Structural Basis of a Rationally Rewired Protein-Protein Interface Critical to Bacterial Signaling

Two-component signal transduction systems typically involve a sensor histidine kinase that specifically phosphorylates a single, cognate response regulator. This protein-protein interaction relies on molecular recognition via a small set of residues in each protein. To better understand how these re...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Casino, Patricia, Marina, Alberto, Podgornaia, Anna Igorevna, Laub, Michael T
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computational and Systems Biology Program
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Elsevier 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110413
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8288-7607
Description
Summary:Two-component signal transduction systems typically involve a sensor histidine kinase that specifically phosphorylates a single, cognate response regulator. This protein-protein interaction relies on molecular recognition via a small set of residues in each protein. To better understand how these residues determine the specificity of kinase-substrate interactions, we rationally rewired the interaction interface of a Thermotoga maritima two-component system, HK853-RR468, to match that found in a different two-component system, Escherichia coli PhoR-PhoB. The rewired proteins interacted robustly with each other, but no longer interacted with the parent proteins. Analysis of the crystal structures of the wild-type and mutant protein complexes and a systematic mutagenesis study reveal how individual mutations contribute to the rewiring of interaction specificity. Our approach and conclusions have implications for studies of other protein-protein interactions and protein evolution and for the design of novel protein interfaces.