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Crystal Structure of an EMAP‐II‐Like Cytokine Released from a Human tRNA Synthetase
Author(s) -
Yang XiangLei,
Liu Jianming,
Skene Robert J.,
McRee Duncan E.,
Schimmel Paul
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
helvetica chimica acta
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.74
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1522-2675
pISSN - 0018-019X
DOI - 10.1002/hlca.200390107
Subject(s) - chemistry , aminoacylation , transfer rna , aminoacyl trna synthetase , biochemistry , rna , gene
Aminoacyl‐tRNA synthetases catalyze the first step of protein synthesis by aminoacylation of tRNAs. Remarkably, biological fragments of two human enzymes – tyrosyl‐tRNA synthetase (TyrRS) and tryptophanyl‐tRNA synthetase – are active cytokines produced by proteolysis or alternative splicing. One is a C‐terminal fragment of TyrRS (C‐TyrRS) that has potent activity for chemotaxis of leukocytes and monocytes and for stimulating production of other cytokines. Significantly, the cytokine activity of C‐TyrRS is absent in the context of the full‐length native protein. Unknown is the mechanism by which domain‐release from the dimeric native protein activates the cytokine. Here, the crystal structure of C‐TyrRS is presented at 2.2 Å resolution. This structure is similar to that of endothelial monocyte‐activating protein II (EMAP‐II), with critical residues of a heptapeptide element important for chemotaxis activity exposed on the first strand of a β ‐barrel of the monomeric unit. In contrast, the same residues of C‐TyrRS are buried in an operational model for native TyrRS. Importantly, C‐TyrRS is shown here to be monomeric when released from dimeric native TyrRS. Further analysis suggests that the critical residues are exposed when tRNA is bound. Thus, tRNA binding to native TyrRS may be an additional or alternative way to activate cytokine signaling.