期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1999
卷号：96
期号：14
页码：8178-8183
DOI：10.1073/pnas.96.14.8178
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：PapD is an immunoglobulin-like chaperone that mediates the assembly of P pili in uropathogenic strains of Escherichia coli. It binds and caps interactive surfaces on pilus subunits to prevent their premature associations in the periplasm. We elucidated the structural basis of a mechanism whereby PapD also interacts with itself, capping its own subunit binding surface. Crystal structures of dimeric forms of PapD revealed that this self-capping mechanism involves a rearrangement and ordering of the C2-D2 and F1-G1 loops upon dimerization which might ensure that a stable dimer is not formed in solution in spite of a relatively large dimer interface. An analysis of site directed mutations revealed that chaperone dimerization requires the same surface that is otherwise used to bind subunits.
