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:2018
卷号:115
期号:49
页码:E11475-E11484
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1812555115
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:The cyanobacterial clock proteins KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC form a powerful system to study the biophysical basis of circadian rhythms, because an in vitro mixture of the three proteins is sufficient to generate a robust ∼24-h rhythm in the phosphorylation of KaiC. The nucleotide-bound states of KaiC critically affect both KaiB binding to the N-terminal domain (CI) and the phosphotransfer reactions that (de)phosphorylate the KaiC C-terminal domain (CII). However, the nucleotide exchange pathways associated with transitions among these states are poorly understood. In this study, we integrate recent advances in molecular dynamics methods to elucidate the structure and energetics of the pathway for Mg·ADP release from the CII domain. We find that nucleotide release is coupled to large-scale conformational changes in the KaiC hexamer. Solvating the nucleotide requires widening the subunit interface leading to the active site, which is linked to extension of the A-loop, a structure implicated in KaiA binding. These results provide a molecular hypothesis for how KaiA acts as a nucleotide exchange factor. In turn, structural parallels between the CI and CII domains suggest a mechanism for allosteric coupling between the domains. We relate our results to structures observed for other hexameric ATPases, which perform diverse functions.