Structural Basis of an N-Degron Adaptor with More Stringent Specificity

The N-end rule dictates that a protein's N-terminal residue determines its half-life. In bacteria, the ClpS adaptor mediates N-end-rule degradation, by recognizing proteins bearing specific N-terminal residues and delivering them to the ClpAP AAA+ protease. Unlike most bacterial clades, many α-...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Stein, Benjamin Joseph, Grant, Robert A., Sauer, Robert T., Baker, Tania
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier BV 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116152
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2246-2674
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1719-5399
Description
Summary:The N-end rule dictates that a protein's N-terminal residue determines its half-life. In bacteria, the ClpS adaptor mediates N-end-rule degradation, by recognizing proteins bearing specific N-terminal residues and delivering them to the ClpAP AAA+ protease. Unlike most bacterial clades, many α-proteobacteria encode two ClpS paralogs, ClpS1 and ClpS2. Here, we demonstrate that both ClpS1 and ClpS2 from A. tumefaciens deliver N-end-rule substrates to ClpA, but ClpS2 has more stringent binding specificity, recognizing only a subset of the canonical bacterial N-end-rule residues. The basis of this enhanced specificity is addressed by crystal structures of ClpS2, with and without ligand, and structure-guided mutagenesis, revealing protein conformational changes and remodeling in the substrate-binding pocket. We find that ClpS1 and ClpS2 are differentially expressed during growth in A. tumefaciens and conclude that the use of multiple ClpS paralogs allows fine-tuning of N-end-rule degradation at the level of substrate recognition.