Four-helix bundles

Other approaches to de novo four-helix bundle proteins have emphasized nonrepetitive designs. One such example is the four-helix bundle protein Felix (53), a 79-residue protein which uses 19 of the 20 naturally occurring amino acids ... 

The four-helix bundle is a common domain structure in a proteins... 

Figure 3.6 Four-helix bundles frequently occur as domains in a proteins. The arrangement of the a helices is such that adjacent helices in the amino acid sequence are also adjacent in the three-dimensional structure. Some side chains from all four helices are buried in the middle of the bundle, where they form a hydrophobic core, (a) Schematic representation of the path of the polypeptide chain in a four-helrx-bundle domain. Red cylinders are a helices, (b) Schematic view of a projection down the bundle axis. Large circles represent the main chain of the a helices small circles are side chains. Green circles are the buried hydrophobic side chains red circles are side chains that are exposed on the surface of the bundle, which are mainly hydrophilic.

In most four-helix bundle structures, including those shown in Figure 3.7, the a helices are packed against each other according to the "ridges in grooves" model discussed later in this chapter. However, there are also examples where coiled-coil dimers packed by the "knobs in holes" model participate in four-helix bundle structures. A particularly simple illustrative example is the Rop protein, a small RNA-binding protein that is encoded by certain plasmids and is involved in plasmid replication. The monomeric sub unit of Rop is a polypeptide chain of 63 amino acids built up from two... 

Figure 3.7 The polypeptide chains of cytochrome bs62 and human growth hormone both form four-helix-bundle structures.

The tetrameric structure of the lac repressor has a quite unusual V-shape (Figure 8.22). Each arm of the V-shaped molecule is a tight dimer, which is very similar in structure to the PurR dimer and which has the two N-termi-nal DNA binding domains close together at the tip of the arm. The two dimers of the lac repressor are held together at the other end by the four carboxy-terminal a helices, which form a four-helix bundle. 

Figure 8.22 The lac repressor molecule is a V-shaped tetramer in which each arm is a dimer containing a DNA-hinding site. The helix-tum-helix motifs (red) of each dimer bind in two successive major grooves and the hinge helices (purple) bind adjacent to each other in the minor groove between the two major groove binding sites. The four subunits of the tetramer are held together by the four C-terminal helices (yellow) which form a four helix bundle. The bound DNA fragments are bent. (Adapted from M. Lewis et al., Science 271 1247-1254, 1996.)...

TFIIA also has two domains, one of which is a four-helix bundle and the other an antiparallel p sandwich. The p sandwich interacts with the N-termi-nal half of TBP and thus positions TFIIA on the other side of the complex compared with TFIIB. This domain also interacts with phosphates and sugars of DNA upstream of the TATA box. Tbe four-helix bundle domain makes no contact with DNA or TBP and is far removed from the position of TFIIB. 

Two such dimers form the tetramer through mainly hydrophobic interactions between the a helices. The p strands are on the outside of the tetramer and are not involved in the dimer-dimer interactions. The arrangement of the four a helices is unusual and provides a rare example of four a helices packed against each other in a way different from the four-helix bundle motif. 

Figure 9.17 Schematic diagram illustrating the tetrameric stmcture of the pS3 oligomerization domain. The four subunits have different colors. Each subunit has a simple structure comprising a p strand and an a helix joined by a one-residue turn. The tetramer is built up from a pair of dimers (yellow-blue and red-green). Within each dimer the p strands form a two-stranded antiparallel p sheet which provides most of the subunit interactions. The two dimers are held together by interactions between the four a helices, which are packed in a different way from a four-helix bundle. (Adapted from P.D. Jeffrey et al.. Science 267 1498-1502, 1995.)...

The coiled-coil structure of the leucine zipper motif is not the only way that homodimers and heterodimers of transcription factors are formed. As we saw in Chapter 3 when discussing the RNA-binding protein ROP, the formation of a four-helix bundle structure is also a way to achieve dimerization, and the helix-loop-helix (HLH) family of transcription factors dimerize in this manner. In these proteins, the helix-loop-helix region is preceded by a sequence of basic amino acids that provide the DNA-binding site (Figure 10.23), and... 

