1jlr: Difference between revisions

[[Image:1jlr.gif|left|200px]]<br /><applet load="1jlr" size="350" color="white" frame="true" align="right" spinBox="true"  

Uracil phosphoribosyltransferase (UPRT) is a member of a large family of salvage and biosynthetic enzymes, the phosphoribosyltransferases, and catalyzes the transfer of ribose 5-phosphate from alpha-d-5-phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate (PRPP) to the N1 nitrogen of uracil. The UPRT from the opportunistic pathogen Toxoplasma gondii represents a promising target for rational drug design, because it can create intracellular, lethal nucleotides from subversive substrates. However, the development of such compounds requires a detailed understanding of the catalytic mechanism. Toward this end we determined the crystal structure of the T. gondii UPRT bound to uracil and cPRPP, a nonhydrolyzable PRPP analogue, to 2.5-A resolution. The structure suggests that the catalytic mechanism is substrate-assisted, and a tetramer would be the more active oligomeric form of the enzyme. Subsequent biochemical studies revealed that GTP binding, which has been suggested to play a role in catalysis by other UPRTs, causes a 6-fold activation of the T. gondii enzyme and strikingly stabilizes the tetramer form. The basis for stabilization was revealed in the 2.45-A resolution structure of the UPRT-GTP complex, whereby residues from three subunits contributed to GTP binding. Thus, our studies reveal an allosteric mechanism involving nucleotide stabilization of a more active, higher order oligomer. Such regulation of UPRT could play a role in the balance of purine and pyrimidine nucleotide pools in the cell.

1JLR is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_protein Single protein] structure of sequence from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii Toxoplasma gondii] with <scene name='pdbligand=PO4:'>PO4</scene> and <scene name='pdbligand=GTP:'>GTP</scene> as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ligands ligands]. Active as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uracil_phosphoribosyltransferase Uracil phosphoribosyltransferase], with EC number [http://www.brenda-enzymes.info/php/result_flat.php4?ecno=2.4.2.9 2.4.2.9] Full crystallographic information is available from [http://oca.weizmann.ac.il/oca-bin/ocashort?id=1JLR OCA].  

[[Category: Bashor, C J.]]

[[Category: Brennan, R G.]]

[[Category: Schumacher, M A.]]

''Page seeded by [http://oca.weizmann.ac.il/oca OCA ] on Thu Feb 21 13:24:03 2008''