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Phosphorylation of Ser283 enhances the stiffness of the tropomyosin head-to-tail overlap domain.

ABSTRACT: The ends of coiled-coil tropomyosin molecules are joined together by nine to ten residue-long head-to-tail "overlapping domains". These short four-chained interconnections ensure formation of continuous tropomyosin cables that wrap around actin filaments. Molecular Dynamics simulations indicate that the curvature and bending flexibility at the overlap is 10-20% greater than over the rest of the molecule, which might affect head-to-tail filament assembly on F-actin. Since the penultimate residue of striated muscle tropomyosin, Ser283, is a natural target of phosphorylating enzymes, we have assessed here if phosphorylation adjusts the mechanical properties of the tropomyosin overlap domain. MD simulations show that phosphorylation straightens the overlap to match the curvature of the remainder of tropomyosin while stiffening it to equal or exceed the rigidity of canonical coiled-coil regions. Corresponding EM data on phosphomimetic tropomyosin S283D corroborate these findings. The phosphorylation-induced change in mechanical properties of tropomyosin likely results from electrostatic interactions between C-terminal phosphoSer283 and N-terminal Lys12 in the four-chain overlap bundle, while promoting stronger interactions among surrounding residues and thus facilitating tropomyosin cable assembly. The stiffening effect of D283-tropomyosin noted correlates with previously observed enhanced actin-tropomyosin activation of myosin S1-ATPase, suggesting a role for the tropomyosin phosphorylation in potentiating muscle contraction.

SUBMITTER: Lehman W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4385494 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Phosphorylation of Ser283 enhances the stiffness of the tropomyosin head-to-tail overlap domain.

Lehman William W Medlock Greg G Li Xiaochuan Edward XE Suphamungmee Worawit W Tu An-Yue AY Schmidtmann Anja A Ujfalusi Zoltán Z Fischer Stefan S Moore Jeffrey R JR Geeves Michael A MA Regnier Michael M

Archives of biochemistry and biophysics 20150226

The ends of coiled-coil tropomyosin molecules are joined together by nine to ten residue-long head-to-tail "overlapping domains". These short four-chained interconnections ensure formation of continuous tropomyosin cables that wrap around actin filaments. Molecular Dynamics simulations indicate that the curvature and bending flexibility at the overlap is 10-20% greater than over the rest of the molecule, which might affect head-to-tail filament assembly on F-actin. Since the penultimate residue ...[more]

PMID: 25726728

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Project description:Coiled-coil tropomyosin, localized on actin filaments in virtually all eukaryotic cells, serves as a gatekeeper regulating access of the motor protein myosin and other actin-binding proteins onto the thin filament surface. Tropomyosin's modular pseudo-repeating pattern of approximately 39 amino acid residues is designed to allow binding of the coiled-coil to successive actin subunits along thin filaments. Even though different tropomyosin isoforms contain varying numbers of repeat modules, the pseudo-repeat length, in all cases, matches that of a single actin subunit. Thus, the seven pseudo-repeats of 42nm long muscle tropomyosin bind to seven successive actin subunits along thin filaments, while simultaneously bending into a super-helical conformation that is preshaped to the actin filament helix. In order to form a continuous cable on thin filaments that is free of gaps, adjacent tropomyosin molecules polymerize head-to-tail by means of a short (?9 residue) overlap. Several laboratories have engineered peptides to mimic the N- and C-terminal tropomyosin association and to characterize the overlap structure. All overlapping domains examined show a compact N-terminal coiled-coil inserting into a partially opened C-terminal partner, where the opposing coiled-coils at the overlap junction face each other at up to ?90° twist angles. Here, Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations were carried out to determine constraints on the formation of the tropomyosin overlap complex and to assess the amount of twisting exhibited by full-length tropomyosin when bound to actin. With the exception of the last 20-40 C- and N-terminal residues, we find that the average tropomyosin structure closely resembles a "canonical" model proposed in the classic work of McLachlan and Stewart, displaying perfectly symmetrical supercoil geometry matching the F-actin helix with an integral number of coiled-coil turns, a coiled-coil helical pitch of 137Å, a superhelical pitch of 770Å, and no localized pseudo-rotation. Over the middle 70% of tropomyosin, the average twisting of the coiled-coil deviates only by 10° from the canonical model and the torsional freedom is very small (std. dev. of 7°). This small degree of twisting cannot yield the orthogonal N- and C-termini configuration observed experimentally. In marked contrast, considerable coiled-coil unfolding, splaying and twisting at N- and C-terminal ends is observed, providing the conformational plasticity needed for head-to-tail nexus formation.

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Phosphorylation of Ser283 enhances the stiffness of the tropomyosin head-to-tail overlap domain.

Publications

Phosphorylation of Ser283 enhances the stiffness of the tropomyosin head-to-tail overlap domain.

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