Structural and Functional Studies of Gelsolin Family Proteins

• Main Author: Ma, Qing
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för medicinsk biokemi och mikrobiologi 2009
• Subjects: Structural biology; Strukturbiologi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-98226; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:978-91-554-7434-8

The actin cytoskeleton is a complex structure that performs a wide range of cellular functions including: cell locomotion, cytokinesis, chemotaxis, signal transduction and apoptosis. The coordinated assembly and disassembly of actin filaments is controlled by a multitude of proteins (ABPs) in the cell. There are over 160 actin-binding proteins known, which with actin, account for approximately 25% of cellular protein. ABPs are classified to several major groups based on their sequence identity and functions. In this work, we have elucidated the crystal structure of ATP bound gelsolin. We have shown that ATP binding involves the two halves of gelsolin through forming numerous polar and hydrophobic contacts. Amino acid residues that form the ATP-binding sites in inactive gelsolin are widely dispersed in the activated molecule, and hence, ATP binding is disrupted on gelsolin activation. This suggests that binding of ATP may modulate the sensitivity of gelsolin to calcium ions. The structure of human gelsolin domains 1-3 bound to actin revealed a calcium ion bound to domain 2. Here, we demonstrated that only two calcium ions are needed to activate geloslin. We speculate that this domain 2 calcium ion and the one in domain 6 participate in the initial activation of gelsolin. The crystal structure of the activated adseverin C-terminus is highly similar to that of the C-terminus of gelsolin. Comparative analysis suggests that, like the gelsolin C-terminus, adseverin will also contact actin through domain 4 and domain 6. Biochemical experiments, presented here, show that a minimum of one calcium is required for adseverin to depolymerizing actin filaments compared to two calcium for gelsolin. We speculate that this is due to the lack of the C-terminal extension in adseverin. We undertook a comparative analysis of four members of the gelsolin family proteins, gelsolin, adseverin, villin and capG, in the aspects of their calcium binding, pH activation and ATP binding. The results show that only gelsolin and adseverin are able to depolymerize actin filaments at pH < 6 in the absence of calcium ions and only gelsolin bind to ATP.