title: Using disulfide bond engineering to study conformational changes in the beta'260-309 coiled-coil region of Escherichia coli RNA polymerase during sigma(70) binding.
abstract: RNA polymerase of Escherichia coli is the sole enzyme responsible for mRNA synthesis in the cell. Upon binding of a sigma factor, the holoenzyme can direct transcription from specific promoter sequences. We have previously defined a region of the beta' subunit (beta'260-309, amino acids 260 to 309) which adopts a coiled-coil conformation shown to interact with sigma(70) both in vitro and in vivo. However, it was not known if the coiled-coil conformation was maintained upon binding to sigma(70). In this work, we engineered a disulfide bond within beta'240-309 that locks the beta' coiled-coil region in the coiled-coil conformation, and we show that this "locked" peptide is able to bind to sigma(70). We also show that the locked coiled-coil is capable of inducing a conformational change within sigma(70) that allows recognition of the -10 nontemplate strand of DNA. This suggests that the coiled-coil does not adopt a new conformation upon binding sigma(70) or upon recognition of the -10 nontemplate strand of DNA.
authors.affiliation: McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1400 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706-1599, USA.
authors.forename: Larry C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Anthony
authors.forename: Alan A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Dombkowski
authors.forename: Richard R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Burgess
mesh_terms: D012321:DNA-Directed RNA Polymerases / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D004220:Disulfides / Q000737:chemistry*; D024202:Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D009841:Oligonucleotides / Q000378:metabolism; D011487:Protein Conformation; D015202:Protein Engineering; D012808:Sigma Factor / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D004220:Disulfides; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D009841:Oligonucleotides; D012808:Sigma Factor; C081775:RNA polymerase sigma 70; D012321:DNA-Directed RNA Polymerases