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Steric clashes with bound OMP peptides activate the DegS stress-response protease.

ABSTRACT: Escherichia coli senses envelope stress using a signaling cascade initiated when DegS cleaves a transmembrane inhibitor of a transcriptional activator for response genes. Each subunit of the DegS trimer contains a protease domain and a PDZ domain. During stress, unassembled outer-membrane proteins (OMPs) accumulate in the periplasm and their C-terminal peptides activate DegS by binding to its PDZ domains. In the absence of stress, autoinhibitory interactions, mediated by the L3 loop, stabilize inactive DegS, but it is not known how this autoinhibition is reversed during activation. Here, we show that OMP peptides initiate a steric clash between the PDZ domain and the L3 loop that results in a structural rearrangement of the loop and breaking of autoinhibitory interactions. Many different L3-loop sequences are compatible with activation but those that relieve the steric clash reduce OMP activation dramatically. Our results provide a compelling molecular mechanism for allosteric activation of DegS by OMP-peptide binding.

SUBMITTER: de Regt AK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4371955 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Steric clashes with bound OMP peptides activate the DegS stress-response protease.

de Regt Anna K AK Baker Tania A TA Sauer Robert T RT

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20150302 11

Escherichia coli senses envelope stress using a signaling cascade initiated when DegS cleaves a transmembrane inhibitor of a transcriptional activator for response genes. Each subunit of the DegS trimer contains a protease domain and a PDZ domain. During stress, unassembled outer-membrane proteins (OMPs) accumulate in the periplasm and their C-terminal peptides activate DegS by binding to its PDZ domains. In the absence of stress, autoinhibitory interactions, mediated by the L3 loop, stabilize i ...[more]

PMID: 25733864

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Dataset Information

Steric clashes with bound OMP peptides activate the DegS stress-response protease.

Publications

Steric clashes with bound OMP peptides activate the DegS stress-response protease.

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