Binding of Tetracyclines to Acinetobacter baumannii TetR Involves Two Arginines as Specificity Determinants.

Acinetobacter baumannii is an important nosocomial pathogen that requires thoughtful consideration in the antibiotic prescription strategy due to its multidrug resistant phenotype. Tetracycline antibiotics have recently been re-administered as part of the combination antimicrobial regimens to treat infections caused by A. baumannii. We show that the TetA(G) efflux pump of A. baumannii AYE confers resistance to a variety of tetracyclines including the clinically important antibiotics doxycycline and minocycline, but not to tigecycline. Expression of tetA(G) gene is regulated by the TetR repressor of A. baumannii AYE (AbTetR). Thermal shift binding experiments revealed that AbTetR preferentially binds tetracyclines which carry a O-5H moiety in ring B, whereas tetracyclines with a 7-dimethylamino moiety in ring D are less well-recognized by AbTetR. Confoundingly, tigecycline binds to AbTetR even though it is not transported by TetA(G) efflux pump. Structural analysis of the minocycline-bound AbTetR-Gln116Ala variant suggested that the non-conserved Arg135 interacts with the ring D of minocycline by cation-π interaction, while the invariant Arg104 engages in H-bonding with the O-11H of minocycline. Interestingly, the Arg135Ala variant exhibited a binding preference for tetracyclines with an unmodified ring D. In contrast, the Arg104Ala variant preferred to bind tetracyclines which carry a O-6H moiety in ring C except for tigecycline. We propose that Arg104 and Arg135, which are embedded at the entrance of the AbTetR binding pocket, play important roles in the recognition of tetracyclines, and act as a barrier to prevent the release of tetracycline from its binding pocket upon AbTetR activation. The binding data and crystal structures obtained in this study might provide further insight for the development of new tetracycline antibiotics to evade the specific efflux resistance mechanism deployed by A. baumannii.

Dissecting mechanism of coupled folding and binding of an intrinsically disordered protein by chemical synthesis of conformationally constrained analogues.

Non-canonical α-methyl amino acids were incorporated at various sites in the sequence of intrinsically disordered activation domain from the p160 transcriptional co-activator (ACTR) to facilitate the formation of α-helical structures. Kinetic and thermodynamic data confirm the induced fit mechanism of complex formation between the synthesized ACTR variants and the nuclear co-activator binding domain (NCBD).

Mechanism of TAp73 inhibition by ΔNp63 and structural basis of p63/p73 hetero-tetramerization.

Members of the p53 tumor-suppressor family are expressed as multiple isoforms. Isoforms with an N-terminal transactivation domain are transcriptionally active, while those ones lacking this domain often inhibit the transcriptional activity of other family members. In squamous cell carcinomas, the high expression level of ΔNp63α inhibits the tumor-suppressor function of TAp73ß. This can in principle be due to blocking of the promoter or by direct interaction between both proteins. p63 and p73 can hetero-oligomerize through their tetramerization domains and a hetero-tetramer consisting of two p63 and two p73 molecules is thermodynamically more stable than both homo-tetramers. Here we show that cells expressing both p63 and p73 exist in mouse epidermis and hair follicle and that hetero-tetramer complexes can be detected by immunoprecipitation in differentiating keratinocytes. Through structure determination of the hetero-tetramer, we reveal why this hetero-tetramer is the thermodynamically preferred species. We have created mutants that exclusively form either hetero-tetramers or homo-tetramers, allowing to investigate the function of these p63/p73 hetero-tetramers. Using these tools, we show that inhibition of TAp73ß in squamous cell carcinomas is due to promoter squelching and not direct interaction.

Quality control in oocytes by p63 is based on a spring-loaded activation mechanism on the molecular and cellular level.

Mammalian oocytes are arrested in the dictyate stage of meiotic prophase I for long periods of time, during which the high concentration of the p53 family member TAp63α sensitizes them to DNA damage-induced apoptosis. TAp63α is kept in an inactive and exclusively dimeric state but undergoes rapid phosphorylation-induced tetramerization and concomitant activation upon detection of DNA damage. Here we show that the TAp63α dimer is a kinetically trapped state. Activation follows a spring-loaded mechanism not requiring further translation of other cellular factors in oocytes and is associated with unfolding of the inhibitory structure that blocks the tetramerization interface. Using a combination of biophysical methods as well as cell and ovary culture experiments we explain how TAp63α is kept inactive in the absence of DNA damage but causes rapid oocyte elimination in response to a few DNA double strand breaks thereby acting as the key quality control factor in maternal reproduction.