A De Novo Sequence Variant in Barrier-to-Autointegration Factor Is Associated with Dominant Motor Neuronopathy.

Barrier-to-autointegration factor (BAF) is an essential component of the nuclear lamina. Encoded by BANF1, this DNA binding protein contributes to the regulation of gene expression, cell cycle progression, and nuclear integrity. A rare recessive BAF variant, Ala12Thr, causes the premature aging syndrome, Néstor-Guillermo progeria syndrome (NGPS). Here, we report the first dominant pathogenic BAF variant, Gly16Arg, identified in a patient presenting with progressive neuromuscular weakness. Although disease variants carry nearby amino acid substitutions, cellular and biochemical properties are distinct. In contrast to NGPS, Gly16Arg patient fibroblasts show modest changes in nuclear lamina structure and increases in repressive marks associated with heterochromatin. Structural studies reveal that the Gly16Arg substitution introduces a salt bridge between BAF monomers, reducing the conformation ensemble available to BAF. We show that this structural change increases the double-stranded DNA binding affinity of BAF Gly16Arg. Together, our findings suggest that BAF Gly16Arg has an increased chromatin occupancy that leads to epigenetic changes and impacts nuclear functions. These observations provide a new example of how a missense mutation can change a protein conformational equilibrium to cause a dominant disease and extend our understanding of mechanisms by which BAF function impacts human health.

The Conformation of the Intrinsically Disordered N-Terminal Region of Barrier-to-Autointegration Factor (BAF) is Regulated by pH and Phosphorylation.

Barrier-to-Autointegration Factor (BAF) is a highly conserved DNA binding protein important for genome integrity. Its localization and function are regulated through phosphorylation. Previously reported structures of BAF suggested that it is fully ordered, but our recent NMR analysis revealed that its N-terminal region is flexible in solution and that S4/T3 di-phosphorylation by VRK1 reduces this flexibility. Here, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation was used to unveil the conformational ensembles accessible to the N-terminal region of BAF either unphosphorylated, mono-phosphorylated on S4 or di-phosphorylated on S4/T3 (pBAF) and to reveal the interactions that contribute to define these ensembles. We show that the intrinsic flexibility observed in the N-terminal region of BAF is reduced by S4 phosphorylation and to a larger extent by S4/T3 di-phosphorylation. Thanks to the atomic description offered by MD supported by the NMR study of several BAF mutants, we identified the dynamic network of salt bridge interactions responsible for the conformational restriction involving pS4 and pT3 with residues located in helix α1 and α6. Using MD, we showed that the flexibility in the N-terminal region of BAF depends on the ionic strength and on the pH. We show that the presence of two negative charges of the phosphoryl groups is required for a substantial decrease in flexibility in pBAF. Using MD supported by NMR, we also showed that H7 deprotonation reduces the flexibility in the N-terminal region of BAF. Thus, the conformation of the intrinsically disordered N-terminal region of BAF is highly tunable, likely related to its diverse functions.

Deep mutational engineering of broadly-neutralizing nanobodies accommodating SARS-CoV-1 and 2 antigenic drift.

Here, we report the molecular engineering of nanobodies that bind with picomolar affinity to both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domains (RBD) and are highly neutralizing. We applied deep mutational engineering to VHH72, a nanobody initially specific for SARS-CoV-1 RBD with little cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 antigen. We first identified all the individual VHH substitutions that increase binding to SARS-CoV-2 RBD and then screened highly focused combinatorial libraries to isolate engineered nanobodies with improved properties. The corresponding VHH-Fc molecules show high affinities for SARS-CoV-2 antigens from various emerging variants and SARS-CoV-1, block the interaction between ACE2 and RBD, and neutralize the virus with high efficiency. Its rare specificity across sarbecovirus relies on its peculiar epitope outside the immunodominant regions. The engineered nanobodies share a common motif of three amino acids, which contribute to the broad specificity of recognition. Our results show that deep mutational engineering is a very powerful method, especially to rapidly adapt existing antibodies to new variants of pathogens.

Mechanism of MRX inhibition by Rif2 at telomeres.

