Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Co-evolution of quaternary organization and novel RNA tertiary interactions revealed in the crystal structure of a bacterial protein–RNA toxin–antitoxin system

Rao, F.; Short, F.L.; Voss, J.E.; Blower, T.R.; Orme, A.L.; Whittaker, T.E.; Luisi, B.F.; Salmond, G.P.C.

Co-evolution of quaternary organization and novel RNA tertiary interactions revealed in the crystal structure of a bacterial protein–RNA toxin–antitoxin system Thumbnail


Authors

F. Rao

F.L. Short

J.E. Voss

A.L. Orme

T.E. Whittaker

B.F. Luisi

G.P.C. Salmond



Abstract

Genes encoding toxin–antitoxin (TA) systems are near ubiquitous in bacterial genomes and they play key roles in important aspects of bacterial physiology, including genomic stability, formation of persister cells under antibiotic stress, and resistance to phage infection. The CptIN locus from Eubacterium rectale is a member of the recently-discovered Type III class of TA systems, defined by a protein toxin suppressed by direct interaction with a structured RNA antitoxin. Here, we present the crystal structure of the CptIN protein–RNA complex to 2.2 Å resolution. The structure reveals a new heterotetrameric quaternary organization for the Type III TA class, and the RNA antitoxin bears a novel structural feature of an extended A-twist motif within the pseudoknot fold. The retention of a conserved ribonuclease active site as well as traits normally associated with TA systems, such as plasmid maintenance, implicates a wider functional role for Type III TA systems. We present evidence for the co-variation of the Type III component pair, highlighting a distinctive evolutionary process in which an enzyme and its substrate co-evolve.

Citation

Rao, F., Short, F., Voss, J., Blower, T., Orme, A., Whittaker, T., …Salmond, G. (2015). Co-evolution of quaternary organization and novel RNA tertiary interactions revealed in the crystal structure of a bacterial protein–RNA toxin–antitoxin system. Nucleic Acids Research, 43(19), 9529-9540. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkv868

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 17, 2015
Online Publication Date Sep 8, 2015
Publication Date Oct 30, 2015
Deposit Date Sep 28, 2015
Publicly Available Date Oct 5, 2015
Journal Nucleic Acids Research
Print ISSN 0305-1048
Electronic ISSN 1362-4962
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 43
Issue 19
Pages 9529-9540
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkv868

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (13.3 Mb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.






You might also like



Downloadable Citations