Intramembrane proteolysis is an important and widespread biochemical mechanism in cell biology: many membrane proteins undergo intramembrane proteolysis to become activated for signal transduction, or to be converted to poorly soluble amyloidal peptides that may cause human disease. The long-term objective of this proposal is to gain a deeper understanding of this mechanism through crystallographic analysis of specific membrane proteins that catalyze the reaction and of their complexes with inhibitors and substrates. Many intramembrane proteases have been recognized as novel and important drug targets for treating infectious and age-related diseases. The current application focuses on GlpG, an E. coli integral membrane protein of the rhomboid serine protease family. Biochemical, mutagenesis and crystallographic experiments are planned to study: (1) how GlpG interacts with class specific inhibitors in order to examine hypothesis that GlpG and other rhomboid proteases use a membrane-embedded Ser-His dyad to directly attack substrate, and to determine features of the protease active site that are important for catalysis;(2) how GlpG interacts with transmembrane substrates through complex structural rearrangements in both proteins, and which factors determine the specificity of this interaction;and (3) the mechanism by which an interesting structural motif regulates protease activity in the membrane. Recent breakthroughs in crystal structure determination of GlpG suggest that this bacterial membrane protein is an excellent model system for studying enzyme action in cell membranes.
Rhomboid family of intramembrane proteases are involved in many biological processes such as growth factor signaling, mitochondria membrane remodeling, apoptosis, and parasite invasion of human host cells (Brossier et al 2005;O?Donnell et al 2006). We use bacterial homolog GlpG as a model system to study their mechanism of action in cell membranes, which will help identifying and refining compounds that can modulate or inhibit their activities.
