The crystal structure of a bacterial Sufu-like protein defines a novel group of bacterial proteins that are similar to the N-terminal domain of human Sufu

Protein Sci. 2010 Nov;19(11):2131-40. doi: 10.1002/pro.497.

Abstract

Sufu (Suppressor of Fused), a two-domain protein, plays a critical role in regulating Hedgehog signaling and is conserved from flies to humans. A few bacterial Sufu-like proteins have previously been identified based on sequence similarity to the N-terminal domain of eukaryotic Sufu proteins, but none have been structurally or biochemically characterized and their function in bacteria is unknown. We have determined the crystal structure of a more distantly related Sufu-like homolog, NGO1391 from Neisseria gonorrhoeae, at 1.4 Å resolution, which provides the first biophysical characterization of a bacterial Sufu-like protein. The structure revealed a striking similarity to the N-terminal domain of human Sufu (r.m.s.d. of 2.6 Å over 93% of the NGO1391 protein), despite an extremely low sequence identity of ∼15%. Subsequent sequence analysis revealed that NGO1391 defines a new subset of smaller, Sufu-like proteins that are present in ∼200 bacterial species and has resulted in expansion of the SUFU (PF05076) family in Pfam.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Bacterial Proteins / chemistry*
  • Crystallography
  • Humans
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Neisseria gonorrhoeae / chemistry*
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary
  • Repressor Proteins / chemistry*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Sequence Analysis, Protein
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
  • Static Electricity
  • Structural Homology, Protein

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Repressor Proteins
  • SUFU protein, human