scholarly journals Functional Characterization and Localization of the TcpH Conjugation Protein from Clostridium perfringens

2008 ◽  
Vol 190 (14) ◽  
pp. 5075-5086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wee Lin Teng ◽  
Trudi L. Bannam ◽  
Jennifer A. Parsons ◽  
Julian I. Rood
Keyword(s):  
Clostridium Perfringens ◽  
Protein Interactions ◽  
Functional Characterization ◽  
Pair Formation ◽  
Conjugative Plasmid ◽  
Mating Pair ◽  
Protein Protein Interactions ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Coupling Protein ◽  
Two Hybrid

ABSTRACT In Clostridium perfringens, conjugative plasmids encode important virulence factors, such as toxins and resistance determinants. All of these plasmids carry a conjugation locus that consists of 11 genes: intP and tcpA to tcpJ. Three proteins, TcpA, a potential coupling protein, TcpF, a putative ATPase that is similar to ORF15 from Tn916, and TcpH, which contains VirB6-like domains, are essential for conjugation in the prototype conjugative plasmid pCW3. To analyze the functional domains of TcpH, a putative structural component of the mating-pair formation complex and deletion and site-directed mutants were constructed and analyzed. The results showed that the N-terminal 581 residues and the conserved 242VQQPW246 motif were required for conjugative transfer. Bacterial two-hybrid and biochemical studies showed that TcpH interacted with itself and with TcpC. An analysis of the tcpH mutants demonstrated that the region required for these interactions also was localized to the N-terminal 581 residues and that the function of the C-terminal region of TcpH was independent of protein-protein interactions. Finally, immunofluorescence studies showed that TcpH and TcpF were located at both cell poles of donor C. perfringens cells. The results provide evidence that TcpH is located in the cell membrane, where it oligomerizes and interacts with TcpC to form part of the mating-pair formation complex, which is located at the cell poles and is closely associated with TcpF.

scholarly journals The Putative Coupling Protein TcpA Interacts with Other pCW3-Encoded Proteins To Form an Essential Part of the Conjugation Complex

2009 ◽  
Vol 191 (9) ◽  
pp. 2926-2933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Steen ◽  
Trudi L. Bannam ◽  
Wee Lin Teng ◽  
Rodney J. Devenish ◽  
Julian I. Rood
Keyword(s):  
Protein Interactions ◽  
Tetracycline Resistance ◽  
Conjugative Plasmid ◽  
Conjugative Transfer ◽  
Protein Protein Interactions ◽  
Coupling Protein ◽  
Derivatives Of ◽  
Two Hybrid ◽  
Chemical Cross Linking ◽  
Transfer Apparatus

ABSTRACT Conjugative plasmids encode antibiotic resistance determinants or toxin genes in the anaerobic pathogen Clostridium perfringens. The paradigm conjugative plasmid in this bacterium is pCW3, a 47-kb tetracycline resistance plasmid that encodes the unique tcp transfer locus. The tcp locus consists of 11 genes, intP and tcpA-tcpJ, at least three of which, tcpA, tcpF, and tcpH, are essential for the conjugative transfer of pCW3. In this study we examined protein-protein interactions involving TcpA, the putative coupling protein. Use of a bacterial two-hybrid system identified interactions between TcpA and TcpC, TcpG, and TcpH. This analysis also demonstrated TcpA, TcpC, and TcpG self-interactions, which were confirmed by chemical cross-linking studies. Examination of a series of deletion and site-directed derivatives of TcpA identified the domains and motifs required for these interactions. Based on these results, we have constructed a model for this unique conjugative transfer apparatus.

scholarly journals Universal Screening Methods and Applications of ThermoFluor®

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 854-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell D. Cummings ◽  
Michael A. Farnum ◽  
Marina I. Nelen
Keyword(s):  
Protein Interactions ◽  
Protein Function ◽  
Protein Unfolding ◽  
Direct Detection ◽  
Functional Characterization ◽  
Screening Methods ◽  
Protein Protein Interactions ◽  
Protein Protein Interaction ◽  
Bacterial Enzyme ◽  
Research Problems