Figure 10.25 Structure of the dimerization region of MyoD. The a helices HI (red and brown) and H2 (light and dark green) of the two monomers form a four-helix bundle that keeps the dimer together. The loops (yellow and orange) are on the outside of the four-helix bundle. (Adapted from P.C.M. Ma et al.. Cell 77 4S1-4S9, 1994.)...

Figure 10.28 Schematic diagram of the binding of the transcription factor Max to DNA. The two monomers of Max (blue and green) form a dimer through both the helix-loop-helLx regions which form a four-helix bundle like MyoD, and the zipper regions, which are arranged in a coiled coil. The N-terminal basic regions bind to DNA in a way similar to GCN4 and MyoD. (Adapted from A.R. Ferre-D Amare et al., Nature 363 38-4S, 1993.)...

Figure 10.30 Amino acid sequences of the hellx-loop-helix region of some members of the b/HLH and b/HLH/zlp families of transcription factors. Residues that form the hydrophobic core of the four-helix bundle are colored green and a conserved lysine residue is blue. The loop region between HI and H2 is highly variable in length but must be at least four or five residues long.

Helix-loop-helix (b/HLH) transcription factors are either heterodimers or homodimers with basic a-helical DNA-binding regions that lie across the major groove, rather than along it, and these helices extend into the four-helix bundle that forms the dimerization region. A modification of the b/HLH structure is seen in some transcription factors (b/HLH/zip) in which the four-helix bundle extends into a classic leucine zipper. 

Alpha helices D and E from the L and M subunits (Figure 12.14) form the core of the membrane-spanning part of the complex. These four helices are tightly packed against each other in a way quite similar to the four-helix bundle motif in water-soluble proteins. Each of these four helices provides a histidine side chain as ligand to the Ee atom, which is located between the helices close to the cytoplasm. The role of the Ee atom is probably to... 

The structurally similar L and M subunits are related by a pseudo-twofold symmetry axis through the core, between the helices of the four-helix bundle motif. The photosynthetic pigments are bound to these subunits, most of them to the transmembrane helices, and they are also related by the same twofold symmetry axis (Figure 12.15). The pigments are arranged so that they form two possible pathways for electron transfer across the membrane, one on each side of the symmetry axis. 

Like other hormones in this class of cytokines, GH has a four-helix bundle structure as described in Chapter 3 (see Figures 3.7 and 13.18). Two of the a helices, A and D, are long (around 30 residues) and the other two are about 10 residues shorter. Similar to other four-helix bundle structures, the internal core of the bundle is made up almost exclusively of hydrophobic residues. The topology of the bundle is up-up-down-down with two cross-over connections from one end of the bundle to the other, linking helix A with B and helix C with D (see Figure 13.18). Two short additional helices are in the first cross-over connection and a further one in the loop connecting helices C and D. 

Figure 13.18 Ribbon diagram of the structure of human growth hormone. The fold is a four-helix bundle with up-up-down-down topology, and consequently there are two long cross-connections between helices A and B as well as between helices C and D. (Adapted from J. Wells et al., Annu. Rev. Biochem.

They started from the sequence of a domain, Bl, from an IgG-binding protein called Protein G. This domain of 56 amino acid residues folds into a four-stranded p sheet and one a helix (Figure 17.16). Their aim was to convert this structure into an all a-helical structure similar to that of Rop (see Chapter 3). Each subunit of Rop is 63 amino acids long and folds into two a helices connected by a short loop. The last seven residues are unstructured and were not considered in the design procedure. Two subunits of Rop form a four-helix bundle (Figure 17.16). 

DeGrado, W.F., Regan, L., Ho, S.P. The design of a four-helix bundle protein. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 52 521-526, 1987. 

In 1996, the 3D-structure of D. vulgaris Rr was published by de-Mare and collaborators 48), and all the studies earlier published were proved to be correct. The protein is described as a tetramer of two-domain subunits (Fig. 4). Each subunit contains a domain characterized by a four-helix bundle surrounding a diiron-oxo site and a C-terminal rubredoxin-like Fe(RS)4 domain (see Fig. 2). In this last do-... 

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