Structures of a RAG-like transposase during cut-and-paste transposition.

ABSTRACT: Transposons have had a pivotal role in genome evolution¹ and are believed to be the evolutionary progenitors of the RAG1-RAG2 recombinase², an essential component of the adaptive immune system in jawed vertebrates³. Here we report one crystal structure and five cryo-electron microscopy structures of Transib^4,5, a RAG1-like transposase from Helicoverpa zea, that capture the entire transposition process from the apo enzyme to the terminal strand transfer complex with transposon ends covalently joined to target DNA, at resolutions of 3.0-4.6 Å. These structures reveal a butterfly-shaped complex that undergoes two cycles of marked conformational changes in which the 'wings' of the transposase unfurl to bind substrate DNA, close to execute cleavage, o

SUBMITTER: Liu C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6872938 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature