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Protonation equilibria and pore-opening structure of the dual-histidine influenza B virus M2 transmembrane proton channel from solid-state NMR.

ABSTRACT: The influenza A and B viruses are the primary cause of seasonal flu epidemics. Common to both viruses is the M2 protein, a homotetrameric transmembrane proton channel that acidifies the virion after endocytosis. Although influenza A M2 (AM2) and B M2 (BM2) are functional analogs, they have little sequence homology, except for a conserved HXXXW motif, which is responsible for proton selectivity and channel gating. Importantly, BM2 contains a second titratable histidine, His-27, in the tetrameric transmembrane domain that forms a reverse WXXXH motif with the gating tryptophan. To understand how His-27 affects the proton conduction property of BM2, we have used solid-state NMR to characterize the pH-dependent structure and dynamics of His-27. In cholesterol-containing lipid membranes mimicking the virus envelope, 15N NMR spectra show that the His-27 tetrad protonates with higher pKa values than His-19, indicating that the solvent-accessible His-27 facilitates proton conduction of the channel by increasing the proton dissociation rates of His-19. AM2 is inhibited by the amantadine class of antiviral drugs, whereas BM2 has no known inhibitors. We measured the N-terminal interhelical separation of the BM2 channel using fluorinated Phe-5. The interhelical 19F-19F distances show a bimodal distribution of a short distance of 7 Å and a long distance of 15-20 Å, indicating that the phenylene rings do not block small-molecule entry into the channel pore. These results give insights into the lack of amantadine inhibition of BM2 and reveal structural diversities in this family of viral proton channels.

SUBMITTER: Williams JK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5663885 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Protonation equilibria and pore-opening structure of the dual-histidine influenza B virus M2 transmembrane proton channel from solid-state NMR.

Williams Jonathan K JK Shcherbakov Alexander A AA Wang Jun J Hong Mei M

The Journal of biological chemistry 20170911 43

The influenza A and B viruses are the primary cause of seasonal flu epidemics. Common to both viruses is the M2 protein, a homotetrameric transmembrane proton channel that acidifies the virion after endocytosis. Although influenza A M2 (AM2) and B M2 (BM2) are functional analogs, they have little sequence homology, except for a conserved H<i>XXX</i>W motif, which is responsible for proton selectivity and channel gating. Importantly, BM2 contains a second titratable histidine, His-27, in the tetr ...[more]

PMID: 28893910

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Project description:The acid-activated proton channel formed by the influenza M2 protein is important for the life cycle of the virus. A single histidine, His37, in the M2 transmembrane domain (M2TM) is responsible for pH activation and proton selectivity of the channel. Recent studies suggested three models for how His37 mediates proton transport: a shuttle mechanism involving His37 protonation and deprotonation, a H-bonded imidazole-imidazolium dimer model, and a transporter model involving large protein conformational changes in synchrony with proton conduction. Using magic-angle-spinning (MAS) solid-state NMR spectroscopy, we examined the proton exchange and backbone conformational dynamics of M2TM in a virus-envelope-mimetic membrane. At physiological temperature and pH, (15)N NMR spectra show fast exchange of the imidazole (15)N between protonated and unprotonated states. To quantify the proton exchange rates, we measured the (15)N T(2) relaxation times and simulated them for chemical-shift exchange and fluctuating N-H dipolar fields under (1)H decoupling and MAS. The exchange rate is 4.5 × 10(5) s(-1) for N?1 and 1.0 × 10(5) s(-1) for N?2, which are approximately synchronized with the recently reported imidazole reorientation. Binding of the antiviral drug amantadine suppressed both proton exchange and ring motion, thus interfering with the proton transfer mechanism. By measuring the relative concentrations of neutral and cationic His as a function of pH, we determined the four pK(a) values of the His37 tetrad in the viral membrane. Fitting the proton current curve using the charge-state populations from these pK(a)'s, we obtained the relative conductance of the five charge states, which showed that the +3 channel has the highest time-averaged unitary conductance. At physiologically relevant pH, 2D correlation spectra indicated that the neutral and cationic histidines do not have close contacts, ruling out the H-bonded dimer model. Moreover, a narrowly distributed nonideal helical structure coexists with a broadly distributed ideal helical conformation without interchange on the sub-10 ms time scale, thus excluding the transporter model in the viral membrane. These data support the shuttle mechanism of proton conduction, whose essential steps involve His-water proton exchange facilitated by imidazole ring reorientations.

Dataset Information

Protonation equilibria and pore-opening structure of the dual-histidine influenza B virus M2 transmembrane proton channel from solid-state NMR.

Publications

Protonation equilibria and pore-opening structure of the dual-histidine influenza B virus M2 transmembrane proton channel from solid-state NMR.

Similar Datasets

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