Biology subjects

Pellarin, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Pellarin, R..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Kinetic principles of chemical cross-link formation for protein-protein interactions

Proteins play a central role in most biological processes within the cell and deciphering how they interact is key to understand their function. Cross-linking coupled to mass spectrometry is an essential tool for elucidating protein-protein interactions. Despite its importance, we still know surprisingly little about the principles that underlie the process of chemical cross-link formation itself and how it is influenced by different physico-chemical factors. To understand the molecular details of cross-link formation, we have set-up a comprehensive kinetic model and carried out simulations of protein cross-linking on large protein complexes. We dissect the contribution on the cross-link yield of parameters such as amino acid reactivity, cross-linker concentration, and hydrolysis rate. Our model can compute cross-link formation based solely on the structure of a protein complex, thereby enabling realistic predictions for a diverse set of systems. We quantitatively show how cross-links and mono-links are in direct competition and how the hydrolysis rate and abundance of cross-linker and proteins directly influence their relative formation. We show how cross-links and mono-links exist in a "all-against-all" competition due to their simultaneous formation, resulting in a non-intuitive network of inter-dependence. We show that this interdependence is locally confined and mainly limited to direct neighbors or residues in direct vicinity. These results enable us to identify the optimal cross-linker concentration at which the maximal number of cross-links are formed. Taken together, our study establishes a comprehensive kinetic model to quantitatively describe cross-link formation for protein-protein interactions. Significance StatementCross-linking mass spectrometry is an essential tool for elucidating protein-protein interactions, but to date basic principles of the process of cross-link formation are still not understood. We set-up a comprehensive kinetic model and simulate the process of cross-link formation. We quantitatively show how cross- and mono-links are in direct competition and how hydrolysis, concentration of cross-linker and of proteins influence their formation. Taken together, our study quantitatively describes kinetic principles of chemical cross-link formation and identifies optimal conditions for cross-link formation.

biochemistry↗

bioRxiv2023

Rational Prediction of PROTAC-compatible Protein-Protein Interfaces by Molecular Docking

Proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACS) are heterobifunctional ligands that mediate the interaction between a protein target and an E3 ligase, resulting in a ternary complex whose interaction with the ubiquitination machinery leads to target degradation. This technology is emerging as an exciting new avenue for therapeutic development, with several PROTACS currently undergoing clinical trials targeting cancer. Here, we describe a general and computationally efficient methodology combining restraint-based docking, energy-based rescoring, and a filter based on minimal solvent-accessible surface distance to produce PROTAC-compatible PPIs suitable for when there is no a priori known PROTAC ligand. In a benchmark employing a manually curated dataset of 13 ternary complex crystals, we achieved accuracy of 92% when starting from bound structures, and 77% when starting from unbound structures, respectively. Our method only requires that the ligand-bound structures of the monomeric forms of the E3 ligase and target proteins be given to run, making it general, accurate and highly efficient, with the ability to impact early stage PROTAC-based drug design campaigns where no structural information about the ternary complex structure is available.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2020

Automatic building of protein atomic models from cryo-EM density maps using residue co-evolution

Electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) has emerged as a powerful method to obtain three-dimensional (3D) structures of macromolecular complexes at atomic or near-atomic resolution. However, de novo building of atomic models from near-atomic resolution (3-5 [A]) cryo-EM density maps is a challenging task, in particular since poorly resolved side-chain densities hamper sequence assignment by automatic procedures at a lower resolution. Furthermore, segmentation of EM density maps into individual subunits remains a difficult problem when no three-dimensional structures of these subunits exist, or when significant conformational changes occur between the isolated and complexed form of the subunits. To tackle these issues, we have developed a graph-based method to thread most of the C- trace of the protein backbone into the EM density map. The EM density is described as a weighted graph such that the resulting minimum spanning tree encompasses the high-density regions of the map. A pruning algorithm cleans the tree and finds the most probable positions of the C- atoms, using side-chain density when available, as a collection of C- trace fragments. By complementing experimental EM maps with contact predictions from sequence co-evolutionary information, we demonstrate that our approach can correctly segment EM maps into individual subunits and assign amino acids sequence to backbone traces to generate full-atom models.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2018

In situ and high-resolution Cryo-EM structure of the Type VI secretion membrane complex

Bacteria have evolved macromolecular machineries that secrete effectors and toxins to survive and thrive in diverse environments. The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is a contractile machine that is related to Myoviridae phages. The T6SS is composed of a baseplate that contains a spike onto which an inner tube is built, surrounded by a contractile sheath. Unlike phages that are released to and act in the extracellular medium, the T6SS is an intracellular machine inserted in the bacterial membranes by a trans-envelope complex. This membrane complex (MC) comprises three proteins: TssJ, TssL and TssM. We previously reported the low-resolution negative stain electron microscopy structure of the enteroaggregative Escherichia coli MC and proposed a rotational 5-fold symmetry with a TssJ:TssL:TssM stoichiometry of 2:2:2. Here, cryo-electron tomography analysis of the T6SS MC confirmed the 5-fold symmetry in situ and identified the regions of the structure that insert into the bacterial membranes. A high resolution model obtained by single particle cryo-electron microscopy reveals its global architecture and highlights new features: five additional copies of TssJ, yielding a TssJ:TssL:TssM stoichiometry of 3:2:2, a 11-residue loop in TssM, protruding inside the lumen of the MC and constituting a functionally important periplasmic gate, and hinge regions. Based on these data, we revisit the model on the mechanism of action of the MC during T6SS assembly and function.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2017

Simultaneous Determination of Protein Structure and Dynamics Using Cryo-Electron Microscopy

Cryo-electron microscopy is rapidly emerging as a powerful technique to determine the structures of complex macromolecular systems elusive to other techniques. Since many of these systems are highly dynamical, characterising also their movements is a crucial step to unravel their biological functions. To achieve this goal, we report an integrative modelling approach to simultaneously determine structure and dynamics from cryo-electron microscopy density maps. By quantifying the level of noise in the data and dealing with their ensemble-averaged nature, this approach enables the integration of multiple sources of information to model ensembles of structures and infer their populations. We illustrate the method by characterising structure and dynamics of the integral membrane receptor STRA6, thus providing insights into the mechanisms by which it interacts with retinol binding protein and translocates retinol across the membrane.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2017

Multi-scale Bayesian modeling of cryo-electron microscopy density maps

SummaryCryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has become a mainstream technique for determining the structures of complex biological systems. However, accurate integrative structural modeling has been hampered by the challenges in objectively weighing cryo-EM data against other sources of information due to the presence of random and systematic errors, as well as correlations, in the data. To address these challenges, we introduce a Bayesian scoring function that efficiently and accurately ranks alternative structural models of a macromolecular system based on their consistency with a cryo-EM density map and other experimental and prior information. The accuracy of this approach is benchmarked using complexes of known structure and illustrated in three applications: the structural determination of the GroEL/GroES, RNA polymerase II, and exosome complexes. The approach is implemented in the open-source Integrative Modeling Platform (http://integrativemodeling.org), thus enabling integrative structure determination by combining cryo-EM data with other sources of information.\n\nHighlightsO_LIWe present a modeling approach to integrate cryo-EM data with other sources of information\nC_LIO_LIWe benchmark our approach using synthetic data on 21 complexes of known structure\nC_LIO_LIWe apply our approach to the GroEL/GroES, RNA polymerase II, and exosome complexes\nC_LI

bioinformatics↗