Large protein organelles form a new iron sequestration system with high storage capacity
- Harvard Medical School, United States
- Harvard University, United States
Abstract
Iron storage proteins are essential for cellular iron homeostasis and redox balance. Ferritin proteins are the major storage units for bioavailable forms of iron. Some organisms lack ferritins, and it is not known how they store iron. Encapsulins, a class of protein-based organelles, have recently been implicated in microbial iron and redox metabolism. Here, we report the structural and mechanistic characterization of a 42 nm two-component encapsulin-based iron storage compartment from Quasibacillus thermotolerans. Using cryo-electron microscopy and x-ray crystallography, we reveal the assembly principles of a thermostable T = 4 shell topology and its catalytic ferroxidase cargo and show interactions underlying cargo-shell co-assembly. This compartment has an exceptionally large iron storage capacity storing over 23,000 iron atoms. Our results reveal a new approach for survival in diverse habitats with limited or fluctuating iron availability via an iron storage system able to store 10 to 20 times more iron than ferritin.
Data availability
A cryo-EM density map of the cargo-loaded IMEF encapsulin has been deposited in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank under the accession number 9383. The corresponding atomic coordinates for the atomic model have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank (accession number: 6NJ8). Atomic coordinates for the IMEF cargo protein have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank under accession number 6N63.
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Encapsulin iron storage compartment from Quasibacillus thermotoleransProtein Data Bank, 6NJ8.
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Crystal structure of an Iron binding proteinProtein Data Bank, 6N63.
Article and author information
Author details
Andrew A Verdegaal
Melissa G Chambers
Funding
German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (LPDS 2014-05)
- Tobias W Giessen
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (5506)
- Tobias W Giessen
- Pamela A Silver
Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
- Tobias W Giessen
- Pamela A Silver
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2019, Giessen 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.
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Large protein organelles form a new iron sequestration system with high storage capacity
eLife 8:e46070.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.46070
