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Induced fit substrate binding to an archeal glutamate transporter homologue.

ABSTRACT: Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) are a class of glutamate transporters that terminate glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the mammalian CNS. GltPh, an archeal EAAT homolog from Pyrococcus horikoshii, is currently the only member with a known 3D structure. Here, we studied the kinetics of substrate binding of a single tryptophan mutant (L130W) GltPh in detergent micelles. At low millimolar [Na(+)], the addition of L-aspartate resulted in complex time courses of W130 fluorescence changes over tens of seconds. With increasing [Na(+)], the kinetics were dominated by a fast component [k(obs,fast); K(D) (Na(+)) = 22 ± 3 mM, n(Hill )= 1.7 ± 0.3] with values of k(obs,fast) rising in a saturable manner to ? 500 s(-1) (at 6 °C) with increasing [L-aspartate]. The binding kinetics of L-aspartate differed from the binding kinetics of two alternative substrates: L-cysteine sulfinic acid and d-aspartate. L-cysteine sulfinic acid bound with higher affinity than L-aspartate but involved lower saturating rates, whereas the saturating rates after D-aspartate binding were higher. Thus, after the association of two Na(+) to the empty transporter, GltPh binds amino acids by induced fit. Cross-linking and proteolysis experiments suggest that the induced fit results from the closure of helical hairpin 2. This conformational change is faster for GltPh than for most mammalian homologues, whereas the amino acid association rates are similar. Our data reveal the importance of induced fit for substrate selection in EAATs and illustrate how high-affinity binding and the efficient transport of glutamate can be accomplished simultaneously by this class of transporters.

SUBMITTER: Ewers D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3725095 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Induced fit substrate binding to an archeal glutamate transporter homologue.

Ewers David D Becher Toni T Machtens Jan-Philipp JP Weyand Ingo I Fahlke Christoph C

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20130709 30

Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) are a class of glutamate transporters that terminate glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the mammalian CNS. GltPh, an archeal EAAT homolog from Pyrococcus horikoshii, is currently the only member with a known 3D structure. Here, we studied the kinetics of substrate binding of a single tryptophan mutant (L130W) GltPh in detergent micelles. At low millimolar [Na(+)], the addition of L-aspartate resulted in complex time courses of W130 fluorescence chan ...[more]

PMID: 23840066

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Project description:Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) are membrane proteins responsible for reuptake of glutamate from the synaptic cleft to terminate neurotransmission and help prevent neurotoxically high, extracellular glutamate concentrations. Important structural information about these proteins emerged from crystal structures of GltPh, a bacterial homologue of EAATs, in conformations facing outward and inward. These remarkably different conformations are considered to be end points of the substrate translocation path (STP), suggesting that the transport mechanism involves major conformational rearrangements that remain uncharted. To investigate possible steps in the structural transitions of the STP between the two end-point conformations, we applied a combination of computational modeling methods (motion planning, molecular dynamics simulations, and mixed elastic network models). We found that the conformational changes in the transition involve mainly the repositioning the "transport domain" and the "trimerization domain" identified previously in the crystal structures. The two domains move in opposite directions along the membrane normal, and the transport domain also tilts by ?17° with respect to this axis. Moreover, the TM3-4 loop undergoes a flexible, "restraining bar"-like conformational change with respect to the transport domain. As a consequence of these conformational rearrangements along the transition path we calculated a significant decrease of nearly 20% in the area of the transport-to-trimerization domain interface (TTDI). Water penetrates parts of the TTDI in the modeled intermediates but very much less in the end-point conformations. We show that these characteristics of the modeled intermediate states agree with experimental results from residue-accessibility studies in individual monomers and identify specific residues that can be used to test the proposed STP. Moreover, MD simulations of complete GltPh trimers constructed from initially identical monomer intermediates suggest that asymmetry can appear in the trimer, consonant with available experimental data showing independent transport kinetics by individual monomers in the trimers.

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Induced fit substrate binding to an archeal glutamate transporter homologue.

Publications

Induced fit substrate binding to an archeal glutamate transporter homologue.

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