Resolução da estrutura tridimensional da lectina de Dioclea violacea Mart para estudo da relação estrutura-função

Abstract

Lectins from subtribe Diocleinae belong to the family from Leguminosae and are characterized by high homology among their amino acid sequences. Despite this high structural similarity the same is not true in the biological activities from this lectin family. Studies show that the modification of a few amino acids can cause large changes in biological activities of these lectins. Thus more detailed understanding of three dimensional structures of these proteins is essential for structure/function analyses. The Dioclea violacea lectin was purified by affinity chromatography on a column of Sephadex G-50. The protein was crystallized in the presence of the ligand X-Man and the crystals were obtained by the vapor diffusion method in hanging drop by sparse matrix. Crystallization kits “Crystal Screen I and II” from Hampton Research were used to obtain protein crystals and the better condition was 33 from kit I4 M sodium formate. The crystal was diffracted to 2.61Å with space group I222 with unit cell dimensions a = 61.34; b = 66.11; c = 106.69Å and α = β = γ = 90º. It was observed the presence of a monomer in asymmetric unit containing 42.04% of solvent in the crystal. The molecular replacement was made using Dioclea rostrata structure (PDB: 2ZBJ). The final refinement obtained Rfactorof 0.23 and Rfree of 0.27 in absence of any amino acid in regions not allowable in Ramachandran plot. The structure of X-Man was co-crystallized and observed perfectly placed in the carbohydrate recognition domain. Regarding the balance of the dimmer-tetramer associations of plant lectins, the lectin from Dioclea violacea has the amino acid HIS 131 and the position of HIS 51 is similar to the same amino acid in Dioclea grandiflora lectin, characterizing these lectins as a tetramer even at low pH. It was made comparisons between the differences in biological activities of other lectins from Diocleainae and the distances of the residues from carbohydrate site. It was observed that differences in biological activities in vasorelaxant effects on vascular smooth muscle are probably related to the distances between the residues that compose the carbohydrate domain.