Department of Structural Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA.
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
J Biol Chem. 2022 Jun;298(6):101994. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2022.101994. Epub 2022 Apr 29.
The mouse intestinal helminth Heligmosomoides polygyrus modulates host immune responses by secreting a transforming growth factor (TGF)-β mimic (TGM), to expand the population of Foxp3 T. TGM comprises five complement control protein (CCP)-like domains, designated D1-D5. Though lacking homology to TGF-β, TGM binds directly to the TGF-β receptors TβRI and TβRII and stimulates the differentiation of naïve T-cells into T. However, the molecular determinants of binding are unclear. Here, we used surface plasmon resonance, isothermal calorimetry, NMR spectroscopy, and mutagenesis to investigate how TGM binds the TGF-β receptors. We demonstrate that binding is modular, with D1-D2 binding to TβRI and D3 binding to TβRII. D1-D2 and D3 were further shown to compete with TGF-β(TβRII) and TGF-β for binding to TβRI and TβRII, respectively. The solution structure of TGM-D3 revealed that TGM adopts a CCP-like fold but is also modified to allow the C-terminal strand to diverge, leading to an expansion of the domain and opening potential interaction surfaces. TGM-D3 also incorporates a long structurally ordered hypervariable loop, adding further potential interaction sites. Through NMR shift perturbations and binding studies of TGM-D3 and TβRII variants, TGM-D3 was shown to occupy the same site of TβRII as bound by TGF-β using both a novel interaction surface and the hypervariable loop. These results, together with the identification of other secreted CCP-like proteins with immunomodulatory activity in H. polygyrus, suggest that TGM is part of a larger family of evolutionarily plastic parasite effector molecules that mediate novel interactions with their host.
鼠肠道寄生虫旋毛虫通过分泌转化生长因子-β模拟物(TGM)来调节宿主免疫反应,从而扩大 Foxp3 T 细胞的种群。TGM 由五个补体控制蛋白(CCP)样结构域组成,分别命名为 D1-D5。虽然与 TGF-β缺乏同源性,但 TGM 可直接与 TGF-β 受体 TβRI 和 TβRII 结合,并刺激幼稚 T 细胞分化为 T 细胞。然而,结合的分子决定因素尚不清楚。在这里,我们使用表面等离子体共振、等温热力学、NMR 光谱学和突变分析来研究 TGM 如何与 TGF-β 受体结合。我们证明结合是模块化的,D1-D2 与 TβRI 结合,D3 与 TβRII 结合。进一步表明,D1-D2 和 D3 分别与 TGF-β(TβRII)和 TGF-β 竞争与 TβRI 和 TβRII 的结合。TGM-D3 的溶液结构表明,TGM 采用 CCP 样折叠,但也经过修饰可使 C 端链发散,从而扩大了结构域并打开潜在的相互作用表面。TGM-D3 还包含一个长的结构上有序的超变环,增加了更多潜在的相互作用位点。通过 NMR 位移扰动和 TGM-D3 与 TβRII 变体的结合研究,表明 TGM-D3 与 TGF-β 结合的相同位置占据 TβRII,同时使用新的相互作用表面和超变环。这些结果,以及在旋毛虫中发现的其他具有免疫调节活性的分泌 CCP 样蛋白,表明 TGM 是一组更大的寄生虫效应分子家族的一部分,这些分子通过与宿主的新型相互作用来介导其功能。