Lasso peptides: structure, function, biosynthesis, and engineering.

Lasso peptides are a class of ribosomally-synthesized and posttranslationally-modified natural products with diverse bioactivities. This review describes the structure and function of all known lasso peptides (as of mid-2012) and covers our current knowledge about the biosynthesis of those molecules. The isolation and characterization of lasso peptides are also covered as are bioinformatics strategies for the discovery of new lasso peptides from genomic sequence data. Several studies on the engineering of new or improved function into lasso peptides are highlighted, and unanswered questions in the field are also described.

An experimental and computational investigation of spontaneous lasso formation in microcin J25.

The antimicrobial peptide microcin J25 (MccJ25) is posttranslationally matured from a linear preprotein into its native lasso conformation by two enzymes. One of these enzymes cleaves the preprotein and the second enzyme installs the requisite isopeptide bond to establish the lasso structure. Analysis of a mimic of MccJ25 that can be cyclized without the influence of the maturation enzymes suggests that MccJ25 does not spontaneously adopt a near-lasso structure. In addition, we conducted atomistically detailed replica-exchange molecular dynamics simulations of pro-microcin J25 (pro-MccJ25), the 21-residue uncyclized analog of MccJ25, to determine the conformational ensemble explored in the absence of the leader sequence or maturation enzymes. We applied a nonlinear dimensionality reduction technique known as the diffusion map to the simulation trajectories to extract two global order parameters describing the fundamental dynamical motions of the system, and identify three distinct pathways. One path corresponds to the spontaneous adoption of a left-handed lasso, in which the N-terminus wraps around the C-terminus in the opposite sense to the right-handed topology of native MccJ25. Our computational and experimental results suggest a role for the MccJ25 leader sequence and/or its maturation enzymes in facilitating the adoption of the right-handed topology.

Protein stapling via azide-alkyne ligation.

Here we demonstrate a methodology, termed protein stapling, for the introduction of covalent constraints into recombinant proteins. Using the azide-alkyne click reaction as the stapling chemistry, we have improved the thermostability of a model leucine zipper protein. Additionally, stapling the core of the small, globular protein G resulted in improved binding to its target, immunoglobulin G.