Formation of heterodimers between wild type and mutant trp aporepressor polypeptides of Escherichia coli

Abstract

Availability of the three-dimensional structure of the trp repressor of Escherichia coli and a large group of repressor mutants has permitted the identification and analysis of mutants with substitutions of the amino acid residues that from the tryptophan binding pocket. Mutant aporepressors selected for study were overproduced using a multicopy expression plasmid. Equilibrium dialysis with 14 C-tryptophan and purified mutant and wild type aporepressors was employed to determine tryptophan binding constants. The results obtained indicate that replacement of theronine 44 by methionine (TM44) or arginine 84 by histidine (RH84) lowers the affinity for tryptophan approximately two-and four-fold, respectively. Replacement of ariginine 54 by histidine (RH84) or glycine 85 by ariginine (GR85) results in complete loss of tryptophan binding activity. Purified mutant and wild type aporepressors were used in vitro heterodimer studies. The trp repressor of E. coli functions as a stable dimer. A large number of trp repressor mutants prduces defective repressors that are transdominant to the wild type repressor in vivo. The transdominance presumably results from the formation of inactive or slightly active heterodimers between the mutant and wild type polypeptide subunits. An in vitro assay was developed to detect and measure heterodimer formation. Heterodimer formation was thermally induced, and heterodimers were separated on nondenaturing polyacrylamide gels. Aporepressors readily formed heterodimer formation upon treatment at 65°C for 3 minutes. Heterodimer formation was significantly retarded by the presence of the corepressor, L-tryptophan. Indole-3-propionic acid, 5-methyl tryptophan, and other analogs of tryptophan, as well as indole, also inhibited heterodimer formation. These results indicate that the presence of the indole moiety in the corepressor binding pocket increases the stability of the dimer.