Extreme divergence between one-to-one orthologs: the structure of N15 Cro bound to operator DNA and its relationship to the λ Cro complex
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Univ Arizona, Dept Chem & BiochemIssue Date
2019-07-26
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OXFORD UNIV PRESSCitation
Branwen M Hall, Sue A Roberts, Matthew H J Cordes, Extreme divergence between one-to-one orthologs: the structure of N15 Cro bound to operator DNA and its relationship to the λ Cro complex, Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 47, Issue 13, 26 July 2019, Pages 7118–7129, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz507Journal
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCHRights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The gene cro promotes lytic growth of phages through binding of Cro protein dimers to regulatory DNA sites. Most Cro proteins are one-to-one orthologs, yet their sequence, structure and binding site sequences are quite divergent across lambdoid phages. We report the cocrystal structure of bacteriophage N15 Cro with a symmetric consensus site. We contrast this complex with an orthologous structure from phage λ, which has a dissimilar binding site sequence and a Cro protein that is highly divergent in sequence, dimerization interface and protein fold. The N15 Cro complex has less DNA bending and smaller DNA-induced changes in protein structure. N15 Cro makes fewer direct contacts and hydrogen bonds to bases, relying mostly on water-mediated and Van der Waals contacts to recognize the sequence. The recognition helices of N15 Cro and λ Cro make mostly nonhomologous and nonanalogous contacts. Interface alignment scores show that half-site binding geometries of N15 Cro and λ Cro are less similar to each other than to distantly related CI repressors. Despite this divergence, the Cro family shows several code-like protein–DNA sequence covariations. In some cases, orthologous genes can achieve a similar biological function using very different specific molecular interactions.Note
Open access journalISSN
0305-1048PubMed ID
31180482Version
Final published versionSponsors
National Science Foundation (NSF) [MCB0643790]; University of Arizonaae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1093/nar/gkz507
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
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