@phdthesis{Schoenwetter2021,
  author    = {Sch{\"o}nwetter, Elisabeth Sofie},
  title     = {Towards an understanding of the intricate interaction network of TFIIH},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-16892},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-168926},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {The integrity of its DNA is fundamental for every living cell. However, DNA is constantly threatened by exogenous and endogenous damaging agents that can cause a variety of different DNA lesions. The severe consequences of an accumulation of DNA lesions are reflected in cancerogenesis and aging. Several DNA repair mechanisms ensure the repair of DNA lesions and thus maintain DNA integrity. One of these DNA repair mechanisms is nucleotide excision repair (NER), which is famous for its ability to address a large variety of structurally unrelated DNA lesions. A key component of eukaryotic NER is the transcription factor II H (TFIIH) complex, which is not only essential for DNA repair but also for transcription. The TFIIH complex is composed of ten subunits. How these subunits work together during NER to unwind the DNA around the lesion is, however, not yet fully understood. High-resolution structural data and biochemical insights into the function of every subunit are thus indispensable to understand the functional networks within TFIIH. The importance of an intact TFIIH complex is reflected in the severe consequences of patient mutations in the TFIIH subunits XPB, XPD or p8 leading to the hallmark diseases xeroderma pigmentosum, Cockayne syndrome and trichothiodystrophy. Defects in the NER pathway are further associated with several types of cancer including skin cancer. The herein described work focused on five TFIIH subunits derived from the thermophilic fungus Chaetomium thermophilum, the p34/p44 pair and the ternary XPB/p52/p8 complex. The interaction between p34 and p44 was characterized based on a high-resolution structure of the p34_vWA/p44_RING minimal complex. Biochemical studies of the p34/p44 interaction led to the disclosure of an additional interaction between the p34 and p44 subunits, which had not been characterized so far. The p34/p44 interaction was shown to be central to TFIIH, which justifies the presence of several redundant interfaces to safeguard the interaction between the two proteins and might explain why so far, no patient mutations in these subunits have been identified. The p52 subunit of TFIIH was known to be crucial to stimulate the ATPase activity of XPB, which is required during NER. This work presents the first entire atomic resolution structural characterization of p52, which was derived of several crystal structures of p52 variants and a p52/p8 variant thereby demonstrating the interaction between p52 and p8. The precise structural model of p52 offered the possibility to investigate interactions with other TFIIH subunits in more detail. The middle domain 2 of p52 and the N-terminal domain of XPB were shown to mediate the main interaction between the two subunits. An analysis of the p52 crystal structures within recently published cryo-electron microscopy structures of TFIIH provides a model of how p52 and p8 stimulate the ATPase activity of XPB, which is essential for NER and transcription. The structural and biochemical findings of this work provide an additional building block towards the uncovering of the architecture and function of this essential transcription factor.},
  subject      = {DNS-Reparatur},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Schaefer2014,
  author    = {Sch{\"a}fer, Christin Marliese},
  title     = {Approaching antimicrobial resistance - Structural and functional characterization of the fungal transcription factor Mrr1 from Candida albicans and the bacterial ß-ketoacyl-CoA thiolase FadA5 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-108400},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {The number of fungal infections is rising in Germany and worldwide. These infections are mainly caused by the opportunistic fungal pathogen C. albicans, which especially harms immunocompromised people. With increasing numbers of fungal infections, more frequent and longer lasting treatments are necessary and lead to an increase of drug resistances, for example against the clinically applied therapeutic fluconazole. Drug resistance in C. albicans can be mediated by the Multidrug resistance pump 1 (Mdr1), a membrane transporter belonging to the major facilitator family. However, Mdr1-mediated fluconazole drug resistance is caused by the pump's regulator, the transcription factor Mrr1 (Multidrug resistance regulator 1). It was shown that Mrr1 is hyperactive without stimulation or further activation in resistant strains which is due to so called gain of function mutations in the MRR1 gene. To understand the mechanism that lays behind this constitutive activity of Mrr1, the transcription factor should be structurally and functionally (in