PMID: 16337652 , Related PDB ids: 2C4B, R2C4BSF

Authors:

Niemann HH, Schmoldt HU, Wentzel A, Kolmar H, Heinz DW

Title:

Barnase fusion as a tool to determine the crystal structure of the small disulfide-rich protein McoEeTI.

Journal:

J Mol Biol. 2006 Feb 10;356(1):1-8. Epub 2005 Nov 21.

Abstract:

We present a fusion system suited to determine the crystal structure of small disulfide-rich proteins. McoEeTI, a hybrid inhibitor cystine knot microprotein, was produced as a soluble fusion to a catalytically inactive variant of the RNAse barnase in Escherichia coli. Functioning as a versatile tag, barnase facilitated purification, crystallization and high-resolution structure determination. Flexibility of the linker region allows for different relative orientations of barnase and the fusion partner in two crystallographically independent molecules and may thereby facilitate crystal packing. Nevertheless, the linker region is well ordered in both molecules. This system may prove more generally useful to determine the crystal structure of peptides and small proteins.