Mechanism of Iron-Dependent Repressor (IdeR) activation and DNA binding: a molecular dynamics and protein structure network study

Ghosh, Soma ; Chandra, Nagasuma ; Vishveshwara, Saraswathi (2015) Mechanism of Iron-Dependent Repressor (IdeR) activation and DNA binding: a molecular dynamics and protein structure network study PLoS Computational Biology, 11 (12). Article ID e1004500. ISSN 1553-734X

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Official URL: http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=1...

Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004500

Abstract

Metalloproteins form a major class of enzymes in the living system that are involved in crucial biological functions such as catalysis, redox reactions and as ‘switches’ in signal transductions. Iron dependent repressor (IdeR) is a metal-sensing transcription factor that regulates free iron concentration in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. IdeR is also known to promote bacterial virulence, making it an important target in the field of therapeutics. Mechanistic details of how iron ions modulate IdeR such that it dimerizes and binds to DNA is not understood clearly. In this study, we have performed molecular dynamic simulations and integrated it with protein structure networks to study the influence of iron on IdeR structure and function. A significant structural variation between the metallated and the non-metallated system is observed. Our simulations clearly indicate the importance of iron in stabilizing its monomeric subunit, which in turn promotes dimerization. However, the most striking results are obtained from the simulations of IdeR-DNA complex in the absence of metals, where at the end of 100ns simulations, the protein subunits are seen to rapidly dissociate away from the DNA, thereby forming an excellent resource to investigate the mechanism of DNA binding. We have also investigated the role of iron as an allosteric regulator of IdeR that positively induces IdeR-DNA complex formation. Based on this study, a mechanistic model of IdeR activation and DNA binding has been proposed.

Item Type:Article
Source:Copyright of this article belongs to Public Library of Science.
ID Code:112599
Deposited On:17 Apr 2018 09:27
Last Modified:17 Apr 2018 09:27

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