The E. coli helicase does not use ATP during replication.

The replisome is responsible for replication of DNA in all domains of life, with several of its individual enzyme components relying on hydrolysis of nucleoside triphosphates to provide energy for replisome function. Half a century of biochemical studies have demonstrated a dependence on ATP as an energy source for helicases to unwind duplex DNA during replication. Through single-molecule visualization of DNA replication by the Escherichia coli replisome, we demonstrate that the DnaB helicase does not rely on hydrolysis of ATP (or any ribo-NTPs) in the context of the elongating replisome. We establish that nucleotide incorporation by the leading-strand polymerase is the main motor driving the replication process.

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Functional expression of the eukaryotic proton pump rhodopsin OmR2 in Escherichia coli and its photochemical characterization

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-94181-w ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Masuzu Kikuchi ◽

Keiichi Kojima ◽

Shin Nakao ◽

Susumu Yoshizawa ◽

Shiho Kawanishi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Escherichia Coli ◽

Proton Pump ◽

Expression System ◽

Spectroscopic Characterization ◽

Functional Expression ◽

Proton Pumping ◽

E Coli ◽

Oxyrrhis Marina ◽

Domains Of Life

AbstractMicrobial rhodopsins are photoswitchable seven-transmembrane proteins that are widely distributed in three domains of life, archaea, bacteria and eukarya. Rhodopsins allow the transport of protons outwardly across the membrane and are indispensable for light-energy conversion in microorganisms. Archaeal and bacterial proton pump rhodopsins have been characterized using an Escherichia coli expression system because that enables the rapid production of large amounts of recombinant proteins, whereas no success has been reported for eukaryotic rhodopsins. Here, we report a phylogenetically distinct eukaryotic rhodopsin from the dinoflagellate Oxyrrhis marina (O. marina rhodopsin-2, OmR2) that can be expressed in E. coli cells. E. coli cells harboring the OmR2 gene showed an outward proton-pumping activity, indicating its functional expression. Spectroscopic characterization of the purified OmR2 protein revealed several features as follows: (1) an absorption maximum at 533 nm with all-trans retinal chromophore, (2) the possession of the deprotonated counterion (pKa = 3.0) of the protonated Schiff base and (3) a rapid photocycle through several distinct photointermediates. Those features are similar to those of known eukaryotic proton pump rhodopsins. Our successful characterization of OmR2 expressed in E. coli cells could build a basis for understanding and utilizing eukaryotic rhodopsins.

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Roles of the C-Terminal Amino Acids of Non-Hexameric Helicases: Insights from Escherichia coli UvrD

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms22031018 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 1018

Author(s):

Hiroaki Yokota

Keyword(s):

Escherichia Coli ◽

Amino Acids ◽

Amino Acid ◽

Single Molecule ◽

Underlying Mechanism ◽

Amino Acid Sequences ◽

E Coli ◽

X Ray Crystallography ◽

Terminal Amino

Helicases are nucleic acid-unwinding enzymes that are involved in the maintenance of genome integrity. Several parts of the amino acid sequences of helicases are very similar, and these quite well-conserved amino acid sequences are termed “helicase motifs”. Previous studies by X-ray crystallography and single-molecule measurements have suggested a common underlying mechanism for their function. These studies indicate the role of the helicase motifs in unwinding nucleic acids. In contrast, the sequence and length of the C-terminal amino acids of helicases are highly variable. In this paper, I review past and recent studies that proposed helicase mechanisms and studies that investigated the roles of the C-terminal amino acids on helicase and dimerization activities, primarily on the non-hexermeric Escherichia coli (E. coli) UvrD helicase. Then, I center on my recent study of single-molecule direct visualization of a UvrD mutant lacking the C-terminal 40 amino acids (UvrDΔ40C) used in studies proposing the monomer helicase model. The study demonstrated that multiple UvrDΔ40C molecules jointly participated in DNA unwinding, presumably by forming an oligomer. Thus, the single-molecule observation addressed how the C-terminal amino acids affect the number of helicases bound to DNA, oligomerization, and unwinding activity, which can be applied to other helicases.

