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Actinoporins are water-soluble proteins with the ability to form pores upon insertion into biological membranes. They constitute a family of proteins with high degree of sequence identities but different hemolytic activities, suggesting that minor conformational arrangements result in major functional changes. A good example of this situation is the sea anemone Stichodactyla helianthus which produces two very similar actinoporins, sticholysins I (StnI) and II (StnII), but of very different hemolytic efficiency. Within this idea, given that the high resolution three-dimensional structure of StnII is already known, we have now solved that one corresponding to StnI in order to analyze the influence of particular residues on the conformation and activity of these proteins. In addition, random mutagenesis has been also used to produce five less hemolytic variants of StnI. All these mutations map to functionally relevant regions because they are probably involved in conformational changes associated with pore formation, which take place after membrane binding, and involve long-distance rearrangements of the polypeptide chain of actinoporins., Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Depto. de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Fac. de Ciencias Químicas, TRUE, pub

Actinoporins are water-soluble proteins with the ability to form pores upon insertion into biological membranes. They constitute a family of proteins with high degree of sequence identities but different hemolytic activities, suggesting that minor conformational arrangements result in major functional changes. A good example of this situation is the sea anemone Stichodactyla helianthus which produces two very similar actinoporins, sticholysins I (StnI) and II (StnII), but of very different hemolytic efficiency. Within this idea, given that the high resolution three-dimensional structure of StnII is already known, we have now solved that one corresponding to StnI in order to analyze the influence of particular residues on the conformation and activity of these proteins. In addition, random mutagenesis has been also used to produce five less hemolytic variants of StnI. All these mutations map to functionally relevant regions because they are probably involved in conformational changes associated with pore formation, which take place after membrane binding, and involve long-distance rearrangements of the polypeptide chain of actinoporins.

Actinoporins are a family of sea anemone proteins that bind to membranes and produce functional pores which result in cell lysis. Actinoporin variants with decreased lytic activity usually show a reduced affinity for membranes. However, for some of these mutant versions there is no direct correlation between the loss of binding affinity and the decrease in their overall lytic activity, suggesting that other steps in pore formation may be hampered or facilitated by the mutations. To test this hypothesis on the mechanism of pore formation by this interesting family of proteins, structural and dynamic NMR studies have been carried out on two disabled variants of the actinoporin Sticholysin II, R29Q and Y111N. It is shown that their lytic activity is not only related to their membrane affinity but also to their conformational mechanism for membrane insertion. Alterations in their activities can be explained by structural, electrostatic and dynamic differences in a cluster of aromatic moieties and the N-terminus. In addition, the dynamic properties of some segments located at the C-terminus of the R29Q variant suggest a relevant role for this region in terms of protein-protein interactions. On the basis of all these results, we propose that R29 anchors a network of electrostatic interactions crucial for the actinoporin's approach to the membrane and that Y111 induces a necessary disorder in the loop regions that bind to membranes. Actinoporins are a family of sea anemone proteins that bind to membranes and produce functional pores. In this work, the structural and dynamic NMR data on two disabled variants of Sticholysin II, R29Q and Y111N, support the importance of a network of electrostatic interactions anchored by R29, and the local disorder at Y111, for actinoporin membrane binding and lysis. © 2011 FEBS.

Several studies have been made to characterize the molecular properties and activity of Sticholysin II (StnII), a 175 amino acid protein secreted by the sea anemone Stichodactyla helianthus. In particular, the biochemical characterization of different mutants of this protein have been shown to be essential for the rational understanding of its activity. Here we report the nearly complete NMR 15N, 13C and 1H chemical shift assignments, at pH 4.0 and 25°C, of a less hemolytic and defective lipid binding mutant of StnII, the R29Q variant (BMRB no 16362).