The genomics revolution has unveiled a wealth of poorly characterized proteins. Scientists are often able to produce milligram quantities of proteins for which function is unknown or hypothetical, based only on very distant sequence homology. Broadly applicable tools for functional characterization are essential to the illumination of these orphan proteins. An additional challenge is the direct detection of inhibitors of protein-protein interactions (and allosteric effectors). Both of these research problems are relevant to, among other things, the challenge of finding and validating new protein targets for drug action. Screening collections of small molecules has long been used in the pharmaceutical industry as 1 method of discovering drug leads. Screening in this context typically involves a function-based assay. Given a sufficient quantity of a protein of interest, significant effort may still be required for functional characterization, assay development, and assay configuration for screening. Increasingly, techniques are being reported that facilitate screening for specific ligands for a protein of unknown function. Such techniques also allow for function-independent screening with better characterized proteins. ThermoFluor®, a screening instrument based on monitoring ligand effects on temperature-dependent protein unfolding, can be applied when protein function is unknown. This technology has proven useful in the decryption of an essential bacterial enzyme and in the discovery of a series of inhibitors of a cancer-related, protein-protein interaction. The authors review some of the tools relevant to these research problems in drug discovery, and describe our experiences with 2 different proteins.

scholarly journals Yeast Surface Two-hybrid for Quantitative in Vivo Detection of Protein-Protein Interactions via the Secretory Pathway

2009 ◽  
Vol 284 (24) ◽  
pp. 16369-16376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuebo Hu ◽  
Sungkwon Kang ◽  
Xiaoyue Chen ◽  
Charles B. Shoemaker ◽  
Moonsoo M. Jin
Keyword(s):  
Protein Interactions ◽  
Secretory Pathway ◽  
Coiled Coil ◽  
Affinity Maturation ◽  
Antibody Binding ◽  
Soluble Form ◽  
Protein Protein Interactions ◽  
Yeast Surface ◽  
Two Hybrid

A quantitative in vivo method for detecting protein-protein interactions will enhance our understanding of protein interaction networks and facilitate affinity maturation as well as designing new interaction pairs. We have developed a novel platform, dubbed “yeast surface two-hybrid (YS2H),” to enable a quantitative measurement of pairwise protein interactions via the secretory pathway by expressing one protein (bait) anchored to the cell wall and the other (prey) in soluble form. In YS2H, the prey is released either outside of the cells or remains on the cell surface by virtue of its binding to the bait. The strength of their interaction is measured by antibody binding to the epitope tag appended to the prey or direct readout of split green fluorescence protein (GFP) complementation. When two α-helices forming coiled coils were expressed as a pair of prey and bait, the amount of the prey in complex with the bait progressively decreased as the affinity changes from 100 pm to 10 μm. With GFP complementation assay, we were able to discriminate a 6-log difference in binding affinities in the range of 100 pm to 100 μm. The affinity estimated from the level of antibody binding to fusion tags was in good agreement with that measured in solution using a surface plasmon resonance technique. In contrast, the level of GFP complementation linearly increased with the on-rate of coiled coil interactions, likely because of the irreversible nature of GFP reconstitution. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of YS2H in exploring the nature of antigen recognition by antibodies and activation allostery in integrins and in isolating heavy chain-only antibodies against botulinum neurotoxin.

scholarly journals A Field-Proven Yeast Two-Hybrid Protocol Used to Identify Coronavirus–Host Protein–Protein Interactions

2015 ◽  
pp. 213-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Olivier Vidalain ◽  
Yves Jacob ◽  
Marne C. Hagemeijer ◽  
Louis M. Jones ◽  
Grégory Neveu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Protein Interactions ◽  
Host Protein ◽  
Protein Protein Interactions ◽  
Yeast Two Hybrid ◽  
Two Hybrid

Mining Protein Interactome Networks to Measure Interaction Reliability and Select Hub Proteins

2013 ◽  
pp. 222-238
Author(s):  
Young-Rae Cho ◽  
Aidong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Protein Interactions ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Functional Characterization ◽  
Flow Simulation ◽  
Protein Protein Interactions ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Graph Theoretic ◽  
Interactome Network ◽  
Protein Interactome ◽  
Hub Proteins

High-throughput techniques involve large-scale detection of protein-protein interactions. This interaction data set from the genome-scale perspective is structured into an interactome network. Since the interaction evidence represents functional linkage, various graph-theoretic computational approaches have been applied to the interactome networks for functional characterization. However, this data is generally unreliable, and the typical genome-wide interactome networks have a complex connectivity. In this paper, the authors explore systematic analysis of protein interactome networks, and propose a $k$-round signal flow simulation algorithm to measure interaction reliability from connection patterns of the interactome networks. This algorithm quantitatively characterizes functional links between proteins by simulating the propagation of information signals through complex connections. In this regard, the algorithm efficiently estimates the strength of alternative paths for each interaction. The authors also present an algorithm for mining the complex interactome network structure. The algorithm restructures the network by hierarchical ordering of nodes, and this structure re-formatting process reveals hub proteins in the interactome networks. This paper demonstrates that two rounds of simulation accurately scores interaction reliability in terms of ontological correlation and functional consistency. Finally, the authors validate that the selected structural hubs represent functional core proteins.

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