What is it about?
Many bacteria are covered in a 'surface layer' or 'S-layer', a chainmail of interlocked proteins that wraps around the cell. In Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, the Sap S-layer forms a protective armor that gives mechanical strength to the bacteria and protects them from damaging environments. The new study gives a detailed view of the tridimensional build-up of the Sap S-layer.
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Why is it important?
It was previously shown that molecules that disrupt the regularly interlocked network of the Sap S-layer result in the lysis of bacteria and could help fight off anthrax disease. In this new study, the authors use a combination of experimental techniques to solve the 3D structure of the Sap S-layer. This helps explain how the Sap building blocks spontaneously come together during S-layer assembly and shows how S-layer disrupting molecules are able to disrupt this intricate network of Sap proteins.
Perspectives
To solve the structure and map the relative contributions of the different protein contacts in the Sap S-layer, the authors used a combination of experimental and computational techniques that combine low-resolution overviews with local high-resolution structural information and with calculated binding strengths and dynamics for the proteins associating in the S-layer. This integrated methodology will be useful for protein complex hard to study by individual techniques, and the S-layer model built in this work gives a good basis for the development and refinement of molecules that disentangle the Sap S-layer and can form future anthrax therapeutics.
Han Remaut
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Architecture of the Sap S-layer of
Bacillus anthracis
revealed by integrative structural biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2415351121.
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