Pertactin beta-helix folding mechanism suggests common themes for the secretion and folding of autotransporter proteins.

Many virulence factors secreted from pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria are autotransporter proteins. The final step of autotransporter secretion is C --> N-terminal threading of the passenger domain through the outer membrane (OM), mediated by a cotranslated C-terminal porin domain. The native structure is formed only after this final secretion step, which requires neither ATP nor a proton gradient. Sequence analysis reveals that, despite size, sequence, and functional diversity among autotransporter passenger domains, >97% are predicted to form parallel beta-helices, indicating this structural topology may be important for secretion. We report the folding behavior of pertactin, an autotransporter passenger domain from Bordetella pertussis. The pertactin beta-helix folds reversibly in isolation, but folding is much slower than expected based on size and native-state topology. Surprisingly, pertactin is not prone to aggregation during folding, even though folding is extremely slow. Interestingly, equilibrium denaturation results in the formation of a partially folded structure, a stable core comprising the C-terminal half of the protein. Examination of the pertactin crystal structure does not reveal any obvious reason for the enhanced stability of the C terminus. In vivo, slow folding would prevent premature folding of the passenger domain in the periplasm, before OM secretion. Moreover, the extra stability of the C-terminal rungs of the beta-helix might serve as a template for the formation of native protein during OM secretion; hence, vectorial folding of the beta-helix could contribute to the energy-independent translocation mechanism. Coupled with the sequence analysis, the results presented here suggest a general mechanism for autotransporter secretion.

Fold recognition and accurate sequence-structure alignment of sequences directing beta-sheet proteins.

The ability to predict structure from sequence is particularly important for toxins, virulence factors, allergens, cytokines, and other proteins of public health importance. Many such functions are represented in the parallel beta-helix and beta-trefoil families. A method using pairwise beta-strand interaction probabilities coupled with evolutionary information represented by sequence profiles is developed to tackle these problems for the beta-helix and beta-trefoil folds. The algorithm BetaWrapPro employs a "wrapping" component that may capture folding processes with an initiation stage followed by processive interaction of the sequence with the already-formed motifs. BetaWrapPro outperforms all previous motif recognition programs for these folds, recognizing the beta-helix with 100% sensitivity and 99.7% specificity and the beta-trefoil with 100% sensitivity and 92.5% specificity, in crossvalidation on a database of all nonredundant known positive and negative examples of these fold classes in the PDB. It additionally aligns 88% of residues for the beta-helices and 86% for the beta-trefoils accurately (within four residues of the exact position) to the structural template, which is then used with the side-chain packing program SCWRL to produce 3D structure predictions. One striking result has been the prediction of an unexpected parallel beta-helix structure for a pollen allergen, and its recent confirmation through solution of its structure. A Web server running BetaWrapPro is available and outputs putative PDB-style coordinates for sequences predicted to form the target folds.