Ji. Yeh et al., HIGH-RESOLUTION STRUCTURES OF THE LIGAND-BINDING DOMAIN OF THE WILD-TYPE BACTERIAL ASPARTATE RECEPTOR, Journal of Molecular Biology, 262(2), 1996, pp. 186-201
The high-resolution structures of the wild-type periplasmic domain of
the bacterial aspartate receptor have been determined in the absence a
nd presence of bound aspartate to 1.85 and 2.2 Angstrom resolution, re
spectively. As we reported earlier, in the refined structure of the co
mplexed form of the crosslinked cysteine mutant receptor, the binding
of the aspartate at the first site was mediated through four bridging
water molecules while the second site showed an occupant electron dens
ity that best fit a sulfate group, which was present in the crystalliz
ation solution at high concentration. In the wild-type periplasmic dom
ain structure two aspartate residues are bound per dimer, but with dif
ferent occupancies. There exists a ''strong'' aspartate-binding site w
hose binding is again mediated by four water molecules while the secon
d site contains aspartate whose B-factor is about 10% higher, signifyi
ng weaker binding. The interaction between the second, ''weaker'' aspa
rtate with the three ligand-binding arginine side-chains is slightly d
ifferent from the first site. The major difference is that there are t
hree water molecules mediating the binding of aspartate at the second
site, whereas in the first site there are four bridging water molecule
s. The fact that aspartate-complexed crystals of the wild-type were gr
own with a large excess aspartate while the cross-linked crystals were
grown with equal molar aspartate may explain the difference in the st
oichiometry observed. The conservation of the four bridging water mole
cules in the strong aspartate site of both the cross-linked and wild-t
ype periplasmic domain may reflect an important binding motif. The per
iplasmic domain in the apo form is a symmetrical dimer, in which each
of the subunits is equivalent, and the two aspartate binding sites are
identical. Upon the binding of aspartate, the subunits are no longer
symmetrical. The main difference between the aspartate-bound and unbou
nd forms is in a small, rigid-body rotation between the subunits withi
n a dimer. The rotation is similar in both direction and magnitude in
the crosslinked and wild-type periplasmic domains. The presence of the
second aspartate in the wild-type structure does not make any additio
nal rotation compared to the single-site binding. The conservation of
the small angular change in vitro suggests that the inter-subunit rota
tion may have relevance to the understanding of the mechanism of trans
membrane signal transduction in vivo. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited