Department of Biomedicine, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
MRC Centre for Medical Mycology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
Protein Sci. 2024 Jul;33(7):e5071. doi: 10.1002/pro.5071.
Tuberculosis necrotizing toxin (TNT) is a protein domain discovered on the outer membrane of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), and the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. TNT domains have pure NAD(P) hydrolytic activity, setting them apart from other NAD-cleaving domains such as ADP-ribosyl cyclase and Toll/interleukin-1 receptor homology (TIR) domains which form a wider set of products. Importantly, the Mtb TNT domain has been shown to be involved in immune evasion via depletion of the intracellular NAD pool of macrophages. Therefore, an intriguing hypothesis is that TNT domains act as "NAD killers" in host cells facilitating pathogenesis. Here, we explore the phylogenetic distribution of TNT domains and detect their presence solely in bacteria and fungi. Within fungi, we discerned six TNT clades. In addition, X-ray crystallography and AlphaFold2 modeling unveiled clade-specific strategies to promote homodimer stabilization of the fungal enzymes, namely, Ca binding, disulfide bonds, or hydrogen bonds. We show that dimer stabilization is a requirement for NADase activity and that the group-specific strategies affect the active site conformation, thereby modulating enzyme activity. Together, these findings reveal the evolutionary lineage of fungal TNT enzymes, corroborating the hypothesis of them being pure extracellular NAD (eNAD) cleavers, with possible involvement in microbial warfare and host immune evasion.
结核分枝杆菌坏死毒素(TNT)是一种在结核分枝杆菌(Mtb)和真菌病原体烟曲霉的外膜上发现的蛋白结构域。TNT 结构域具有纯 NAD(P)水解活性,与其他 NAD 裂解结构域(如 ADP-ribosyl cyclase 和 Toll/白细胞介素-1 受体同源(TIR)结构域)区分开来,后者形成了更广泛的产物集。重要的是,已经表明 Mtb TNT 结构域通过耗尽巨噬细胞细胞内 NAD 池来参与免疫逃避。因此,一个有趣的假设是,TNT 结构域在宿主细胞中充当“NAD 杀手”,促进发病机制。在这里,我们探索了 TNT 结构域的系统发育分布,并仅在细菌和真菌中检测到它们的存在。在真菌中,我们辨别出六个 TNT 分支。此外,X 射线晶体学和 AlphaFold2 建模揭示了真菌酶同源二聚体稳定的特定分支策略,即 Ca 结合、二硫键或氢键。我们表明二聚体稳定是 NADase 活性的要求,并且组特异性策略影响活性位点构象,从而调节酶活性。总之,这些发现揭示了真菌 TNT 酶的进化谱系,证实了它们是纯细胞外 NAD(eNAD)裂解酶的假说,可能参与微生物战争和宿主免疫逃避。
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