Specific proteins present at telomeres ensure chromosome end stability, in large part through unknown mechanisms. In this work, we address how the Saccharomyces cerevisiae ORC-related Rif2 protein protects telomere. We show that the small N-terminal Rif2 BAT motif (Blocks Addition of Telomeres) previously known to limit telomere elongation and Tel1 activity is also sufficient to block NHEJ and 5' end resection. The BAT motif inhibits the ability of the Mre11-Rad50-Xrs2 complex (MRX) to capture DNA ends. It acts through a direct contact with Rad50 ATP-binding Head domains. Through genetic approaches guided by structural predictions, we identify residues at the surface of Rad50 that are essential for the interaction with Rif2 and its inhibition. Finally, a docking model predicts how BAT binding could specifically destabilise the DNA-bound state of the MRX complex. From these results, we propose that when an MRX complex approaches a telomere, the Rif2 BAT motif binds MRX Head in its ATP-bound resting state. This antagonises MRX transition to its DNA-bound state, and favours a rapid return to the ATP-bound state. Unable to stably capture the telomere end, the MRX complex cannot proceed with the subsequent steps of NHEJ, Tel1-activation and 5' resection.

Di-phosphorylated BAF shows altered structural dynamics and binding to DNA, but interacts with its nuclear envelope partners.

Barrier-to-autointegration factor (BAF), encoded by the BANF1 gene, is an abundant and ubiquitously expressed metazoan protein that has multiple functions during the cell cycle. Through its ability to cross-bridge two double-stranded DNA (dsDNA), it favours chromosome compaction, participates in post-mitotic nuclear envelope reassembly and is essential for the repair of large nuclear ruptures. BAF forms a ternary complex with the nuclear envelope proteins lamin A/C and emerin, and its interaction with lamin A/C is defective in patients with recessive accelerated aging syndromes. Phosphorylation of BAF by the vaccinia-related kinase 1 (VRK1) is a key regulator of BAF localization and function. Here, we demonstrate that VRK1 successively phosphorylates BAF on Ser4 and Thr3. The crystal structures of BAF before and after phosphorylation are extremely similar. However, in solution, the extensive flexibility of the N-terminal helix α1 and loop α1α2 in BAF is strongly reduced in di-phosphorylated BAF, due to interactions between the phosphorylated residues and the positively charged C-terminal helix α6. These regions are involved in DNA and lamin A/C binding. Consistently, phosphorylation causes a 5000-fold loss of affinity for dsDNA. However, it does not impair binding to lamin A/C Igfold domain and emerin nucleoplasmic region, which leaves open the question of the regulation of these interactions.

The C-terminal domain of HpDprA is a DNA-binding winged helix domain that does not bind double-stranded DNA.

DNA-processing protein A, a ubiquitous multidomain DNA-binding protein, plays a crucial role during natural transformation in bacteria. Here, we carried out the structural analysis of DprA from the human pathogen Helicobacter pylori by combining data issued from the 1.8-Å resolution X-ray structure of the Pfam02481 domain dimer (RF), the NMR structure of the carboxy terminal domain (CTD), and the low-resolution structure of the full-length DprA dimer obtained in solution by SAXS. In particular, we sought a molecular function for the CTD, a domain that we show here is essential for transformation in H. pylori. Albeit its structural homology to winged helix DNA-binding motifs, we confirmed that the isolated CTD does not interact with ssDNA nor with dsDNA. The key R52 and K137 residues of RF are crucial for these two interactions. Search for sequences harboring homology to either HpDprA or Rhodopseudomonas palustris DprA CTDs led to the identification of conserved patches in the two CTD. Our structural study revealed the similarity of the structures adopted by these residues in RpDprA CTD and HpDprA CTD. This argues for a conserved, but yet to be defined, CTD function, distinct from DNA binding.

High affinity anchoring of the decoration protein pb10 onto the bacteriophage T5 capsid.

Bacteriophage capsids constitute icosahedral shells of exceptional stability that protect the viral genome. Many capsids display on their surface decoration proteins whose structure and function remain largely unknown. The decoration protein pb10 of phage T5 binds at the centre of the 120 hexamers formed by the major capsid protein. Here we determined the 3D structure of pb10 and investigated its capsid-binding properties using NMR, SAXS, cryoEM and SPR. Pb10 consists of an α-helical capsid-binding domain and an Ig-like domain exposed to the solvent. It binds to the T5 capsid with a remarkably high affinity and its binding kinetics is characterized by a very slow dissociation rate. We propose that the conformational exchange events observed in the capsid-binding domain enable rearrangements upon binding that contribute to the quasi-irreversibility of the pb10-capsid interaction. Moreover we show that pb10 binding is a highly cooperative process, which favours immediate rebinding of newly dissociated pb10 to the 120 hexamers of the capsid protein. In extreme conditions, pb10 protects the phage from releasing its genome. We conclude that pb10 may function to reinforce the capsid thus favouring phage survival in harsh environments.

Structures of biomolecular complexes by combination of NMR and cryoEM methods.

