Cell-free expression and selective isotope labelling in protein NMR.

Isotope labelling is a very powerful tool in NMR studies of proteins and has been employed in various ways for over 40 years. 15N and 13C incorporation, using recombinant expression systems, is now commonplace because heteronuclear experiments assist with the fundamental problems of peak resolution and assignment. The use of selective labelling for peak assignment has been restricted by the scrambling of isotope label through metabolic pathways within the expression host organism. The availability of efficient cell-free expression systems with low levels of metabolic conversion allow the increasing use of selective isotope labelling as a tool in protein NMR. We describe two examples, one where a selective labelling scheme can identify backbone amide peaks from unassigned 1H--15N HSQC and HNCO spectra of a 84 residue protein, and another where a specific backbone amide in a 198 residue construct of the ninth and tenth Type III repeats from human fibronectin can be labelled and rapidly identified using a simple HSQC experiment.

Interdomain tilt angle determines integrin-dependent function of the ninth and tenth FIII domains of human fibronectin.

Integrins are an important family of signaling receptors that mediate diverse cellular processes. The binding of the abundant extracellular matrix ligand fibronectin to integrins alpha(5)beta(1) and alpha(v)beta(3) is known to depend upon the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) motif on the tenth fibronectin FIII domain. The adjacent ninth FIII domain provides a synergistic effect on RGD-mediated integrin alpha(5)beta(1) binding and downstream function. The precise molecular basis of this synergy remains elusive. Here we have dissected further the function of FIII9 in integrin binding by analyzing the biological activity of the FIII9-10 interdomain interface variants and by determining their structural and dynamic properties in solution. We demonstrate that the contribution of FIII9 to both alpha(5)beta(1) and alpha(v)beta(3) binding and downstream function critically depends upon the interdomain tilt between the FIII9 and FIII10 domains. Our data suggest that modulation of integrin binding by FIII9 may arise in part from its steric properties that determine accessibility of the RGD motif. These findings have wider implications for mechanisms of integrin-ligand binding in the physiological context.