Protein Folding Mediated by an Intramolecular Chaperone: Energy Landscape for Unimolecular Pro-Subtilisin E Maturation

Efficient and precise assembly of polypeptides into native functional states is critical for normal cellular processes. Understanding how a specific structure is encoded in the polypeptide sequence and what drives the structural progression to the native state is essential to deciphering the folding problem. Several prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteins require their propeptide-domains to function as dedicated intramolecular chaperones (IMCs). In this manuscript, we investigate the elementary steps in the IMC mediated maturation of Subtilisin E, a bacterial serine protease, and a prototype for the eukaryotic proprotein convertases (PCs). Through detailed analyses, we have attempted to define the unimolecular folding energy landscape for SbtE to understand how the stabilization of folding intermediates influences the maturation process, an aspect that is difficult to study in eukaryotic PCs. Our studies demonstrate that a rapid hydrophobic collapse precedes acquisition of tertiary structure during the folding of Pro-SbtE and results in formation of a molten-globule like intermediate. Induction of structure within the IMC stabilizes both the molten globule-like folding intermediate and the native state, and appears to expedite initial stages of folding, purely through thermodynamic stabilization of the folded state. While the induced structure does not affect the activation energies in the unimolecular folding reaction, it is detrimental to the autoproteolytic cleavage of the precursor and subsequent release and degradation of the inhibitory IMC-domain since both these stages require some degree of unfolding. Completion of Pro-SbtE maturation results in the formation of a kinetically trapped and extremely stable native state. Hence, our results suggest that the SbtE IMC appears to have evolved to be intrinsically unstructured and to bind with its cognate protease with a specific affinity that is critical for biological regulation.

The putative propeptide of MycP1 in mycobacterial type VII secretion system does not inhibit protease activity but improves protein stability

Mycosin-1 protease(MycP1)is a serine protease anchored to the inner membrane of Mycobacterium tuberculosis,and is essential in virulence factor secretion through the ESX-1 type VII secretion system(T7SS).Bacterial physiology studies demonstrated that MycP1 plays a dual role in the regulation of ESX-1 secretion and virulence,primarily through cleavage of its secretion substrate EspB.MycP1 contains a putative N-terminal inhibitory propeptide and a catalytic triad of Asp-His-Ser,classic hallmarks of a sub-tilase family serine protease.The MycP1 propeptide was previously reported to be initially inactive and activated after prolonged incubation.In this study,we have deter-mined crystal structures of MycP1 with(MycP124-422)and without(MycP1^(63-422))the propeptide,and conducted EspB cleavage assays using the two proteins.Very high struc-tural similarity was observed in the two crystal structures.Interestingly,protease assays demonstrated positive EspB cleavage for both proteins,indicating that the putative propeptide does not inhibit protease activity.Molecu-lar dynamic simulations showed higher rigidity in regions guarding the entrance to the catalytic site in MycP124-422 than in MycP1^(63-422),suggesting that the putative propeptide might contribute to the conformational stability of the active site cleft and surrounding regions.