CryoEM is presently providing structures of biocomplexes considered intractable to analysis by other structural techniques. NMR is playing an important role in delivering structural information on dynamics events and conformational heterogeneity. Impressive results were obtained by combining cryoEM and either liquid- or solid-state NMR, revealing the structures of cellular machines, filaments and amyloid fibrils. NMR solution structures of proteins and nucleic acids were fitted, together with crystallographic structures, into cryoEM maps of large complexes, to decipher their assembly mechanisms and describe their functional dynamics. Modelling based on solid-state NMR and cryoEM data provided 3D structure of filaments and fibrils. These NMR approaches validated, but also corrected, atomic models built de novo in cryoEM maps, and provided new structural data on flexible or structurally heterogeneous systems. Combination of cryoEM and NMR became an established hybrid approach in structural biology that significantly contributes to our understanding of functional mechanisms in supramolecular assemblies.

Inhibition mechanism of membrane metalloprotease by an exosite-swiveling conformational antibody.

Membrane type 1 metalloprotease (MT1-MMP) is a membrane-anchored, zinc-dependent protease. MT1-MMP is an important mediator of cell migration and invasion, and overexpression of this enzyme has been correlated with the malignancy of various tumor types. Therefore, modulators of MT1-MMP activity are proposed to possess therapeutic potential in numerous invasive diseases. Here we report the inhibition mode of MT1-MMP by LEM-2/15 antibody, which targets a surface epitope of MT1-MMP. Specifically, the crystal structures of Fab LEM-2/15 in complex with the MT1-MMP surface antigen suggest that conformational swiveling of the enzyme surface loop is required for effective binding and consequent inhibition of MT1-MMP activity on the cell membrane. This inhibition mechanism appears to be effective in controlling active MT1-MMP in endothelial cells and at the leading edge of migratory cancer cells.

Crystal structure of full-length human collagenase 3 (MMP-13) with peptides in the active site defines exosites in the catalytic domain.

Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-13 is one of the mammalian collagenases that play key roles in tissue remodelling and repair and in progression of diseases such as cancer, arthritis, atherosclerosis, and aneurysm. For collagenase to cleave triple helical collagens, the triple helical structure has to be locally unwound before hydrolysis, but this process is not well understood. We report crystal structures of catalytically inactive full-length human MMP-13(E223A) in complex with peptides of 14-26 aa derived from the cleaved prodomain during activation. Peptides are bound to the active site of the enzyme by forming an extended ß-strand with Glu(40) or Tyr(46) inserted into the S1' specificity pocket. The structure of the N-terminal part of the peptides is variable and interacts with different parts of the catalytic domain. Those areas are designated substrate-dependent exosites, in that they accommodate different peptide structures, whereas the precise positioning of the substrate backbone is maintained in the active site. These modes of peptide-MMP-13 interactions have led us to propose how triple helical collagen strands fit into the active site cleft of the collagenase.

High throughput screening identifies disulfide isomerase DsbC as a very efficient partner for recombinant expression of small disulfide-rich proteins in E. coli.

BACKGROUND: Disulfide-rich proteins or DRPs are versatile bioactive compounds that encompass a wide variety of pharmacological, therapeutic, and/or biotechnological applications. Still, the production of DRPs in sufficient quantities is a major bottleneck for their complete structural or functional characterization. Recombinant expression of such small proteins containing multiple disulfide bonds in the bacteria E. coli is considered difficult and general methods and protocols, particularly on a high throughput scale, are limited. RESULTS: Here we report a high throughput screening approach that allowed the systematic investigation of the solubilizing and folding influence of twelve cytoplasmic partners on 28 DRPs in the strains BL21 (DE3) pLysS, Origami B (DE3) pLysS and SHuffle® T7 Express lysY (1008 conditions). The screening identified the conditions leading to the successful soluble expression of the 28 DRPs selected for the study. Amongst 336 conditions tested per bacterial strain, soluble expression was detected in 196 conditions using the strain BL21 (DE3) pLysS, whereas only 44 and 50 conditions for soluble expression were identified for the strains Origami B (DE3) pLysS and SHuffle® T7 Express lysY respectively. To assess the redox states of the DRPs, the solubility screen was coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) to determine the exact masses of the produced DRPs or fusion proteins. To validate the results obtained at analytical scale, several examples of proteins expressed and purified to a larger scale are presented along with their MS and functional characterization. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that the production of soluble and functional DRPs with cytoplasmic partners is possible in E. coli. In spite of its reducing cytoplasm, BL21 (DE3) pLysS is more efficient than the Origami B (DE3) pLysS and SHuffle® T7 Express lysY trxB(-)/gor(-) strains for the production of DRPs in fusion with solubilizing partners. However, our data suggest that oxidation of the proteins occurs ex vivo. Our protocols allow the production of a large diversity of DRPs using DsbC as a fusion partner, leading to pure active DRPs at milligram scale in many cases. These results open up new possibilities for the study and development of DRPs with therapeutic or biotechnological interest whose production was previously a limitation.

