title: A helical string of alternately connected three-helix bundles for the cell wall-associated adhesion protein Ebh from Staphylococcus aureus.
abstract: The 1.1 MDa cell-wall-associated adhesion protein of staphylococci, Ebh, consists of several distinct regions, including a large central region with 52 imperfect repeats of 126 amino acid residues. We investigated the structure of this giant molecule by X-ray crystallography, circular dichroism (CD) spectrometry, and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). The crystal structure of two repeats showed that each repeat consists of two distinct three-helix bundles, and two such repeats are connected along the long axis, resulting in a rod-like structure that is 120 A in length. CD and SAXS analyses of the samples with longer repeats suggested that each repeat has an identical structure, and that such repeats are connected tandemly to form a rod-like structure in solution, the length of which increased proportionately with the number of repeating units. On the basis of these results, it was proposed that Ebh is a 320 nm rod-like molecule with some plasticity at module junctions.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Advanced Life Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshikazu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Sou
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sakamoto
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kuroda
authors.forename: Shuichiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goda
authors.forename: Yong-Gui
authors.initials: YG
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Kouhei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tsumoto
authors.forename: Yuzuru
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hiragi
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: Nobuhisa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Toshiko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohta
authors.forename: Isao
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tanaka
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D015815:Cell Adhesion Molecules / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000378:metabolism; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D008954:Models, Biological; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D020449:Repetitive Sequences, Amino Acid / Q000502:physiology; D053838:Scattering, Small Angle; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D015815:Cell Adhesion Molecules; C469917:Ebh protein, Staphylococcus aureus