Preliminary X-ray crystallographic studies of UDP-glucose-4-epimerase from Aspergillus nidulans.

UDP-glucose-4-epimerase (GALE) from Aspergillus nidulans was overexpressed in Escherichia coli, purified via His-tag affinity chromatography and cocrystallized with UDP-galactose using the microbatch method. The crystals diffracted to 2.4 Å resolution using synchrotron radiation on the Canadian Light Source 08ID-1 beamline. Examination of the data with d*TREK revealed nonmerohedral twinning, from which a single lattice was ultimately extracted for processing. The final space group was found to be C2, with unit-cell parameters a = 66.13, b = 119.15, c = 161.42 Å, β = 98.48°. An initial structure solution has been obtained via molecular replacement employing human GALE (PDB entry 1hzj) as a template model.