CryoEM and computer simulations reveal a novel kinase conformational switch in bacterial chemotaxis signaling

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.08419
• Publication Date: 2015-11-19T12:48:27Z
• Authors: C Keith Cassidy; Benjamin A Himes; Frances J Alvarez; Jun Ma; Gongpu Zhao; Juan R Perilla; Klaus Schulten; Peijun Zhang
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; QH301-705.5; Science; Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics; Q; R; cryo-electron tomography; bacterial chemotaxis; 03 medical and health sciences; molecular dynamics simulation; Medicine; sub-tomogram; lipid monolayer; Biology (General); cross-linking

Chemotactic responses in bacteria require large, highly ordered arrays of sensory proteins to mediate the signal transduction that ultimately controls cell motility. A mechanistic understanding of the molecular events underlying signaling, however, has been hampered by the lack of a high-resolution structural description of the extended array. Here, we report a novel reconstitution of the array, involving the receptor signaling domain, histidine kinase CheA, and adaptor protein CheW, as well as a density map of the core-signaling unit at 11.3 Å resolution, obtained by cryo-electron tomography and sub-tomogram averaging. Extracting key structural constraints from our density map, we computationally construct and refine an atomic model of the core array structure, exposing novel interfaces between the component proteins. Using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, we further reveal a distinctive conformational change in CheA. Mutagenesis and chemical cross-linking experiments confirm the importance of the conformational dynamics of CheA for chemotactic function.