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Molecular interactions between tubulin tails and glutamylases reveal determinants of glutamylation patterns
Author(s) -
Natarajan Kathiresan,
Gadadhar Sudarshan,
Souphron Judith,
Magiera Maria M,
Janke Carsten
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
embo reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.584
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1469-3178
pISSN - 1469-221X
DOI - 10.15252/embr.201643751
Subject(s) - tubulin , microtubule , biology , organelle , acetylation , enzyme , cilium , microbiology and biotechnology , computational biology , chemistry , biophysics , biochemistry , gene
Abstract Posttranslational modifications of tubulin currently emerge as key regulators of microtubule functions. Polyglutamylation generates a variety of modification patterns that are essential for controlling microtubule functions in different cell types and organelles, and deregulation of these patterns has been linked to ciliopathies, cancer and neurodegeneration. How the different glutamylating enzymes determine precise modification patterns has so far remained elusive. Using computational modelling, molecular dynamics simulations and mutational analyses we now show how the carboxy‐terminal tails of tubulin bind into the active sites of glutamylases. Our models suggest that the glutamylation sites on α‐ and β‐tubulins are determined by the positioning of the tails within the catalytic pocket. Moreover, we found that the binding modes of α‐ and β‐tubulin tails are highly similar, implying that most enzymes could potentially modify both, α‐ and β‐tubulin. This supports a model in which the binding of the enzymes to the entire microtubule lattice, but not the specificity of the C‐terminal tubulin tails to their active sites, determines the catalytic specificities of glutamylases.