Mapping the interactions of adenoviral E1A proteins with the p160 nuclear receptor coactivator binding domain of CBP.

Many viruses deregulate the cell and force transcription of viral genes by competing with cellular proteins for binding to the transcriptional co-activators CREB-binding protein (CBP) and p300. Through its interactions with CBP/p300 and the retinoblastoma protein, the adenovirus (AdV) early region 1A (E1A) oncoprotein hijacks the cell cycle and, in rodents, transforms the cell; the mechanistic and structural basis for these effects remain unclear. In this study we compare the affinity of protein constructs from the E1A proteins from two adenovirus serotypes, non-oncogenic AdV5 and highly oncogenic AdV12, for binding to the nuclear receptor coactivator binding domain (NCBD) of CBP.

Paramagnetic tagging of diamagnetic proteins for solution NMR.

In this article, approaches towards the paramagnetic tagging of diamagnetic proteins are reviewed. Alignment can be achieved by adding paramagnetic fusion proteins or peptides to the C- or the N-terminus or by attaching paramagnetic tags to Cystein residues. Applications for the study of homodimer structures and protein/ligand interactions, as well as protein domain dynamics, are reviewed.

Two new chiral EDTA-based metal chelates for weak alignment of proteins in solution.

[structure: see text] A short synthesis of EDTA-based metal chelates that can be attached to the cysteine residue of a protein via a disulfide bond is described. The complexes were used after coordination of lanthanides to align trigger factor and apo-calmodulin in solution to yield residual dipolar couplings and pseudocontact shifts. Alignment tensors for the new tags are linearly independent compared to those of previously published tags.

Effect of the solvent on the conformation of a depsipeptide: NMR-derived solution structure of hormaomycin in DMSO from residual dipolar couplings in a novel DMSO-compatible alignment medium.

The macrocyclic compound hormaomycin has been investigated by NMR spectroscopy and by restrained molecular-dynamics simulations. Measurement of residual dipolar couplings induced by dissolving the depsipeptide in a polyacrylamide gel compatible with DMSO and their incorporation into the structure calculation of the title compound improved the precision of the family of structures. In DMSO the macrocyclic ring shows two beta-turns, whose positions in the sequence differ from those found in the CDCl3 solution structure and in the crystal structure obtained from hexylene glycol/H2O (50:50).