crambin-protein--crambe-abyssinica and viscotoxin

The complete primary structure of a cytotoxic 5 kDa polypeptide, viscotoxin A1, isolated from Viscum album L., has been determined by combining classical Edman degradation methodology with advanced mass spectrometric procedures. The same integrated approach allowed correction of the sequence of viscotoxin A2 and definition of the pattern of the disulfide bridges. The arrangement of the cysteine pairing was determined as Cys3-Cys40, Cys4-Cys32 and Cys16-Cys26. The primary structure of viscotoxin A1 shares a high degree of similarity with the known viscotoxins and more generally with the plant alpha- and beta-thionins. The pattern of S-S bridges determined for viscotoxin A2 and A1 is similar to that inferred by X-ray and NMR analysis in crambin and related to that present in alpha-purothionin and beta-hordothionin, thus indicating a highly conserved organization of the S-S pairings within the entire family. This arrangement of S-S bridges describes a peculiar structural motif, indicated as 'concentric motif', which is suggested to stabilize a common structure occurring in various small proteins able to interact with cell membranes. The distribution of the new variant toxin in different mistletoe subspecies was investigated. Viscotoxin A1 is abundant in the seeds of the three European subspecies of V. album whereas it represents a minor component in the shoots.

Topics: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides; Cystine; Disulfides; Mass Spectrometry; Mistletoe; Molecular Sequence Data; Plant Preparations; Plant Proteins; Plants, Medicinal; Ribosome Inactivating Proteins, Type 2; Toxins, Biological; Tumor Cells, Cultured

Methods that analyze protein circular dichroism (CD) spectra for fractions of secondary structure are evaluated for the plant protein crambin, which has a known high-resolution crystal structure. In addition, a two-step secondary structure prediction scheme is presented and used for the toxins homologous to crambin, shown by others to have secondary structures similar to crambin. The test of CD spectral analysis methods with the protein crambin employed two computer programs and several CD basis sets. Crambin's crystal structure, known to 0.945A resolution (Hendrickson, W.A., Teeter, M.M. Nature 290:107-113, 1981), allows accurate evaluation of results. Analysis with the protein spectra basis sets (Provencher, S.W., Glöckner, J. Biochemistry 20:33-37, 1981) as modified (Manavalan, P., Johnson, W.C., Jr. Anal. Biochem. 167:76-85, 1987) agreed most closely with crambin's crystal structure. This method was then applied to the CD spectra of the membrane-active toxins homologous to crambin (alpha 1- and beta-purothionin, phoratoxin A and B, and viscotoxin A3 and B). The new program SEQ (pronounced "seek") was developed to assign the secondary structure along the protein chain in a hierarchical fashion and applied to the plant toxins. The method constrained the secondary structure fractions to those from CD analysis and combined standard statistical methods with amphipathic helix location. Both CD-arrived secondary structure percentages and sequence assignment indicate that the viscotoxins are structurally most similar to crambin. Purothionin's secondary structure was predicted to be fundamentally similar to crambin's with a difference at the start of the first helix. This assignment agreed with Raman and NMR analyses of purothionin and lends validity to the method presented here. Differences from the NMR in the CD secondary structure fraction analysis for phoratoxin suggest interference in the CD from tryptophan residues.

Topics: Amino Acid Sequence; Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides; Circular Dichroism; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Molecular Sequence Data; Plant Preparations; Plant Proteins; Ribosome Inactivating Proteins, Type 2; Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; Software; Spectrum Analysis; Spectrum Analysis, Raman; Toxins, Biological

The mistletoe protein toxins ligatoxin, phoratoxins A and B, and viscotoxins A3 and B have been investigated by 1H NMR spectroscopy at 300 and 600 MHz. The five polypeptides define a set of closely related homologues, containing 46 amino acid residues each, in a structure constrained by three cystine bridges. Their methyl and aromatic spectra were analyzed and a number of signals identified and assigned via comparative criteria, two-dimensional chemical-shift correlated spectroscopy, acid-base titration, and proton Overhauser experiments in 1H2O. The spectra indicate a compact globular conformation and a common folding pattern for the toxins. In particular, use was made of well-resolved aliphatic and aromatic resonances in order to compare the mistletoe proteins with the thionins, a set of homologous toxins from gramineae, and with crambin, a closely related polypeptide from a crucifer, which we have previously studied by NMR. We observe that while all the investigated proteins have very similar secondary and tertiary structures, they differ widely in their dynamic characteristics as probed by the amide NH 1H-2H exchange kinetics in deuteriated solvents; thus, while crambin and the thionins exhibit very fast isotope exchange, the kinetics for the mistletoe toxins are slow, with some NH groups showing exchange half-lives that extend up to several days at pH* 5.8 or that are too long to be measurable at ambient temperature. The temperature dependence of the 1H NMR spectrum also indicates that the toxins are endowed with a thermally very stable native (ground-state) structure, with little evidence of large amplitude structural breathings up to approximately 370 K, although irreversible chemical degradation (denaturation) becomes evident at temperatures greater than or equal to 350 K. It is concluded that the mistletoe toxins afford valuable rigid structures for NMR conformational studies.

Topics: Amino Acid Sequence; Disulfides; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Mistletoe; Plant Preparations; Plant Proteins; Plants, Medicinal; Protein Conformation; Ribosome Inactivating Proteins, Type 2; Structure-Activity Relationship; Toxins, Biological

Homologous proteins may fold into similar three-dimensional structures. Spectroscopic evidence suggests this is true for the cereal grain thionins, the mistletoe toxins, and for crambin, three classes of plant proteins. We have combined primary sequence homology and energy minimization to predict the structures alpha 1-purothionin (from Durum wheat) and viscotoxin A3 (from Viscum album, European mistletoe) from the high resolution (0.945 A) crystal structure of crambin (from Crambe abyssinica). Our predictions will be verifiable because we have diffraction-quality crystals of alpha 1-purothionin whose structure we are have predicted. The potential energy minimizations for each protein were performed both with and without harmonic constraints to its initial backbone to explore the existence of local minima for the predicted proteins. Crambin was run as a control to examine the effects of the potential energy minimization on a protein with a well-known structure. Only alpha 1-purothionin which has one fewer residue in a turn region shows a significant difference for the two minimization paths. The results of these predictions suggest that alpha 1-purothionin and viscotoxin are amphipathic proteins, and this character may relate to the mechanism of action for these proteins. Both are mildly membrane-active and their amphipatic character is well suited for interaction with a lipid bilayer.

Topics: Amino Acid Sequence; Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides; Models, Molecular; Molecular Sequence Data; Plant Preparations; Plant Proteins; Protein Conformation; Ribosome Inactivating Proteins, Type 2; Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; Thermodynamics; Toxins, Biological