| Literature DB >> 35146137 |
Masahiro Kuramochi1,2,3, Yige Dong2, Yue Yang2, Tatsuya Arai2, Rio Okada2, Yoichi Shinkai4, Motomichi Doi4, Kouki Aoyama5, Hiroshi Sekiguchi5, Kazuhiro Mio3, Sakae Tsuda3, Yuji C Sasaki2,3,5.
Abstract
The dynamic properties of protein molecules are involved in the relationship between their structure and function. Time-resolved X-ray observation enables capturing the structures of biomolecules with picometre-scale precision. However, this technique has yet to be implemented in living animals. Here, we examined diffracted X-ray blinking (DXB) and diffracted X-ray tracking (DXT) to observe the dynamics of a protein located on intestinal cells in adult Caenorhabditis elegans. This in vivo tissue-specific DXB was examined at temperatures from 20 °C to -10 °C for a recombinant ice-binding protein from Antarctomyces psychrotrophicus (AnpIBP) connected with the cells through a transmembrane CD4 protein equipped with a glycine-serine linker. AnpIBP inhibits ice growth at subzero temperatures by binding to ice crystals. We found that the rotational motion of AnpIBP decreases at -10 °C. In contrast, the motion of the AnpIBP mutant, which has a defective ice-binding ability, did not decrease at -10 °C. The twisting and tilting motional speeds of AnpIBPs measured above 5 °C by DXT were always higher than those of the defective AnpIBP mutant. These results suggest that wild-type AnpIBP is highly mobile in solution, and it is halted at subzero temperatures through ice binding. DXB and DXT allow for exploring protein behaviour in live animals with subnano resolution precision.Entities:
Keywords: C. elegans; Diffracted X-ray blinking (DXB); Diffracted X-ray tracking (DXT); Ice-binding protein
Year: 2022 PMID: 35146137 PMCID: PMC8819013 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbrep.2022.101224
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Biochem Biophys Rep ISSN: 2405-5808
Fig. 1Labelling of gold nanocrystals for X-ray molecular observation in C. elegans.
(a) Intestine within C. elegans. (b) Schematic illustration of gold nanocrystal labelling for CD4 and the target protein complex on the intestinal cell membrane. Gold nanocrystals are labelled through thiol sites on CD4. (c) DXB measurement system with a cooling stage. Hundreds of worms were placed between polyamide films and set in a sample holder. (d) X-ray diffraction images. The images were integrated from the 2000 images with 200 ms exposure. The arrows represent the Au(111) diffraction ring. (e) Diffraction intensity of Au(111) in each sample. Wild-type N2 animals were used as the control data. N = 5. Student's t-test was performed to compare the CD4-expressing worms and wild-type animals. **p < 0.01. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Fig. 2Diffracted X-ray blinking (DXB) for AnpIBPs motion in C. elegans.
(a) Structure of AnpIBP and the T156Y mutant. (b) Schematic illustration of DXB for observation of the CD4:AnpIBP complex on intestinal cells in live worms. (c) Single pixel (sp) autocorrelation function (ACF) analysis. The time-resolved intensity of single pixels is analysed by sp-ACF. (d) Mean ACF curves in AnpIBP and a defective AnpIBP mutant in C. elegans. (e) Boxplot of the ACF decay constant. The boxes show the median and first and third quartiles. The nonparametric Brunner–Munzel test was performed to compare the two samples. *p < 0.05. n.s. represents no significance. (f) Schematic illustration of the AnpIBP-ice complex.
Fig. 3Quantitative analyses of AnpIBP motion in C. elegans with diffracted X-ray tracking (DXT).
(a) Schematic illustration of DXT measurement. Diffraction spots moving in the θ and χ directions represent the tilting and twisting motions of protein molecules. (b) The DXT setup with pink–beam X-rays in the BL40XU beamline. The diffraction spots were recorded by a CMOS camera with an imaging intensifier for X-ray to light transformation. The sample holders were placed in a heating and cooling chamber. The sample temperature was controlled by a custom-made heating and cooling stage. (c) Probability density of diffraction spot movement for the θ and χ directions at 25 °C. Histograms of all conditions were fitted by a Gaussian distribution. (d) Internal motion probability density maps of AnpIBPs based on Fig. 3c. (e) The graph for θ/χ motion vs. temperature. (f) Angular displacement of θ vs. angular displacement of χ. The red circle indicates wild-type AnpIBP. The blue triangle indicates the AnpIBP mutant. These plots were obtained from the θ and χ motions at 5 °C, 15 °C, 25 °C, 35 °C and 45 °C. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)