Protein production: Going viral

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

A research team of scientists from EMBL Grenoble and the IGBMC in Strasbourg, France, have, for the first time, described in molecular detail the architecture of the central scaffold of TFIID: the human protein complex essential for transcription from DNA to mRNA. The study, published today in Nature, opens new perspectives in the study of transcription and of the structure and mechanism of other large multi-protein assemblies involved in gene regulation.

By controlling the transcription of DNA into messenger RNA, TFIID forms the cornerstone of the machinery that controls gene expression in our cells. Despite its crucial role, very little was known about its architecture. TFIID is present at very low levels in cells, and it is a very large protein complex made of 20 subunits: this combination largely prevented previous attempts to purify it and decipher its structure and function in molecular detail. Even the most advanced methods for recombinant protein production met their limits when trying to produce its various subunits in the right proportions.

The solution to this bottleneck came from studying the strategy certain viruses, such as Coronaviruses, use when they replicate: they produce very long protein chains that are then divided into individual proteins. Mimicking this technique led to highly abundant and correctly assembled complexes of the core scaffold of TFIID (comprising 10 subunits), which could be purified and analysed at high resolution by combining electron microscopy and data from X-ray crystallography.

The human TFIID core complex contains two copies each of TAF4 (green), TAF5 (red), TAF6 (blue), TAF9 (light blue) and TAF12 (light green). The density determined by cryo-electron microscopy is shown as a grey mesh. Credit: Gabor Papai ? IGBMC

This ground-breaking analysis reveals the inner workings of the core-complex of human TFIID in unprecedented detail. It shows that some of its subunits adopt a very defined structure, whereas other parts appear to adopt intricate, extended geometries winding like worms through the complex, holding it together. The overall architecture of the complex is symmetric; however, the authors describe how it becomes asymmetric when it binds to other subunits to finally form the complete TFIID complex.

"We know now in some detail what the core of TFIID looks like, and what happens when further subunits are bound. We believe that we have opened the door to determining the architecture of the entire human TFIID complex in the near future, and likewise of other large multiprotein assemblies involved in gene regulation, and to explain their roles in catalysing biological function," concludes Imre Berger, coordinator of the study at EMBL.

###

European Molecular Biology Laboratory: http://www.embl.org

Thanks to European Molecular Biology Laboratory for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 16 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126165/Protein_production__Going_viral

park slope food coop anchorman sequel safety not guaranteed lifehouse al gore la dodgers lawrence o donnell