Type I DNA restriction/modification (RM) enzymes are molecular machines found in the majority of bacterial species. Their early discovery paved the way for the development of genetic engineering. They control (restrict) the influx of foreign DNA via horizontal gene transfer into the bacterium while maintaining sequence-specific methylation (modification) of host DNA. The endonuclease reaction of these enzymes on unmethylated DNA is preceded by bidirectional translocation of thousands of base pairs of DNA toward the enzyme. We present the structures of two type I RM enzymes, EcoKI and EcoR124I, derived using electron microscopy (EM), small-angle scattering (neutron and X-ray), and detailed molecular modeling. DNA binding triggers a large contraction of the open form of the enzyme to a compact form. The path followed by DNA through the complexes is revealed by using a DNA mimic anti-restriction protein. The structures reveal an evolutionary link between type I RM enzymes and type II RM enzymes.

A key step in proliferation of retroviruses is the conversion of their RNA genome to double-stranded DNA, a process catalysed by multifunctional reverse transcriptases (RTs). Dimeric and monomeric RTs have been described, the latter exemplified by the enzyme of Moloney murine leukaemia virus. However, structural information is lacking that describes the substrate binding mechanism for a monomeric RT. We report here the first crystal structure of a complex between an RNA/DNA hybrid substrate and polymerase-connection fragment of the single-subunit RT from xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus, a close relative of Moloney murine leukaemia virus. A comparison with p66/p51 human immunodeficiency virus-1 RT shows that substrate binding around the polymerase active site is conserved but differs in the thumb and connection subdomains. Small-angle X-ray scattering was used to model full-length xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus RT, demonstrating that its mobile RNase H domain becomes ordered in the presence of a substrate—a key difference between monomeric and dimeric RTs.

A nonredundant set of 9081 protein crystal structures in the Protein Data Bank was used to examine the solvent content, the number of polypeptide chains, and the oligomeric states of proteins in crystals as a function of crystal symmetry (as classified by crystal systems and space groups). It was found that there is a correlation between solvent content and crystal symmetry. Surprisingly, proteins crystallizing in lower symmetry systems have lower solvent content compared to those crystallizing in higher symmetry systems. Nevertheless, there is no universal correlation between solvent content and preferences of macromolecules to crystallize in certain space groups. Crystal symmetry as a function of oligomeric state was examined, where trimers, tetramers, and hexamers were found to prefer to crystallize in systems where the oligomer symmetry could be incorporated in the crystal symmetry. Our analysis also shows that the frequency distribution within the enantiomorphous pairs of space groups does not differ significantly, in contrast to previous reports.Keywords: solvent content; Matthews coefficient; protein crystals; oligomerization; space group frequency Supplemental material: see www.proteinscience.orgWater plays an important role in the structure of biomolecules and often influences protein function. Water molecules not only affect protein folding, but also mediate biological processes such as enzymatic reactions and molecular recognition. Information about the fraction of water (solvent) plays a significant role in the X-ray structure determination process. First, knowledge of the solvent content helps to determine the number of molecules in the asymmetric unit (Matthews 1968), which is crucial in early stages of crystal structure determination. Second, an approximate value of solvent content is needed for significant phase improvement by solvent flattening methods (Wang 1985;Leslie 1987;Abrahams and Leslie 1996), which is necessary to resolve the inherent phase ambiguity in single anomalous diffraction (SAD) experiments. For both SAD and MAD (multiwavelength anomalous diffraction) (Hendrickson 1991;Hendrickson et al. 1990), phase improvement by solvent flattening is critical for low resolution data (Kirillova et al. 2007), especially when non-crystallographic symmetry cannot be applied.Matthews (1968) observed that the solvent content in protein crystals ranged from 27% to 65%, with an average of 43%. He also showed that the quantity V M (the Matthews coefficient, defined as the ratio of the volume of the asymmetric unit to the molecular weight of all

Many proteins consist of folded domains connected by regions with higher flexibility. The details of the resulting conformational ensemble play a central role in controlling interactions between domains and with binding partners. Small-Angle Scattering (SAS) is well-suited to study the conformational states adopted by proteins in solution. However, analysis is complicated by the limited information content in SAS data and care must be taken to avoid constructing overly complex ensemble models and fitting to noise in the experimental data. To address these challenges, we developed a method based on Bayesian statistics that infers conformational ensembles from a structural library generated by all-atom Monte Carlo simulations. The first stage of the method involves a fast model selection based on variational Bayesian inference that maximizes the model evidence of the selected ensemble. This is followed by a complete Bayesian inference of population weights in the selected ensemble. Experiments with simulated ensembles demonstrate that model evidence is capable of identifying the correct ensemble and that correct number of ensemble members can be recovered up to high level of noise. Using experimental data, we demonstrate how the method can be extended to include data from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and structural energies of conformers extracted from the all-atom energy functions. We show that the data from SAXS, NMR chemical shifts and energies calculated from conformers can work synergistically to improve the definition of the conformational ensemble.

