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Signal perception and transmission in histidine autokinases: Insights from the Agrobacterium tumefaciens VirA/VirG system
Author(s) -
Lin YiHan,
Gao Rong,
Binns Andrew N,
Lynn David G
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.lb169
Subject(s) - coiled coil , linker , agrobacterium , histidine , agrobacterium tumefaciens , transcription factor , biology , biophysics , chemistry , biochemistry , transformation (genetics) , computer science , gene , amino acid , operating system
VirA, the histidine autokinase found in Agrobacterium tumefaciens , is activated in response to several signaling cues, among which the plant‐derived phenolic molecule being the most critical. The cytoplasmic linker domain is responsible for phenol sensing, and a coiled‐coil was predicted to bridge the linker domain to the kinase. Using yeast transcription factor GCN4, the possible signal‐induced rotational motion in the coiled‐coil was examined. Through different insertions between GCN4 and the coiled‐coil, the signal‐independent ratcheted activities were observed. Random mutagenesis and functional library screening also indicated several constitutively on mutants in the coiled‐coil, which enabled the dimerization interface to be established. Together with the structure model of the linker domain, generated by homology modeling, and the possible phenol binding site, probed by computational docking, the model for phenol perception and the associated motion in the signaling module of VirA is proposed. This work is supported by NSF‐IOS‐0818613.