Homologous structural fragments

Rather than manual model building, it is possible to use a database approach to build a starting structure from homologous structural fragments taken from the crystallographic protein data bank.37 The main use of this technique is that it can be used during the earliest investigations of a molecule when adequate NMR may not yet be available. 

The dihydrofolate reductase enzyme (DHFR) is involved in one-carbon metabolism and is required for the survival of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The enzyme catalyzes the reduction of dihydrofolate to tetrahydrofolate, which is required for the biosynthesis of serine, methionine, purines, and thymidylate. The mouse dihydrofolate reductase (mDHFR) is a small (21 kD), monomeric enzyme that is highly homologous to the E. coli enzyme (29% identify) (Pelletier et al., 1998). The three-dimensional structure of DHFR indicates that it is comprised of three structural fragments F[l], F[2] andF[3] (Gegg etal., 1997). 

Assemble fragments/substructures from different, known homologous structures. 

Assemble fragments/substructures from different, known homologous structures. Overlapping the main-chains of the target protein and the structure of the closely related protein of known structure. 

Constraints provide a very direct means to add information to a simulation— simply requiring all generated structures to satisfy certain additional conditions. This approach has been used extensively to generate three-dimensional structures from NMR spectra [52], which provide data in the form of interatomic distances. In principle, if one had enough distance constraints, the problem would be overdetermined and could be solved mathematically with no further information required. It has been shown, however, that the use of knowledge-based simulations based on homologous structures or fragment libraries from the PDB provides more accurate models than constraint-based methods alone [20,53]. 

Fig. 75. Basic structure fragments in compounds belonging to a homologous family with metal-to-nonmetal...

The lac repressor monomer, a chain of 360 amino acids, associates into a functionally active homotetramer. It is the classic member of a large family of bacterial repressors with homologous amino acid sequences. PurR, which functions as the master regulator of purine biosynthesis, is another member of this family. In contrast to the lac repressor, the functional state of PurR is a dimer. The crystal structures of these two members of the Lac I family, in their complexes with DNA fragments, are known. The structure of the tetrameric lac repressor-DNA complex was determined by the group of Mitchell Lewis, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the dimeric PurR-DNA complex by the group of Richard Brennan, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland. 

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