Conformational analysis of isolated domains of Helicobacter pylori CagA

PLoS One. 2013 Nov 1;8(11):e79367. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079367. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

The CagA protein of Helicobacter pylori is associated with increased virulence and gastric cancer risk. CagA is translocated into the host cell by a H. pylori type IV secretion system via mechanisms that are poorly understood. Translocated CagA interacts with numerous host factors, altering a variety of host signalling pathways. The recently determined crystal structure of C-terminally-truncated CagA indicated the presence of two domains: the smaller, flexible N-terminal domain and the larger, middle domain. In this study, we have investigated the conformation, oligomeric state and stability of the N-terminal, middle and glutamate-proline-isoleucine-tyrosine-alanine (EPIYA)-repeats domains. All three domains are monomeric, suggesting that the multimerisation of CagA observed in infected cells is likely to be mediated not by CagA itself but by its interacting partners. The middle and the C-terminal domains, but not the N-terminal domain, are capable of refolding spontaneously upon heat denaturation, lending support to the hypothesis that unfolded CagA is threaded C-terminus first through the type IV secretion channel with its N-terminal domain, which likely requires interactions with other domains to refold, being threaded last. Our findings also revealed that the C-terminal EPIYA-repeats domain of CagA exists in an intrinsically disordered premolten globule state with regions in PPII conformation--a feature that is shared by many scaffold proteins that bind multiple protein components of signalling pathways. Taken together, these results provide a deeper understanding of the physicochemical properties of CagA that underpin its complex cellular and oncogenic functions.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Antigens, Bacterial / chemistry*
  • Antigens, Bacterial / metabolism
  • Bacterial Proteins / chemistry*
  • Bacterial Proteins / metabolism
  • Crystallography, X-Ray
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Protein Denaturation
  • Protein Multimerization
  • Protein Stability
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary
  • Proteolysis
  • Repetitive Sequences, Amino Acid
  • Temperature

Substances

  • Antigens, Bacterial
  • Bacterial Proteins
  • cagA protein, Helicobacter pylori

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Monash University Strategic Grant Scheme, www.monash.edu. AR is an Australian Research Council Research Fellow (DP1094619), http://www.arc.gov.au/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.