Cryo-EM structure of the yeast TREX complex and coordination with the SR-like protein Gbp2
Abstract
The evolutionarily conserved TREX complex plays central roles during mRNP (messenger ribonucleoprotein) maturation and export from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. In yeast, TREX is composed of the THO sub-complex (Tho2, Hpr1, Tex1, Mft1, and Thp2), the DEAD box ATPase Sub2, and Yra1. Here we present a 3.7 Å cryo-EM structure of the yeast THO•Sub2 complex. The structure reveals the intimate assembly of THO revolving around its largest subunit Tho2. THO stabilizes a semi-open conformation of the Sub2 ATPase via interactions with Tho2. We show that THO interacts with the SR-like protein Gbp2 through both the RS domain and RRM domains of Gbp2. Crosslinking mass spectrometry analysis supports the extensive interactions between THO and Gbp2, further revealing that RRM domains of Gbp2 are in close proximity to the C-terminal domain of Tho2. We propose that THO serves as a landing pad to configure Gbp2 to facilitate its loading onto mRNP.
Data availability
The cryo-EM density maps have been deposited in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank under the accession number EMD-23527. The coordinates of the THO•Sub2 complex has be deposited in the Protein Data Bank under the accession number 7LUV.
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Cryo-EM structure of the yeast THO-Sub2 complexElectron Microscopy Data Bank, EMD-23527.
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Cryo-EM structure of the yeast THO-Sub2 complexProtein Data Bank, 7LUV.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM133743)
- Yihu Xie
- Bradley P Clarke
- Austin L Ivey
- Pate S Hill
- Yi Ren
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM137905)
- Yong Joon Kim
- Yi Shi
National Cancer Institute (T32CA119925)
- Bradley P Clarke
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Karsten Weis, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Version history
- Received: December 12, 2020
- Accepted: March 30, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: March 31, 2021 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: April 13, 2021 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2021, Xie 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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Further reading
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- Cell Biology
- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Previously we showed that 2D template matching (2DTM) can be used to localize macromolecular complexes in images recorded by cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) with high precision, even in the presence of noise and cellular background (Lucas et al., 2021; Lucas et al., 2022). Here, we show that once localized, these particles may be averaged together to generate high-resolution 3D reconstructions. However, regions included in the template may suffer from template bias, leading to inflated resolution estimates and making the interpretation of high-resolution features unreliable. We evaluate conditions that minimize template bias while retaining the benefits of high-precision localization, and we show that molecular features not present in the template can be reconstructed at high resolution from targets found by 2DTM, extending prior work at low-resolution. Moreover, we present a quantitative metric for template bias to aid the interpretation of 3D reconstructions calculated with particles localized using high-resolution templates and fine angular sampling.
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- Plant Biology
- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
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