Structural Insights into the Redox-Sensing Mechanism of MarR-Type Regulator AbfR

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• 作者：Guijie Liu ; Xing Liu ; Hongjiao Xu ; Xichun Liu ; Hu Zhou ; Zhen Huang ; Jianhua Gan ; Hao ChenLefu Lan ; Cai-Guang Yang
• 刊名：Journal of the American Chemical Society
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 1, 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：139
• 期：4
• 页码：1598-1608
• 全文大小：715K
• ISSN：1520-5126

文摘

As a master redox-sensing MarR-family transcriptional regulator, AbfR participates in oxidative stress responses and virulence regulations in Staphylococcus epidermidis. Here, we present structural insights into the DNA-binding mechanism of AbfR in different oxidation states by determining the X-ray crystal structures of a reduced-AbfR/DNA complex, an overoxidized (Cys13-SO₂H and Cys13-SO₃H) AbfR/DNA, and 2-disulfide cross-linked AbfR dimer. Together with biochemical analyses, our results suggest that the redox regulation of AbfR-sensing displays two novel features: (i) the reversible disulfide modification, but not the irreversible overoxidation, significantly abolishes the DNA-binding ability of the AbfR repressor; (ii) either 1-disulfide cross-linked or 2-disulfide cross-linked AbfR dimer is biologically significant. The overoxidized species of AbfR, resembling the reduced AbfR in conformation and retaining the DNA-binding ability, does not exist in biologically significant concentrations, however. The 1-disulfide cross-linked modification endows AbfR with significantly weakened capability for DNA-binding. The 2-disulfide cross-linked AbfR adopts a very “open” conformation that is incompatible with DNA-binding. Overall, the concise oxidation chemistry of the redox-active cysteine allows AbfR to sense and respond to oxidative stress correctly and efficiently.