% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded. This means that in the presence
% of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older.
% Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or
% “biber”.
@ARTICLE{Gushchin:875097,
author = {Gushchin, Ivan and Orekhov, Philipp and Melnikov, Igor and
Polovinkin, Vitaly and Yuzhakova, Anastasia and Gordeliy,
Valentin},
title = {{S}ensor {H}istidine {K}inase {N}ar{Q} {A}ctivates via
{H}elical {R}otation, {D}iagonal {S}cissoring, and
{E}ventually {P}iston-{L}ike {S}hifts},
journal = {International journal of molecular sciences},
volume = {21},
number = {9},
issn = {1422-0067},
address = {Basel},
publisher = {Molecular Diversity Preservation International},
reportid = {FZJ-2020-01800},
pages = {3110 -},
year = {2020},
abstract = {Membrane-embedded sensor histidine kinases (HKs) and
chemoreceptors are used ubiquitously by bacteria and archaea
to percept the environment, and are often crucial for their
survival and pathogenicity. The proteins can transmit the
signal from the sensor domain to the catalytic kinase domain
reliably over the span of several hundreds of angstroms, and
regulate the activity of the cognate response regulator
proteins, with which they form two-component signaling
systems (TCSs). Several mechanisms of transmembrane signal
transduction in TCS receptors have been proposed, dubbed
(swinging) piston, helical rotation, and diagonal
scissoring. Yet, despite decades of studies, there is no
consensus on whether these mechanisms are common for all TCS
receptors. Here, we extend our previous work on Escherichia
coli nitrate/nitrite sensor kinase NarQ. We determined a
crystallographic structure of the sensor-TM-HAMP fragment of
the R50S mutant, which, unexpectedly, was found in a
ligand-bound-like conformation, despite an inability to bind
nitrate. Subsequently, we reanalyzed the structures of the
ligand-free and ligand-bound NarQ and NarX sensor domains,
and conducted extensive molecular dynamics simulations of
ligand-free and ligand-bound wild type and mutated NarQ.
Based on the data, we show that binding of nitrate to NarQ
causes, first and foremost, helical rotation and diagonal
scissoring of the α-helices at the core of the sensor
domain. These conformational changes are accompanied by a
subtle piston-like motion, which is amplified by a switch in
the secondary structure of the linker between the sensor and
TM domains. We conclude that helical rotation, diagonal
scissoring, and piston are simply different degrees of
freedom in coiled-coil proteins and are not mutually
exclusive in NarQ, and likely in other nitrate sensors and
TCS proteins as well.},
cin = {IBI-7},
ddc = {540},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)IBI-7-20200312},
pnm = {552 - Engineering Cell Function (POF3-552)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF3-552},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
pubmed = {pmid:32354084},
UT = {WOS:000535581700081},
doi = {10.3390/ijms21093110},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/875097},
}