Molecular mechanism of activation-triggered subunit exchange in Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II

  1. Moitrayee Bhattacharyya
  2. Margaret M Stratton
  3. Catherine C Going
  4. Ethan D McSpadden
  5. Yongjian Huang
  6. Anna C Susa
  7. Anna Elleman
  8. Yumeng Melody Cao
  9. Nishant Pappireddi
  10. Pawel Burkhardt
  11. Christine L Gee
  12. Tiago Barros
  13. Howard Schulman
  14. Evan R Williams
  15. John Kuriyan  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of California, Berkeley, United States
  2. University of Massachusetts at Amherst, United States
  3. Stanford University, United States
  4. Smith College, United States
  5. Marine Biological Association, United States
  6. Allosteros Therapeutics, United States

Abstract

Activation triggers the exchange of subunits in Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), an oligomeric enzyme that is critical for learning, memory, and cardiac function. The mechanism by which subunit exchange occurs remains elusive. We show that the human CaMKII holoenzyme exists in dodecameric and tetradecameric forms, and that the calmodulin(CaM)-binding element of CaMKII can bind to the hub of the holoenzyme and destabilize it to release dimers. The structures of CaMKII from two distantly diverged organisms suggest that the CaM-binding element of activated CaMKII acts as a wedge by docking at intersubunit interfaces in the hub. This converts the hub into a spiral form that can release or gain CaMKII dimers. Our data reveal a three-way competition for the CaM-binding element, whereby phosphorylation biases it towards the hub interface, away from the kinase domain and calmodulin, thus unlocking the ability of activated CaMKII holoenzymes to exchange dimers with unactivated ones.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Moitrayee Bhattacharyya

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Margaret M Stratton

    Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Catherine C Going

    Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Ethan D McSpadden

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Yongjian Huang

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Anna C Susa

    Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Anna Elleman

    Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Palo Alto, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Yumeng Melody Cao

    Department of Physics, Smith College, Northampton, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Nishant Pappireddi

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  10. Pawel Burkhardt

    The Laboratory, Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  11. Christine L Gee

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  12. Tiago Barros

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  13. Howard Schulman

    Allosteros Therapeutics, Sunnyvale, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  14. Evan R Williams

    Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  15. John Kuriyan

    Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    For correspondence
    kuriyan@berkeley.edu
    Competing interests
    John Kuriyan, Senior editor, eLife.

Copyright

© 2016, Bhattacharyya et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 6,262
    views
  • 1,260
    downloads
  • 95
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Moitrayee Bhattacharyya
  2. Margaret M Stratton
  3. Catherine C Going
  4. Ethan D McSpadden
  5. Yongjian Huang
  6. Anna C Susa
  7. Anna Elleman
  8. Yumeng Melody Cao
  9. Nishant Pappireddi
  10. Pawel Burkhardt
  11. Christine L Gee
  12. Tiago Barros
  13. Howard Schulman
  14. Evan R Williams
  15. John Kuriyan
(2016)
Molecular mechanism of activation-triggered subunit exchange in Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II
eLife 5:e13405.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13405

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13405

Further reading

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Physics of Living Systems
    Debabrata Dey, Shir Marciano ... Gideon Schreiber
    Research Article

    For drugs to be active they have to reach their targets. Within cells this requires crossing the cell membrane, and then free diffusion, distribution, and availability. Here, we explored the in-cell diffusion rates and distribution of a series of small molecular fluorescent drugs, in comparison to proteins, by microscopy and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). While all proteins diffused freely, we found a strong correlation between pKa and the intracellular diffusion and distribution of small molecule drugs. Weakly basic, small-molecule drugs displayed lower fractional recovery after photobleaching and 10- to-20-fold slower diffusion rates in cells than in aqueous solutions. As, more than half of pharmaceutical drugs are weakly basic, they, are protonated in the cell cytoplasm. Protonation, facilitates the formation of membrane impermeable ionic form of the weak base small molecules. This results in ion trapping, further reducing diffusion rates of weakly basic small molecule drugs under macromolecular crowding conditions where other nonspecific interactions become more relevant and dominant. Our imaging studies showed that acidic organelles, particularly the lysosome, captured these molecules. Surprisingly, blocking lysosomal import only slightly increased diffusion rates and fractional recovery. Conversely, blocking protonation by N-acetylated analogues, greatly enhanced their diffusion and fractional recovery after FRAP. Based on these results, N-acetylation of small molecule drugs may improve the intracellular availability and distribution of weakly basic, small molecule drugs within cells.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    Bikash Adhikari, Katharina Schneider ... Elmar Wolf
    Research Article

    The development of proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs), which induce the degradation of target proteins by bringing them into proximity with cellular E3 ubiquitin ligases, has revolutionized drug development. While the human genome encodes more than 600 different E3 ligases, current PROTACs use only a handful of them, drastically limiting their full potential. Furthermore, many PROTAC development campaigns fail because the selected E3 ligase candidates are unable to induce degradation of the particular target of interest. As more and more ligands for novel E3 ligases are discovered, the chemical effort to identify the best E3 ligase for a given target is exploding. Therefore, a genetic system to identify degradation-causing E3 ligases and suitable target/E3 ligase pairs is urgently needed. Here, we used the well-established dimerization of the FKBP12 protein and FRB domain by rapamycin to bring the target protein WDR5 into proximity with candidate E3 ligases. Strikingly, this rapamycin-induced proximity assay (RiPA) revealed that VHL, but not Cereblon, is able to induce WDR5 degradation - a finding previously made by PROTACs, demonstrating its predictive power. By optimizing the steric arrangement of all components and fusing the target protein with a minimal luciferase, RiPA can identify the ideal E3 for any target protein of interest in living cells, significantly reducing and focusing the chemical effort in the early stages of PROTAC development.