PMID: 12721620 , Related PDB ids: 1OQD, 1OQE

Authors:

Liu Y, Hong X, Kappler J, Jiang L, Zhang R, Xu L, Pan CH, Martin WE, Murphy RC, Shu HB, Dai S, Zhang G

Title:

Ligand-receptor binding revealed by the TNF family member TALL-1.

Journal:

Nature. 2003 May 1;423(6935):49-56.

Abstract:

The tumour necrosis factor (TNF) ligand TALL-1 and its cognate receptors, BCMA, TACI and BAFF-R, were recently identified as members of the TNF superfamily, which are essential factors contributing to B-cell maturation. The functional, soluble fragment of TALL-1 (sTALL-1) forms a virus-like assembly for its proper function. Here we determine the crystal structures of sTALL-1 complexed with the extracellular domains of BCMA and BAFF-R at 2.6 and 2.5 A, respectively. The single cysteine-rich domain of BCMA and BAFF-R both have saddle-like architectures, which sit on the horseback-like surface formed by four coil regions on each individual sTALL-1 monomer. Three novel structural modules, D2, X2 and N, were revealed from the current structures. Sequence alignments, structural modelling and mutagenesis revealed that one disulphide bridge in BAFF-R is critical for determining the binding specificity of the extracellular domain eBAFF-R to TALL-1 instead of APRIL, a closely related ligand of TALL-1, which was confirmed by binding experiments in vitro.