A multiscale coarse-grained polarizable solvent model for handling long tail bulk electrostatics.

A multiscale coarse-grained approach able to handle efficiently the solvation of microscopic solutes in extended chemical environment is described. That approach is able to compute readily and efficiently very long-range solute/solvent electrostatic microscopic interactions, up to the 1-µm scale, by considering a reduced amount of computational resources. All the required parameters are assigned to reproduce available data concerning the solvation of single ions. Such a strategy makes it possible to reproduce with good accuracy the solvation properties concerning simple ion pairs in solution (in particular, the asymptotic behavior of the ion pair potentials of mean force). This new method represents an extension of the polarizable pseudoparticle solvent model, which has been recently improved to account for the main features of hydrophobic effects in liquid water (Masella et al., J. Comput. Chem. 2011, 32, 2664). This multiscale approach is well suited to be used for computing the impact of charge changes in free energy computations, in terms of both accuracy and efficiency.

Grafting of functional motifs onto protein scaffolds identified by PDB screening--an efficient route to design optimizable protein binders.

Artificial miniproteins that are able to target catalytic sites of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) were designed using a functional motif-grafting approach. The motif corresponded to the four N-terminal residues of TIMP-2, a broad-spectrum protein inhibitor of MMPs. Scaffolds that are able to reproduce the functional topology of this motif were obtained by exhaustive screening of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) using STAMPS software (search for three-dimensional atom motifs in protein structures). Ten artificial protein binders were produced. The designed proteins bind catalytic sites of MMPs with affinities ranging from 450 nm to 450 µm prior to optimization. The crystal structure of one artificial binder in complex with the catalytic domain of MMP-12 showed that the inter-molecular interactions established by the functional motif in the artificial binder corresponded to those found in the MMP-14-TIMP-2 complex, albeit with some differences in geometry. Molecular dynamics simulations of the ten binders in complex with MMP-14 suggested that these scaffolds may allow partial reproduction of native inter-molecular interactions, but differences in geometry and stability may contribute to the lower affinity of the artificial protein binders compared to the natural protein binder. Nevertheless, these results show that the in silico design method used provides sets of protein binders that target a specific binding site with a good rate of success. This approach may constitute the first step of an efficient hybrid computational/experimental approach to protein binder design.

Identification of two-histidines one-carboxylate binding motifs in proteins amenable to facial coordination to metals.

Among natural metalloenzymes, the facial two-histidines one-carboxylate binding motif (FTM) is a widely represented first coordination sphere motif present in the active site of a variety of metalloenzymes. A PDB search revealed a total of 1685 structures bearing such FTMs bound to a metal. Sixty statistically representative FTMs were selected and used as template for the identification of structurally characterized proteins bearing these three amino acids in a propitious environment for binding to a transition metal. This geometrical superposition search, carried out using the STAMPS software, returned 2320 hits. While most consisted of either apo-FTMs or bore strong sequence homology to known FTMs, seven such structures lying within a cavity were identified as novel and viable scaffolds for the creation of artificial metalloenzymes bearing an FTM.

Combining a polarizable force-field and a coarse-grained polarizable solvent model. II. Accounting for hydrophobic effects.

A revised and improved version of our efficient polarizable force-field/coarse grained solvent combined approach (Masella, Borgis, and Cuniasse, J. Comput. Chem. 2008, 29, 1707) is described. The polarizable pseudo-particle solvent model represents the macroscopic solvent polarization by induced dipoles placed on mobile pseudo-particles. In this study, we propose a new formulation of the energy term handling the nonelectrostatic interactions among the pseudo-particles. This term is now able to reproduce the energetic and structural response of liquid water due to the presence of a hydrophobic spherical cavity. Accordingly, the parameters of the energy term handling the nonpolar solute/solvent interactions have been refined to reproduce the free-solvation energy of small solutes, based on a standard thermodynamic integration scheme. The reliability of this new approach has been checked for the properties of solvated methane and of the solvated methane dimer, as well as by performing 10 × 20 ns molecular dynamics (MD) trajectories for three solvated proteins. A long-time stability of the protein structures along the trajectories is observed. Moreover, our method still provides a measure of the protein solvation thermodynamic at the same accuracy as standard Poisson-Boltzman continuum methods. These results show the relevance of our approach and its applicability to massively coupled MD schemes to accurately and intensively explore solvated macromolecule potential energy surfaces.

