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Journal ArticleDOI

Crystal structure of botulinum neurotoxin type A and implications for toxicity.

TLDR
The crystal structure of the entire 1,285 amino acid di-chain neurotoxin was determined and the toxin appears as a hybrid of varied structural motifs and suggests a modular assembly of functional subunits to yield pathogenesis.
Abstract
Botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT/A) is the potent disease agent in botulism, a potential biological weapon and an effective therapeutic drug for involuntary muscle disorders. The crystal structure of the entire 1,285 amino acid di-chain neurotoxin was determined at 3.3 A resolution. The structure reveals that the translocation domain contains a central pair of alpha-helices 105 A long and a approximately 50 residue loop or belt that wraps around the catalytic domain. This belt partially occludes a large channel leading to a buried, negative active site--a feature that calls for radically different inhibitor design strategies from those currently used. The fold of the translocation domain suggests a mechanism of pore formation different from other toxins. Lastly, the toxin appears as a hybrid of varied structural motifs and suggests a modular assembly of functional subunits to yield pathogenesis.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Small-Molecule Quinolinol Inhibitor Identified Provides Protection against BoNT/A in Mice

TL;DR: NSC 84087 is the most potent inhibitor reported so far, found to be a promising lead for therapeutic development, as it exhibits no toxicity, and is able to protect animals from pre and post challenge of botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT/A).
Journal ArticleDOI

Understanding peptide competitive inhibition of botulinum neurotoxin A binding to SV2 protein via molecular dynamics simulations.

TL;DR: The structural stability analysis indicates that BoNT/A‐A2 system is more stable than SV2C‐A3 system and the internal hydrogen bonds play crucial roles in the structural stability of the peptides, which is helpful in understanding the inhibition mechanisms of peptide inhibitors.
Journal ArticleDOI

Immunoprecipitation of native botulinum neurotoxin complexes from Clostridium botulinum subtype A strains.

TL;DR: In this study, BoNT/A subtypes A1, A2, A3, and A5 were examined for the compositions of their TCs in culture extracts using immunoprecipitation (IP), and IP analyses showed that BoNT /A1 and Bo NT/A5 form TC1s, while BoNT and A3 form TC2s, which were more stable than TC2 complexes.
Journal ArticleDOI

Characterization of Clostridium butyricum neurotoxin associated with food-borne botulism.

TL;DR: Investigation of the neurotoxin of Clostridium butyricum strain LCL155 associated with type E food-borne botulism suggests that it shares the receptor-recognition site structurally different from BoNT/E and BuNT/BL5262, perhaps causing a decreased specific toxicity.
Journal Article

Characterization of the monoclonal antibody response to botulinum neurotoxin type A in the complexed and uncomplexed forms.

TL;DR: Investigation of the different binding capabilities of the mAbs to BoNT and the complex toxin by immunoprecipitation suggested that the light chain of BoNT is exposed at the molecular surface of the complex toxins since there was no difference in the binding of light chain-specific mAb to Bo NT and thecomplex toxin.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

MOLSCRIPT: a program to produce both detailed and schematic plots of protein structures

TL;DR: The MOLSCRIPT program as discussed by the authors produces plots of protein structures using several different kinds of representations, including simple wire models, ball-and-stick models, CPK models and text labels.
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Improved methods for building protein models in electron density maps and the location of errors in these models.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe strategies and tools that help to alleviate this problem and simplify the model-building process, quantify the goodness of fit of the model on a per-residue basis and locate possible errors in peptide and side-chain conformations.
Journal ArticleDOI

Protein folding and association: insights from the interfacial and thermodynamic properties of hydrocarbons.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated in this work that the surface tension, water‐organic solvent, transfer‐free energies and the thermodynamics of melting of linear alkanes provide fundamental insights into the nonpolar driving forces for protein folding and protein binding reactions.
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Improved Fourier coefficients for maps using phases from partial structures with errors

TL;DR: In this article, a method is given to estimate the parameter σA in these phase probability expressions from the observed and calculated structure factor amplitudes, from which one can estimate the mean coordinate error for the model, and when there are coordinate errors, a new expression for the non-centric Fourier coefficients is required to suppress this model bias.
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Atomic structure of the ectodomain from HIV-1 gp41

TL;DR: X-ray crystallography determines the structure of the protease-resistant part of a gp41 ectodomain solubilized with a trimeric GCN4 coiled coil in place of the amino-terminal fusion peptide, and suggests a common mechanism for initiating fusion.
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