Role of individual cysteine residues and disulfide bonds in the structure and function of Aspergillus ribonucleolytic toxin restrictocin

Analysis of molecular structures and mechanisms for toxins derived from venomous animals

As predominant component in the venom of many dangerous animal species, toxins have been thoroughly investigated for drug design or as pharmacologic tools. The present study demonstrated the use of size and hydrophobicity of amino acid residues for the purposes of quantifying the valuable sequence-structure relationship and performing further analysis of interactional mechanisms in secondary structure elements (SSEs) for toxin native conformations. First, we showed that the presence of large and hydrophobic residues varying in availability in the primary sequences correspondingly affects the amount of these residues being used in the SSEs in accordance with linear behavioral patterns from empirical assessments of experimentally derived toxins and non-toxins. Subsequent derivation of prediction rules was established with the aim of analyzing molecular structures and mechanisms by means of 114 residue compositions for venom toxins. The obtained results concerning the linear behavioral patterns demonstrated the nature of the information transfer occurring from the primary to secondary structures. A dual action mechanism was established, taking into account steric and hydrophobic interactions. Finally, a new residue composition prediction method for SSEs of toxins was suggested.

Identification of B-cell epitopes in an antigen for inducing specific class of antibodies

Background

In the past, numerous methods have been developed for predicting antigenic regions or B-cell epitopes that can induce B-cell response. To the best of authors’ knowledge, no method has been developed for predicting B-cell epitopes that can induce a specific class of antibody (e.g., IgA, IgG) except allergenic epitopes (IgE). In this study, an attempt has been made to understand the relation between primary sequence of epitopes and the class of antibodies generated.

Results

The dataset used in this study has been derived from Immune Epitope Database and consists of 14725 B-cell epitopes that include 11981 IgG, 2341 IgE, 403 IgA specific epitopes and 22835 non-B-cell epitopes. In order to understand the preference of residues or motifs in these epitopes, we computed and compared amino acid and dipeptide composition of IgG, IgE, IgA inducing epitopes and non-B-cell epitopes. Differences in composition profiles of different classes of epitopes were observed, and few residues were found to be preferred. Based on these observations, we developed models for predicting antibody class-specific B-cell epitopes using various features like amino acid composition, dipeptide composition, and binary profiles. Among these, dipeptide composition-based support vector machine model achieved maximum Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.44, 0.70 and 0.45 for IgG, IgE and IgA specific epitopes respectively. All models were developed on experimentally validated non-redundant dataset and evaluated using five-fold cross validation. In addition, the performance of dipeptide-based model was also evaluated on independent dataset.

Conclusion

Present study utilizes the amino acid sequence information for predicting the tendencies of antigens to induce different classes of antibodies. For the first time, in silico models have been developed for predicting B-cell epitopes, which can induce specific class of antibodies. A web service called IgPred has been developed to serve the scientific community. This server will be useful for researchers working in the field of subunit/epitope/peptide-based vaccines and immunotherapy (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/igpred/).

Reviewers

This article was reviewed by Dr. M Michael Gromiha, Dr Christopher Langmead (nominated by Dr Robert Murphy) and Dr Lina Ma (nominated by Dr Zhang Zhang).

About the structural role of disulfide bridges in serum albumins: evidence from protein simulated unfolding

The role of the 17 disulfide (S-S) bridges in preserving the native conformation of human serum albumin (HSA) is investigated by performing classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on protein structures with intact and, respectively, reduced S-S bridges. The thermal unfolding simulations predict a clear destabilization of the protein secondary structure upon reduction of the S-S bridges as well as a significant distortion of the tertiary structure that is revealed by the changes in the protein native contacts fraction. The effect of the S-S bridges reduction on the protein compactness was tested by calculating Gibbs free energy profiles with respect to the protein gyration radius. The theoretical results obtained using the OPLS-AA and the AMBER ff03 force fields are in agreement with the available experimental data. Beyond the validation of the simulation method, the results here reported provide new insights into the mechanism of the protein reductive/oxidative unfolding/folding processes. It is predicted that in the native conformation of the protein, the thiol (-SH) groups belonging to the same reduced S-S bridge are located in potential wells that maintain them in contact. The -SH pairs can be dispatched by specific conformational transitions of the peptide chain located in the neighborhood of the cysteine residues.

Enthalpic and entropic contributions mediate the role of disulfide bonds on the conformational stability of interleukin-4

The role of disulfide bridges in the structure, stability, and folding pathways of proteins has been the subject of wide interest in the fields of protein design and engineering. However, the relative importance of entropic and enthalpic contributions for the stabilization of proteins provided by disulfides is not always clear. Here, we perform a detailed analysis of the role of disulfides in the conformational stability of human Interleukin-4 (IL4), a four-helix bundle protein. In order to evaluate the contribution of two out of the three disulfides to the structure and stability of IL4, two IL4 mutants, C3T-IL4 and C24T-IL4, were used. NMR and ANS binding experiments were compatible with altered dynamics and an increase of the nonpolar solvent-accessible surface area of the folded state of the mutant proteins. Chemical and thermal unfolding experiments followed by fluorescence and circular dichroism revealed that both mutant proteins have lower conformational stability than the wild-type protein. Transition temperatures of unfolding decreased 14 degrees C for C3T-IL4 and 10 degrees C for C24T-IL4, when compared to WT-IL4, and the conformational stability, at 25 degrees C, decreased 4.9 kcal/mol for C3T-IL4 and 3.2 kcal/mol for C24T-IL4. Interestingly, both the enthalpy and the entropy of unfolding, at the transition temperature, decreased in the mutant proteins. Moreover, a smaller change in heat capacity of unfolding was also observed for the mutants. Thus, disulfide bridges in IL4 play a critical role in maintaining the thermodynamic stability and core packing of the helix bundle.

