title: Role of the conserved SRLFDQFFG region of alpha-crystallin, a small heat shock protein. Effect on oligomeric size, subunit exchange, and chaperone-like activity.
abstract: Small heat shock proteins (sHsps) are necessary for several cellular functions and in stress tolerance. Most sHsps are oligomers; intersubunit interactions leading to changes in oligomeric structure and exposure of specific regions may modulate their functioning. Many sHsps, including alpha A- and alpha B-crystallin, contain a well conserved SRLFDQFFG sequence motif in the N-terminal region. Sequence-based prediction shows that it exhibits helical propensity with amphipathic character, suggesting that it plays a critical role in the structure and function of alpha-crystallins. In order to investigate the role of this motif in the structure and function of sHsps, we have made constructs deleting this sequence from alpha A- and alpha B-crystallin, overexpressed, purified, and studied these engineered proteins. Circular dichroism spectroscopic studies show changes in tertiary and secondary structure on deletion of the sequence. Glycerol density gradient centrifugation and dynamic light scattering studies show that the multimeric size of the mutant proteins is significantly reduced, indicating a role for this motif in higher order organization of the subunits. Both deletion mutants exhibit similar oligomeric size and increased chaperone-like activity. Urea-induced denaturation study shows that the SRLFDQFFG sequence contributes significantly to the structural stability. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer studies show that the rate of exchange of the subunits in the alpha Adel-crystallin oligomer is higher compared with that in the alpha A-crystallin oligomer, suggesting that this region contributes to the oligomer dynamics in addition to the higher order assembly and structural stability. Thus, our study shows that the SRLFDQFFG sequence is one of the critical motifs in structure-function regulation of alpha A- and alpha B-crystallin.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500 007, India.
authors.forename: Saloni Yatin
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Pasta
authors.forename: Bakthisaran
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Raman
authors.forename: Tangirala
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ramakrishna
authors.forename: Ch Mohan
authors.initials: ChM
authors.lastname: Rao
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence / Q000502:physiology; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D017124:Conserved Sequence / Q000502:physiology*; D019281:Dimerization; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D018832:Molecular Chaperones; D015202:Protein Engineering; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D021122:Protein Subunits; D017384:Sequence Deletion; D038201:alpha-Crystallins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D018832:Molecular Chaperones; D021122:Protein Subunits; D038201:alpha-Crystallins