Anchanee Sangcharoen. Investigation of molecular stabilization in the conserved regions of the Bacillus thuringiensis Cry4B toxin . Master's Degree(Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2003.
Investigation of molecular stabilization in the conserved regions of the Bacillus thuringiensis Cry4B toxin
Abstract:
Among the Bacillus thuringiensis Cry toxins, there are five highly conserved blocks of amino acid sequence in three functional domains, which are believed to play an important role for structural folding and stabilization. To investigate a contribution of the conserved residues in these blocks of the Cry4B toxin, the mutants, R251A,
D259N, Y267F, T285V, H466Y, D470N, K487A, R627A and E629Q, were constructed using the mutant toxin which has no internal cleavage in the α5-α6 loop, R203Q, as a template. The generated mutant toxins were expressed as a 130-kDa protoxin under IPTG induction. Most of the mutants were expressed in a comparable level to the template. The mutant toxins, R251A, H466Y and D470N were soluble in carbonate buffer pH 9.8 and produced the 65-kDa active form under trypsin processing. The stabilizing free energy values of R203Q template, R251A, H466Y and D470N obtained from a chemical unfolding experiment under GuHCl titration are 23.72, 24.98, 23.39 and 23.38 kcal/mole, respectively. The results implied that these mutants still adopted the native-like structure. The other mutants, D259N, Y267F,
T285V, K487A, and R627A, were obtained as insoluble products in the native buffer. For E629Q, it was found as soluble protoxin but gave no product of a 65-kDa protein. These results suggested that the stabilizing interactions provided by these residues have critical contributions in protein folding and molecular stabilization. These stabilizing interactions were identified by using the Cry4B X-ray structure as an electrostatic interaction and hydrogen bonding that occur among the residues of
conserved blocks"