RASMOT-3D PRO: a 3D motif search webserver.

Detection of structural motif of residues in protein structures allows identification of structural or functional similarity between proteins. In the field of protein engineering, structural motif identification is essential to select protein scaffolds on which a motif of residues can be transferred to design a new protein with a given function. We describe here the RASMOT-3D PRO webserver (http://biodev.extra.cea.fr/rasmot3d/) that performs a systematic search in 3D structures of protein for a set of residues exhibiting a particular topology. Comparison is based on Calpha and Cbeta atoms in two steps: inter-atomic distances and RMSD. RASMOT-3D PRO takes in input a PDB file containing the 3D coordinates of the searched motif and provides an interactive list of identified protein structures exhibiting residues of similar topology as the motif searched. Each solution can be graphically examined on the website. The topological search can be conducted in structures described in PDB files uploaded by the user or in those deposited in the PDB. This characteristic as well as the possibility to reject scaffolds sterically incompatible with the target, makes RASMOT-3D PRO a unique webtool in the field of protein engineering.

Development of potent and selective phosphinic peptide inhibitors of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a recently identified human homologue of angiotensin-converting enzyme, is a zinc metallocarboxypeptidase which may play a unique role in cardiovascular and renal function. Here we report the discovery of potent and selective inhibitors of ACE2, which have been identified by evaluating a series of phosphinic di- and tripeptides of the general formula: Z-Xaa(PO 2-CH 2)YaaOH and Ac-Zaa-Xaa(PO 2-CH 2)YaaOH. The most potent inhibitor in this series is a tripeptide that displays a K i value of 0.4 nM toward ACE2 and is 3 orders of magnitude less potent toward carboxypeptidase A. Phosphinic tripeptides exhibit high potency exclusively when the Xaa position is occupied by a pseudoproline. A model of interaction between one inhibitor of this series and ACE2 suggests that the critical role played by a proline in inhibitors, but also for substrates hydrolysis, may rely on the presence of Tyr (510) in the ACE2 active site.

Combining a polarizable force-field and a coarse-grained polarizable solvent model: application to long dynamics simulations of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor.

The dynamic coupling between a polarizable protein force field and a particle-based implicit solvent model is described. The polarizable force field, TCPEp, developed recently to simulate protein systems, is characterized by a reduced number of polarizable sites, with a substantial gain in efficiency for an equal chemical accuracy. The Polarizable Pseudo-Particle (PPP) solvent model represents the macroscopic solvent polarization by induced dipoles placed on mobile Lennard-Jones pseudo-particles. The solvent-induced dipoles are sensitive to the solute electric field, but not to each other, so that the computational cost of solvent-solvent interactions is basically negligible. The solute and solvent induced dipoles are determined self-consistently and the equations of motion are solved using an efficient iterative multiple time step procedure. The solvation cost with respect to vacuum simulations is shown to decrease with solute size: the estimated multiplicative factor is 2.5 for a protein containing about 1000 atoms, and as low as 1.15 for 8000 atoms. The model is tested for six 20 ns molecular dynamics trajectories of a traditional benchmark system: the hydrated Bovine Pancreatic Trypsin Inhibitor (BPTI). Even though the TCPEp parameters have not been refined to be used with the solvent PPP model, we observe a good conservation of the BPTI structure along the trajectories. Moreover, our approach is able to provide a description of the protein solvation thermodynamic at the same accuracy as the standard Poisson-Boltzman continuum methods. It provides in addition a good description of the microscopic structural aspects concerning the solute/solvent interaction.

Structural basis for the PufX-mediated dimerization of bacterial photosynthetic core complexes.

In Rhodobacter (Rba.) sphaeroides, the subunit PufX is involved in the dimeric organization of the core complex. Here, we report the 3D reconstruction at 12 A by cryoelectron microscopy of the core complex of Rba. veldkampii, a complex of approximately 300 kDa without symmetry. The core complex is monomeric and constituted by a light-harvesting complex 1 (LH1) ring surrounding a uniquely oriented reaction center (RC). The LH1 consists of 15 resolved alpha/beta heterodimers and is interrupted. Within the opening, PufX polypeptide is assigned at a position facing the Q(B) site of the RC. This core complex is different from a dissociated dimer of the core complex of Rba. sphaeroides revealing that PufX in Rba. veldkampii is unable to dimerize. The absence in PufX of Rba. veldkampii of a G(31)XXXG(35) dimerization motif highlights the transmembrane interactions between PufX subunits involved in the dimerization of the core complexes of Rhodobacter species.