedrud
- Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of MinnesotaMinneapolisUnited States
| | - Yungui He
- Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of MinnesotaMinneapolisUnited States
| | - Daniel Schmidt
- Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of MinnesotaMinneapolisUnited States
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9
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Danchin A. Biological innovation in the functional landscape of a model regulator, or the lactose operon repressor. C R Biol 2021; 344:111-126. [PMID: 34213850 DOI: 10.5802/crbiol.52] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2021] [Accepted: 06/01/2021] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
The operon model was proposed six decades ago. And yet, despite all this time, the lactose operon repressor, LacI, remains a subject of major interest. While it is well established that LacI can exist in two functional forms, one that renders the operon inactive via binding of LacI to DNA and another, bound to an inducer that does not allow repression, how it switches from one to the other is still not well understood. The construction of a library of several tens of thousands of LacI mutants has revealed some unexpected features. In particular, the transition implemented in some of them reveals a new type of transcription regulation: band-pass (OFF/ON/OFF) and band-stop (ON/OFF/ON) filters. This makes it natural to think that it is the network of hydrogen bonds associated with the water bound to the molecule that allows the remote interconnection between the binding site to an inducer molecule and the one that binds it to the DNA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antoine Danchin
- Kodikos Labs, Institut Cochin, 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques 75014 Paris, France
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10
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Zhao X, Wang C, Zheng Y, Liu B. New Insight Into the Structure-Activity Relationship of Sweet-Tasting Proteins: Protein Sector and Its Role for Sweet Properties. Front Nutr 2021; 8:691368. [PMID: 34222309 PMCID: PMC8249704 DOI: 10.3389/fnut.2021.691368] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2021] [Accepted: 05/18/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Sweet-tasting protein is a kind of biomacromolecule that has remarkable sweetening power and is regarded as the promising sugar replacer in the future. Some sweet-tasting proteins has been used in foods and beverages. However, the structure and function relationship of these proteins is still elusive, and guidelines for their protein engineering is limited. It is well-known that the sweet-tasting proteins bind to and activate the sweet taste receptor T1R2/T1R3, thus eliciting their sweetness. The “wedge-model” for describing the interaction between sweet-tasting proteins and sweet taste receptor to elucidate their sweetness has been reported. In this perspective article, we revealed that the intramolecular interaction forces in sweet-tasting proteins is directly correlated to their properties (sweetness and stability). This intramolecular interaction pattern, named as “protein sector,” refers to a small subset of residues forming physically connections, which cooperatively affect the function of the proteins. Based on the analysis of previous experimental data, we suggest that “protein sector” of sweet-tasting proteins is pivotal for their sweet properties, which are meaningful guidelines for the future protein engineering.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiangzhong Zhao
- School of Food Science and Engineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China
| | - Congrui Wang
- School of Food Science and Engineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China
| | - Yue Zheng
- Shandong Aojing Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Zoucheng, China
| | - Bo Liu
- School of Food Science and Engineering, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China
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