Creating useful software is a major activity of many scientists, including bioinformaticians. Nevertheless, software development in an academic setting is often unsystematic, which can lead to problems associated with maintenance and long-term availibility. Unfortunately, well-documented software development methodology is difficult to adopt, and technical measures that directly improve bioinformatic programming have not been described comprehensively. We have examined 22 software projects and have identified a set of practices for software development in an academic environment. We found them useful to plan a project, support the involvement of experts (e.g. experimentalists), and to promote higher quality and maintainability of the resulting programs. This article describes 12 techniques that facilitate a quick start into software engineering. We describe 3 of the 22 projects in detail and give many examples to illustrate the usage of particular techniques. We expect this toolbox to be useful for many bioinformatics programming projects and to the training of scientific programmers.

The genetic material of viruses is protected by protein shells that are assembled from a large number of subunits in a process that is efficient and robust. Many of the mechanistic details underpinning efficient assembly of virus capsids are still unknown. The assembly mechanism of hepatitis B capsids has been intensively researched using a truncated core protein lacking the C-terminal domain responsible for binding genomic RNA. To resolve the assembly intermediates of hepatitis B virus (HBV), we studied the formation of nucleocapsids and empty capsids from full-length hepatitis B core proteins, using time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering. We developed a detailed structural model of the HBV capsid assembly process using a combination of analysis with multivariate curve resolution, structural modeling, and Bayesian ensemble inference. The detailed structural analysis supports an assembly pathway that proceeds through the formation of two highly populated intermediates, a trimer of dimers and a partially closed shell consisting of around 40 dimers. These intermediates are on-path, transient and efficiently convert into fully formed capsids. In the presence of an RNA oligo that binds specifically to the C-terminal domain the assembly proceeds via a similar mechanism to that in the absence of nucleic acids. Comparisons between truncated and full-length HBV capsid proteins reveal that the unstructured C-terminal domain has a significant impact on the assembly process and is required to obtain a more complete mechanistic understanding of HBV capsid formation. These results also illustrate how combining scattering information from different time-points during time-resolved experiments can be utilized to derive a structural model of protein self-assembly pathways.

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A complementary approach for studying structural details of complex solid materials formed by symmetrical and unsymmetrical dichalcogenides, which employs both X-ray diffraction (XRD) and solid-state NMR (SS NMR), is presented. The new diagnostic technique allows reversible crystallographic space group change and very subtle distortion of host geometry to be followed during guest migration in the crystal lattice. Bis[6-O,6-O'-(1,2:3,4-diisopropylidene-alpha-D-galactopyranosyl)]thiophosphoryl selenenyl sulfide, a representative of wheel-and-axle host (WAAH) molecules, can be synthesized in the solid state by grinding and gentle heating of disulfide 1 and diselenide 2. Full characterization of disulfide 1 in the solid phase has been reported (J. Org. Chem. 1995, 60, 2549). In the current work, the synthesis and both XRD and SS NMR studies of the isostructural diselenide substrate 2 are presented. A (31)P cross polarization magic angle spinning experiment is employed to follow the progress of synthesis of selenenyl sulfide 3 in the solid state. It is concluded that selenenyl sulfide exists in equilibrium with disulfide and diselenide in a 1:1:1 ratio in both the liquid and the powdered solid. A mixture of isostructural dichalcogenides crystallized from different solvents form three-component host-guest inclusion complexes with columnar architecture. In the host-guest complex of diselenide 2 with toluene (space group C2), columns of host molecules are in parallel orientations along all the axes, whereas in the structures of diselenide 2 with propan-2-ol and propan-1-ol (space group P3 2), the columns of host molecules lay along the 3-fold symmetry axis. Thermal processes effecting structural changes in the host lattice and the kinetics of reversible guest molecule diffusion were investigated using SS NMR spectroscopy. Finally, the Se/S scrambling phenomenon and limitations in the X-ray structure refinement of organic compounds containing selenium and sulfur in chains are discussed.