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Fast and efficient Rmap assembly using the Bi-labelled de Bruijn graph

Algorithms for Molecular Biology ◽

10.1186/s13015-021-00182-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Kingshuk Mukherjee ◽

Massimiliano Rossi ◽

Leena Salmela ◽

Christina Boucher

Keyword(s):

Single Molecule ◽

De Bruijn Graph ◽

Anabas Testudineus ◽

E Coli ◽

Genome Wide ◽

A Genome ◽

De Bruijn ◽

Optical Maps ◽

Definition Of ◽

Numeric Representation

AbstractGenome wide optical maps are high resolution restriction maps that give a unique numeric representation to a genome. They are produced by assembling hundreds of thousands of single molecule optical maps, which are called Rmaps. Unfortunately, there are very few choices for assembling Rmap data. There exists only one publicly-available non-proprietary method for assembly and one proprietary software that is available via an executable. Furthermore, the publicly-available method, by Valouev et al. (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103(43):15770–15775, 2006), follows the overlap-layout-consensus (OLC) paradigm, and therefore, is unable to scale for relatively large genomes. The algorithm behind the proprietary method, Bionano Genomics’ Solve, is largely unknown. In this paper, we extend the definition of bi-labels in the paired de Bruijn graph to the context of optical mapping data, and present the first de Bruijn graph based method for Rmap assembly. We implement our approach, which we refer to as rmapper, and compare its performance against the assembler of Valouev et al. (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103(43):15770–15775, 2006) and Solve by Bionano Genomics on data from three genomes: E. coli, human, and climbing perch fish (Anabas Testudineus). Our method was able to successfully run on all three genomes. The method of Valouev et al. (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103(43):15770–15775, 2006) only successfully ran on E. coli. Moreover, on the human genome rmapper was at least 130 times faster than Bionano Solve, used five times less memory and produced the highest genome fraction with zero mis-assemblies. Our software, rmapper is written in C++ and is publicly available under GNU General Public License at https://github.com/kingufl/Rmapper.

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Carboxylic Ester Hydrolases in Bacteria: Active Site, Structure, Function and Application

Crystals ◽

10.3390/cryst9110597 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (11) ◽

pp. 597 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Changsuk Oh ◽

T. Doohun Kim ◽

Kyeong Kyu Kim

Keyword(s):

Acyl Chain ◽

Data Bank ◽

Industrial Applications ◽

Head Group ◽

Carboxylic Ester ◽

Site Structure ◽

Domains Of Life ◽

Carboxylic Esters ◽

Hydrolysis Of ◽

Ester Hydrolases

Carboxylic ester hydrolases (CEHs), which catalyze the hydrolysis of carboxylic esters to produce alcohol and acid, are identified in three domains of life. In the Protein Data Bank (PDB), 136 crystal structures of bacterial CEHs (424 PDB codes) from 52 genera and metagenome have been reported. In this review, we categorize these structures based on catalytic machinery, structure and substrate specificity to provide a comprehensive understanding of the bacterial CEHs. CEHs use Ser, Asp or water as a nucleophile to drive diverse catalytic machinery. The α/β/α sandwich architecture is most frequently found in CEHs, but 3-solenoid, β-barrel, up-down bundle, α/β/β/α 4-layer sandwich, 6 or 7 propeller and α/β barrel architectures are also found in these CEHs. Most are substrate-specific to various esters with types of head group and lengths of the acyl chain, but some CEHs exhibit peptidase or lactamase activities. CEHs are widely used in industrial applications, and are the objects of research in structure- or mutation-based protein engineering. Structural studies of CEHs are still necessary for understanding their biological roles, identifying their structure-based functions and structure-based engineering and their potential industrial applications.