Role of C-terminal cysteine residues of Aspergillus fumigatus allergen Asp f 4 in immunoglobulin E binding

Among the several allergens cloned and expressed from Aspergillus fumigatus, Asp f 4 is a major one associated with allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA). The structure-function relationship of allergens is important in understanding the immunopathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of allergic diseases. These include the epitopes, conformational or linear, deletion of the N or C terminus or both N and C termini, and glycosylation or nonglycosylation, all of which affect immune responses. Similarly, the role of cysteine residues present in allergens may yield useful information regarding the conformational structure of allergens and the immunoglobulin E (IgE) epitope interaction. Such information may help in developing new strategies towards immunotherapy. In order to define the role of cysteine in the interaction of the antibody with Asp f 4, we have constructed mutants by selectively deleting cysteine residues from the C-terminal region of the Asp f 4. Immunological evaluation of these engineered recombinant constructs was conducted by using sera from patients with ABPA, Aspergillus skin test-positive asthmatics, and healthy controls. The results demonstrate strong IgE binding with Asp f 4 and two truncated mutants, Asp f 4(1-234) (amino acids [aa] 1 to 234) and Asp f 4(1-241) (aa 1 to 241), while another mutant, Asp f 4(1-196) (aa 1 to 196), showed reactivity with fewer patients. The result suggests that deletion of cysteines and the alteration of IgE epitopes at the C-terminal end resulted in conformational changes, which may have a potential role in the immunomodulation of the disease.

Alteration of protein structure induced by low-energy (<18 eV) electrons. I. The peptide and disulfide bridges

We present measurements of low-energy (<18 eV) electron-stimulated desorption of anions from acetamide (CH(3)CONH(2)) and dimethyl disulfide [DMDS: (CH(3)S)(2)] films. Electron irradiation of physisorbed CH(3)CONH(2) produces H(-), CH(3)(-) and O(-) anions, whereas the H(-), CH(2)(-), CH(3)(-), S(-), SH(-) and SCH(3)(-) anions are observed to desorb from the DMDS film. Below 12 eV, the dependence of the anion yields on the incident electron energy exhibits structures that indicate that a resonant process (i.e. dissociative electron attachment) is responsible for molecular fragmentation. Within the range of 1-18 eV, it is found that (1.7 and 1.4) x 10(7) H(-) ions/incident electron and (7.8 x 10(-11) and 4.3 x 10(-8)) of the other ions/incident electron are desorbed from acetamide and DMDS films, respectively. These results suggest that, within proteins, the disulfide bond is more sensitive to low-energy electron attack than the peptide bond. In biological cells, some proteins interact closely with nucleic acid. Therefore, the observed fragments, when produced from secondary low-energy electrons generated by high-energy radiation, not only may denature proteins, but may also induce reactions with the nearby nucleic acid and damage DNA.

Analysis by systematic deletion of amino acids of the action of the ribotoxin restrictocin

A series of contiguous deletions were made in a cDNA encoding the ribonuclease restrictocin with the purpose of identifying the amino acids that are essential for the cleavage of the phosphodiester bond on the 3' side of G4325 in the alpha-sarcin/ricin domain of mammalian (rat) 28S rRNA. In all 93 of 149 amino acids, 62% of the residues in restrictocin, were not essential for the action of the toxin. Of the five residues that have been proposed to constitute the active site, three could be deleted without loss of activity if they were part of a deletion of three or five amino acids but not if they were removed singly. It is likely that the loss of these three residues is compensated for by a neighboring residue that occupies the structural space created by the larger amino acid deletions. This was demonstrated to be the case for the active site residue Glu95 which in the deletion mutant Delta91-95 is replaced by Asp90. Systematic deletion of amino acids is a rapid, cost effective method for identifying the residues in a protein likely to contribute directly to function and, hence, deserving of closer scrutiny. Moreover, a semiquantitative estimate of the contribution of the residue to function can be made. For this reason the method may be useful for functional proteomics.

Localization of the catalytic activity in restrictocin molecule by deletion mutagenesis

Restrictocin, produced by the fungus Aspergillus restrictus, is a highly specific ribonucleolytic toxin which cleaves a single phosphodiester bond between G4325 and A4326 in the 28S rRNA. It is a nonglycosylated, single-chain, basic protein of 149 amino acids. The putative catalytic site of restrictocin includes Tyr47, His49, Glu95, Arg120 and His136. To map the catalytic activity in the restrictocin molecule, and to study the role of N- and C-terminus in its activity, we have systematically deleted amino-acid residues from both the termini. Three N-terminal deletions removing 8, 15 and 30 amino acids, and three C-terminal deletions lacking 4, 6, and 11 amino acids were constructed. The deletion mutants were expressed in Escherichia coli, purified to homogeneity and functionally characterized. Removal of eight N-terminal or four C-terminal amino acids rendered restrictocin partially inactive, whereas any further deletions from either end resulted in the complete inactivation of the toxin. The study demonstrates that intact N- and C-termini are required for the optimum functional activity of restrictocin.