Understanding the role of dynamics in the iron sulfur cluster molecular machine.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The bacterial proteins IscS, IscU and CyaY, the bacterial orthologue of frataxin, play an essential role in the biological machine that assembles the prosthetic FeS cluster groups on proteins. They form functionally binary and ternary complexes both in vivo and in vitro. Yet, the mechanism by which they work remains unclear.

Methods

We carried out extensive molecular dynamics simulations to understand the nature of their interactions and the role of dynamics starting from the crystal structure of a IscS-IscU complex and the experimentally-based model of a ternary IscS-IscU-CyaY complex and used nuclear magnetic resonance to experimentally test the interface.

Results

We show that, while being firmly anchored to IscS, IscU has a pivotal motion around the inte

SUBMITTER: di Maio D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5176006 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature