Structural basis for allosteric control of the SERCA-Phospholamban membrane complex by Ca2+ and phosphorylation

Abstract

Phospholamban (PLN) is a mini-membrane protein that directly controls the cardiac Ca2+-transport response to b-adrenergic stimulation, thus modulating cardiac output during the fight-or-flight response. In the sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane, PLN binds to the sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA), keeping this enzyme's function within a narrow physiological window. PLN phosphorylation by cAMP-dependent protein kinase A or increase in Ca2+ concentration reverses the inhibitory effects through an unknown mechanism. Using oriented-sample solid-state NMR spectroscopy and replica-averaged NMR-restrained structural refinement, we reveal that phosphorylation of PLN;s cytoplasmic regulatory domain signals the disruption of several inhibitory contacts at the transmembrane binding interface of the SERCA-PLN complex that are propagated to the enzyme;s active site, augmenting Ca2+ transport. Our findings address long-standing questions about SERCA regulation, epitomizing a signal transduction mechanism operated by posttranslationally modified bitopic membrane proteins.

Data availability

Here are the links/codes for data deposited:BMRB:50718:Monomeric phospholamban in oriented bicelles;50719:Monomeric phosphorylated phospholamban in oriented bicelles;50720:Phospholamban bound to SERCA in oriented bicelles (calcium-free E2 state);50721:Phospholamban bound to SERCA in oriented bicelles (calcium-bound E1 state);50722:Phosphorylated phospholamban bound to SERCA in oriented bicelles(calcium-free E2 state);50723:Phosphorylated phospholamban bound to SERCA in oriented bicelles(calcium-bound E1 state).And the link to DRUM:https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/218010

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Daniel K Weber

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. U Venkateswara Reddy

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Songlin Wang

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Erik K Larsen

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Tata Gopinath

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Martin B Gustavsson

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Razvan L Cornea

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. David D Thomas

    Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8822-2040
  9. Alfonso De Simone

    Division of Molecular Biosciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8789-9546
  10. Gianluigi Veglia

    Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States
    For correspondence
    vegli001@umn.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2795-6964

Funding

National Institutes of Health (GM064742)

  • Gianluigi Veglia

National Institutes of Health (HL144100)

  • Gianluigi Veglia

National Institutes of Health (HL139065)

  • David D Thomas

National Institutes of Health (AG026160)

  • Razvan L Cornea

European Commission (BioDisOrder - 819644)

  • Alfonso De Simone

American Heart Association (19POST34420009)

  • Daniel K Weber

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Volker Dötsch, Goethe University, Germany

Version history

  1. Received: January 4, 2021
  2. Accepted: May 10, 2021
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: May 12, 2021 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: June 7, 2021 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2021, Weber 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

  • 1,718
    Page views
  • 293
    Downloads
  • 8
    Citations

Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Crossref, PubMed Central, Scopus.

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. Daniel K Weber
  2. U Venkateswara Reddy
  3. Songlin Wang
  4. Erik K Larsen
  5. Tata Gopinath
  6. Martin B Gustavsson
  7. Razvan L Cornea
  8. David D Thomas
  9. Alfonso De Simone
  10. Gianluigi Veglia
(2021)
Structural basis for allosteric control of the SERCA-Phospholamban membrane complex by Ca2+ and phosphorylation
eLife 10:e66226.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66226

Further reading

    1. Cell Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Bronwyn A Lucas, Benjamin A Himes, Nikolaus Grigorieff
    Research Advance

    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.

    1. Plant Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Jinping Lu, Ingo Dreyer ... Rainer Hedrich
    Research Article

    To fire action-potential-like electrical signals, the vacuole membrane requires the two-pore channel TPC1, formerly called SV channel. The TPC1/SV channel functions as a depolarization-stimulated, non-selective cation channel that is inhibited by luminal Ca2+. In our search for species-dependent functional TPC1 channel variants with different luminal Ca2+ sensitivity, we found in total three acidic residues present in Ca2+ sensor sites 2 and 3 of the Ca2+-sensitive AtTPC1 channel from Arabidopsis thaliana that were neutral in its Vicia faba ortholog and also in those of many other Fabaceae. When expressed in the Arabidopsis AtTPC1-loss-of-function background, wild-type VfTPC1 was hypersensitive to vacuole depolarization and only weakly sensitive to blocking luminal Ca2+. When AtTPC1 was mutated for these VfTPC1-homologous polymorphic residues, two neutral substitutions in Ca2+ sensor site 3 alone were already sufficient for the Arabidopsis At-VfTPC1 channel mutant to gain VfTPC1-like voltage and luminal Ca2+ sensitivity that together rendered vacuoles hyperexcitable. Thus, natural TPC1 channel variants exist in plant families which may fine-tune vacuole excitability and adapt it to environmental settings of the particular ecological niche.