M.Muthu
et al.
(2012).
The crystal structures of dystrophin and utrophin spectrin repeats: implications for domain boundaries.
Plos One,
7,
e40066.
PubMed id: 22911693
The crystal structures of dystrophin and utrophin spectrin repeats: implications for domain boundaries.
M.Muthu,
K.A.Richardson,
A.J.Sutherland-Smith.
ABSTRACT
Dystrophin and utrophin link the F-actin cytoskeleton to the cell membrane via
an associated glycoprotein complex. This functionality results from their domain
organization having an N-terminal actin-binding domain followed by multiple
spectrin-repeat domains and then C-terminal protein-binding motifs. Therapeutic
strategies to replace defective dystrophin with utrophin in patients with
Duchenne muscular dystrophy require full-characterization of both these proteins
to assess their degree of structural and functional equivalence. Here the high
resolution structures of the first spectrin repeats (N-terminal repeat 1) from
both dystrophin and utrophin have been determined by x-ray crystallography. The
repeat structures both display a three-helix bundle fold very similar to one
another and to homologous domains from spectrin, α-actinin and plectin. The
utrophin and dystrophin repeat structures reveal the relationship between the
structural domain and the canonical spectrin repeat domain sequence motif,
showing the compact structural domain of spectrin repeat one to be extended at
the C-terminus relative to its previously defined sequence repeat. These
structures explain previous in vitro biochemical studies in which extending
dystrophin spectrin repeat domain length leads to increased protein stability.
Furthermore we show that the first dystrophin and utrophin spectrin repeats have
no affinity for F-actin in the absence of other domains.