Barry Elizabeth R, Lovett Janet E, Costa Alessandro, Lea Susan M, Bell Stephen D
MRC Cancer Cell Unit, Hutchison MRC Centre, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 0XZ, United Kingdom.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Jan 27;106(4):1051-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0809192106. Epub 2009 Jan 21.
The minichromosome maintenance (MCM) helicase is the presumptive replicative helicase in archaea and eukaryotes. The archaeal homomultimeric MCM has a two-tier structure. One tier contains the AAA+ motor domains of the proteins, and these are the minimal functional helicase domains. The second tier is formed by the N-terminal domains. These domains are not essential for MCM helicase activity but act to enhance the processivity of the helicase. We reveal that a conserved loop facilitates communication between processivity and motor tiers. Interestingly, this allostery seems to be mediated by interactions between, rather than within, individual protomers in the MCM ring.
微小染色体维持(MCM)解旋酶被认为是古细菌和真核生物中的复制性解旋酶。古细菌的同型多聚体MCM具有两层结构。一层包含蛋白质的AAA+马达结构域,这些是最小的功能性解旋酶结构域。第二层由N端结构域形成。这些结构域对于MCM解旋酶活性并非必需,但起到增强解旋酶持续合成能力的作用。我们发现一个保守环促进了持续合成能力层与马达层之间的通讯。有趣的是,这种变构似乎是由MCM环中各个原体之间而非原体内部的相互作用介导的。