vitro) characterized which could provide a basis for successful drug development to target Mdr1-mediated drug resistance caused by Mrr1. Therefore, the entire 1108 amino acid protein was successfully expressed in Escherichia coli. However, further purification was compromised as the protein tended to form aggregates, unsuitable for crystallization trials or further characterization experiments. Expression trials in the eukaryote Pichia pastoris neither yielded full length nor truncated Mrr1 protein. In order to overcome the aggregation problem, a shortened variant, missing the N-terminal 249 amino acids named Mrr1 '250', was successfully expressed in E. coli and could be purified without aggregation. Similar to the wild type Mrr1 '250', selected gain of function variants were successfully cloned, expressed and purified with varying yields and with varying purity. The Mrr1 `250' construct contains most of the described regulatory domains of Mrr1. It was used for crystallization and an initial comparative analysis between the wild type protein and the variants. The proposed dimeric form of the transcription factor, necessary for DNA binding, could be verified for both, the wild type and the mutant proteins. Secondary structure analysis by circular dichroism measurements revealed no significant differences in the overall fold of the wild type and variant proteins. In vitro, the gain of function variants seem to be less stable compared to the wild type protein, as they were more prone to degradation. Whether this observation holds true for the full length protein's stability in vitro and in vivo remains to be determined. The crystallization experiments, performed with the Mrr1 '250' constructs, led to few small needle shaped or cubic crystals, which did not diffract very well and were hardly reproducible. Therefore no structural information of the transcription factor could be gained so far. Infections with M. tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, are the leading cause of mortality among bacterial diseases. Especially long treatment times, an increasing number of resistant strains and the prevalence of for decades persisting bacteria create the necessity for new drugs against this disease. The cholesterol import and metabolism pathways were discovered as promising new targets and interestingly they seem to play an important role for the chronic stage of the tuberculosis infection and for persisting bacteria. In this thesis, the 3-ketoacyl-CoA thiolase FadA5 from M. tuberculosis was characterized and the potential for specifically targeting this enzyme was investigated. FadA5 catalyzes the last step of the β-oxidation reaction in the side-chain degradation pathway of cholesterol. We solved the three dimensional structure of this enzyme by X-ray crystallography and obtained two different apo structures and three structures in complex with acetyl-CoA, CoA and a hydrolyzed steroid-CoA, which is the natural product of FadA5. Analysis of the FadA5 apo structures revealed a typical thiolase fold as it is common for biosynthetic and degradative enzymes of this class for one of the structures. The second apo structure showed deviations from the typical thiolase fold. All obtained structures show the enzyme as a dimer, which is consistent with the observed dimer formation in solution. Thus the dimer is likely to be the catalytically active form of the enzyme. Besides the characteristic structural fold, the catalytic triad, comprising two cysteines and one histidine, as well as the typical coenzyme A binding site of enzymes belonging to the thiolase class could be identified. The two obtained apo structures differed significantly from each other. One apo structure is in agreement with the characteristic thiolase fold and the well-known dimer interface could be identified in our structure. The same characteristics were observed in all complex structures. In contrast, the second apo structure followed the thiolase fold only partially. One subdomain, spanning 30 amino acids, was in a different orientation. This reorientation was caused by the formation of two disulfide bonds, including the active site cysteines, which rendered the enzyme inactive. The disulfide bonds together with the resulting domain swap still permitted dimer formation, yet with a significantly shifted dimer interface. The comparison of the apo structures together with the preliminary activity analysis performed by our collaborator suggest, that FadA5 can be inactivated by oxidation and reactivated by reduction. If this redox switch is of biological importance requires further evaluation, however, this would be the first reported example of a bacterial thiolase employing redox regulation. Our obtained complex structures represent different stages of the thiolase reaction cycle. In some complex structures, FadA5 was found to be acetylated at the catalytic cysteine and it was in complex with acetyl-CoA or CoA. These structures, together with the FadA5 structure in complex with a hydrolyzed steroid-CoA, revealed important insights into enzyme dynamics upon ligand binding and release. The steroid-bound structure is as yet a unique example of a thiolase enzyme interacting with a complex ligand. The characterized enzyme was used as platform for modeling studies and for comparison with human thiolases. These studies permitted initial conclusions regarding the specific targetability of FadA5 as a drug target against M. tuberculosis infection, taking the closely related human enzymes into account. Additional analyses led to the proposal of a specific lead compound based on the steroid and ligand interactions within the active site of FadA5.},
