ABSTRACT
Crystals of the G-segment invertase in complex with a 37-base-pair asymmetric DNA duplex substrate had an unusually high solvent content of 88% and diffracted to a maximal resolution of about 5.0â Å. These crystals exhibited a high degree of non-isomorphism and anisotropy, which presented a serious challenge for structure determination by isomorphous replacement. Here, a procedure of cross-crystal averaging is described that uses large non-isomorphous crystallographic data with a priori information of an approximate molecular boundary as determined from a minimal amount of experimental phase information. Using this procedure, high-quality experimental phases were obtained that have enabled it to be shown that the conformation of the bound substrate DNA duplex significantly differs from those of substrates bound in other serine recombinase-DNA complexes.
Subject(s)
DNA Nucleotidyltransferases/chemistry , Multiprotein Complexes/chemistry , Nucleic Acid Heteroduplexes/chemistry , Anisotropy , Catalytic Domain/genetics , Crystallography, X-Ray , DNA Nucleotidyltransferases/genetics , DNA-Binding Proteins/chemistry , DNA-Binding Proteins/genetics , Multiprotein Complexes/genetics , Nucleic Acid Heteroduplexes/genetics , Protein Conformation , Substrate Specificity/genetics , X-Ray DiffractionABSTRACT
The serine family of site-specific DNA recombination enzymes accomplishes strand cleavage, exchange and religation using a synaptic protein tetramer. A double-strand break intermediate in which each protein subunit is covalently linked to the target DNA substrate ensures that the recombination event will not damage the DNA. The previous structure of a tetrameric synaptic complex of γδ resolvase linked to two cleaved DNA strands had suggested a rotational mechanism of recombination in which one dimer rotates 180° about the flat exchange interface for strand exchange. Here, we report the crystal structure of a synaptic tetramer of an unliganded activated mutant (M114V) of the G-segment invertase (Gin) in which one dimer half is rotated by 26° or 154° relative to the other dimer when compared with the dimers in the synaptic complex of γδ resolvase. Modeling shows that this rotational orientation of Gin is not compatible with its being able to bind uncleaved DNA, implying that this structure represents an intermediate in the process of strand exchange. Thus, our structure provides direct evidence for the proposed rotational mechanism of site-specific recombination.