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Studying Binding, Conformational Transition and Assembly of E. Coli Cytolysin a Pore Forming Toxin by Single Molecule Fluorescence

Biophysical Journal ◽

10.1016/j.bpj.2016.11.2833 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 112 (3) ◽

pp. 524a

Author(s):

Pradeep Sathyanarayana ◽

Satyaghosh Maurya ◽

Ganapathy Ayappa ◽

Sandhya S. Visweswariah ◽

Rahul Roy

Keyword(s):

Single Molecule ◽

Conformational Transition ◽

Single Molecule Fluorescence ◽

E Coli

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Application of RtcB ligase to monitor self-cleaving ribozyme activity by RNA-seq

Biological Chemistry ◽

10.1515/hsz-2021-0408 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

V. Janett Olzog ◽

Lena I. Freist ◽

Robin Goldmann ◽

Jörg Fallmann ◽

Christina E. Weinberg

Keyword(s):

Rna Seq ◽

Site Specific ◽

Pyrococcus Horikoshii ◽

Total Rna ◽

E Coli ◽

Catalytic Rnas ◽

Adapter Ligation ◽

Domains Of Life ◽

Cyclic Phosphate ◽

A Site

Abstract Self-cleaving ribozymes are catalytic RNAs and can be found in all domains of life. They catalyze a site-specific cleavage that results in a 5′ fragment with a 2′,3′ cyclic phosphate (2′,3′ cP) and a 3′ fragment with a 5′ hydroxyl (5′ OH) end. Recently, several strategies to enrich self-cleaving ribozymes by targeted biochemical methods have been introduced by us and others. Here, we develop an alternative strategy in which 5ʹ OH RNAs are specifically ligated by RtcB ligase, which first guanylates the 3′ phosphate of the adapter and then ligates it directly to RNAs with 5′ OH ends. Our results demonstrate that adapter ligation to highly structured ribozyme fragments is much more efficient using the thermostable RtcB ligase from Pyrococcus horikoshii than the broadly applied Escherichia coli enzyme. Moreover, we investigated DNA, RNA and modified RNA adapters for their suitability in RtcB ligation reactions. We used the optimized RtcB-mediated ligation to produce RNA-seq libraries and captured a spiked 3ʹ twister ribozyme fragment from E. coli total RNA. This RNA-seq-based method is applicable to detect ribozyme fragments as well as other cellular RNAs with 5ʹ OH termini from total RNA.

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Synthetic Riboswitches for the Analysis of tRNA Processing by eukaryotic RNase P Enzymes

RNA ◽

10.1261/rna.078814.121 ◽

2022 ◽

pp. rna.078814.121

Author(s):

Anna Ender ◽

Nadine Grafl ◽

Tim Kolberg ◽

Sven Findeiss ◽

Peter F. Stadler ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

Rnase P ◽

Single Stranded Region ◽

Domains Of Life ◽

The Individual ◽

The Impact ◽

Individual Enzyme ◽

Trna Precursor

Removal of the 5' leader region is an essential step in the maturation of tRNA molecules in all domains of life. This reaction is catalyzed by various RNase P activities, ranging from ribonucleoproteins with ribozyme activity to protein-only forms. In Escherichia coli, the efficiency of RNase P mediated cleavage can be controlled by computationally designed riboswitch elements in a ligand-dependent way, where the 5' leader sequence of a tRNA precursor is either sequestered in a hairpin structure or presented as a single-stranded region accessible for maturation. In the presented work, the regulatory potential of such artificial constructs is tested on different forms of eukaryotic RNase P enzymes – two protein-only RNase P enzymes (PRORP1 and PRORP2) from Arabidopsis thaliana and the ribonucleoprotein of Homo sapiens. The PRORP enzymes were analyzed in vitro as well as in vivo in a bacterial RNase P complementation system. We also tested in HEK293T cells whether the riboswitches remain functional with human nuclear RNase P. While the regulatory principle of the synthetic riboswitches applies for all tested RNase P enzymes, the results also show differences in the substrate requirements of the individual enzyme versions. Hence, such designed RNase P riboswitches represent a novel tool to investigate the impact of the structural composition of the 5'-leader on substrate recognition by different types of RNase P enzymes.

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