Convolutional networks for supervised mining of molecular patterns within cellular context (Nature Methods)

7 Dec 2023

Celebrating 30 years of Structure

Journal Structure was launched in 1993 as the first journal exclusively dedicated to structural biology by our founding academic chief editors, Wayne A. Hendrickson and Carl-Ivar Br€ande´ n, who were later joined by Alan Fersht. Christopher Lima and Andrej Sali became academic chief editors of Structure in 2003, and they were at the helm of the journal for 18 years until stepping down in the autumn 2021.

Structure is now celebrating its 30th birthday with this special anniversary issue. Editors commissioned reviews to highlight recent developments in different areas of structural biology. Sabine Botha and Petra Fromme provide an overview of the current state of serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) research, the impact COVID-19 had on the SFX community, and how scientists adapted to these challenges. Koji Yonekura and his co-workers describe their contributions toward the development of electron 3D crystallography/microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) and highlight applications and current limitations of this method. Vaibhav KumarShukla, Gabriella Heller, and Flemming Hansen discuss the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on biomolecular nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Tuo Wang and his colleagues report how solid-state NMR is used to study the structures of fungaland plant cell walls. Syma Khalid and her co-workers define the term ‘‘computational microbiology’’ and describe state-of-the-art molecular dynamics imulations of bacterial systems.

21 Nov 2023

Soft-landing methods aim to simplify structural biology (Nature)

Linking mass spectrometry with cryo-electron microscopy could transform understanding of complex protein structures — if scientists can show that samples remain intact when they hit their target. In his lecture after winning a share of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, John Fenn described his work as creating “wings for molecular elephants”. Fenn pioneered the use of a method called electrospray ionization (ESI) to make intact proteins — among nature’s beefiest biomolecules — literally fly, transferring them from complex mixtures into gases and then into mass spectrometers for extensive analysis. Alongside the research of co-recipient Koichi Tanaka, Fenn’s work made it possible for scientists to dive deep into the chemical composition — and therefore the sequences, chemical modifications, and molecular partners — of whole proteins, using mass spectrometry.

21 Nov 2023

Identification of motif-based interactions between SARS-CoV-2 protein domains and human peptide ligands pinpoint antiviral targets (Nature Communications)

The virus life cycle depends on host-virus protein-protein interactions, which often involve a disordered protein region binding to a folded protein domain. Here, we used proteomic peptide phage display (ProP-PD) to identify peptides from the intrinsically disordered regions of the human proteome that bind to folded protein domains encoded by the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Eleven folded domains of SARS-CoV-2 proteins were found to bind 281 peptides from human proteins, and affinities of 31 interactions involving eight SARS-CoV-2 protein domains were determined (K_D ∼ 7-300 μM). Key specificity residues of the peptides were established for six of the interactions. Two of the peptides, binding Nsp9 and Nsp16, respectively, inhibited viral replication. Our findings demonstrate how high-throughput peptide binding screens simultaneously identify potential host-virus interactions and peptides with antiviral properties. Furthermore, the high number of low-affinity interactions suggests that overexpression of viral proteins during infection may perturb multiple cellular pathways.

21 Nov 2023

Intrinsic structural dynamics dictate enzymatic activity and inhibition (PNAS)

Enzymes are known to sample various conformations, many of which are critical for their biological function. However, structural characterizations of enzymes predominantly focus on the most populated conformation. As a result, single-point mutations often produce structures that are similar or essentially identical to those of the wild-type enzyme despite large changes in enzymatic activity. Here, we show for mutants of a histone deacetylase enzyme (HDAC8) that reduced enzymatic activities, reduced inhibitor affinities, and reduced residence times are all captured by the rate constants between intrinsically sampled conformations that, in turn, can be obtained independently by solution NMR spectroscopy. Thus, for the HDAC8 enzyme, the dynamic sampling of conformations dictates both enzymatic activity and inhibitor potency. Our analysis also dissects the functional role of the conformations sampled, where specific conformations distinct from those in available structures are responsible for substrate and inhibitor binding, catalysis, and product dissociation. Precise structures alone often do not adequately explain the effect of missense mutations on enzymatic activity and drug potency. Our findings not only assign functional roles to several conformational states of HDAC8 but they also underscore the paramount role of dynamics, which will have general implications for characterizing missense mutations and designing inhibitors.

Convolutional networks for supervised mining of molecular patterns within cellular context (Nature Methods)

More articles

Celebrating 30 years of Structure

Soft-landing methods aim to simplify structural biology (Nature)

Identification of motif-based interactions between SARS-CoV-2 protein domains and human peptide ligands pinpoint antiviral targets (Nature Communications)

Intrinsic structural dynamics dictate enzymatic activity and inhibition (PNAS)