  subject      = {Multidrug-Resistenz},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Sauer2011,
  author    = {Sauer, Florian},
  title     = {Structural studies on the association of filamentous proteins in the human M-Bands},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-72410},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {Cross-striated muscles enable higher animals to perform directed movements and to create mechanical force. The cells of heart and skeletal muscles consist of myofibrils, serial arrays of the smallest contractile subunits, the sarcomeres. Main components of the sarcomeres are the thin and thick filaments, large protein assemblies consisting of mainly actin (thin filaments) and myosin (thick filaments), whose energy-dependent interaction is responsible for the contraction of sarcomeres and so of the whole muscle. The thin filaments are anchored in the sarcomere bordering Z-discs, while the thick filaments are anchored in the M-bands, traverse structures in the sarcomere center. Electron-microscopic studies revealed that the M-bands consist of regular, lattice-like structures that appear to cross-link the thick filaments. A number of proteins could be identified by immune-fluorescence and biochemical binding studies to be present and interact with each other in the M-bands. These data have been integrated into preliminary models of the M-bands. Detailed knowledge of how these proteins interact with each other in the center of the sarcomeres is, however, largely missing. The current study focuses on the structural characterization of the interactions between the titin, myomesin-1, obscurin and obscurin-like 1 (OBSL1), modular filamentous proteins interacting with each other in the M-bands. The high-resolution crystal structure of the titin M10 - OBSL1 Ig1 complex was solved. The structure and additional biophysical data show that titin and OBSL1 as well as titin and obscurin form stable binary complexes through the formation of a small intermolecular ß-sheet. In contrast to previously characterized intermolecular assemblies of sarcomeric proteins, this sheet is formed between parallel non- homologous ß-strands of the interaction partners. The investigation of disease-related variants of the M10 domain by biophysical methods did not allow to draw unambiguous conclusions on a direct connection between impaired OBSL1/obscurin binding and disease development. Two out of four known M10 variants have effects on the correct domain folding and so interfere with the ability to bind obscurin/OBSL1. The two other known variants displayed however only minor effects on fold and binding affinities. It should therefore be further elucidated whether a direct connection between impaired complex formation and disease development exists. -I- Abstract A direct interaction between titin and myomesin-1 could not be confirmed in vitro. Possible explanations for the different results are discussed. While the consequences of the inability of both proteins to interact are unclear, the further characterization of the putative interacting parts of titin and myomesin-1 led to the discovery of two new potential sites of self-assembly on M-band titin and myomesin-1. The crystal structure of titin M4 showed that this domain can form dimeric assemblies through the formation of a disulfide bridge and an intermolecular metal binding site between residues that are unique to this domain. On myomesin-1, in addition to the described C-terminal interaction site, a potential second site of self-assembly was found in its central Fn3-domain segment. The interacting site was mapped to the predicted Fn3 domain My5. The crystal structure of the domain in its dimeric form showed that the interaction is mediated by a mechanism that has previously not been observed in sarcomeric proteins. Two My5 interact with each other by the mutual exchange of an N-terminal ß-strand which complements the Fn3 fold on the binding partner. This type of interaction can be interpreted as misfolding. However, the position of the interacting domain and its mode of interaction allowed the postulation of a model of how myomesin-1 could be integrated in the M-bands. This model is in good agreement with the electron-microscopic appearance of the M-bands.},
  subject      = {Muskelkontraktion},
  language  = {en}
}