Structural insights into hormone recognition by the human glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor
Abstract
Glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) is a peptide hormone that exerts crucial metabolic functions by binding and activating its cognate receptor, GIPR. As an important therapeutic target, GIPR has been subjected to intensive structural studies without success. Here, we report the cryo-EM structure of the human GIPR in complex with GIP and a Gs heterotrimer at a global resolution of 2.9 Å. GIP adopts a single straight helix with its N terminus dipped into the receptor transmembrane domain (TMD), while the C-terminus is closely associated with the extracellular domain and extracellular loop 1. GIPR employs conserved residues in the lower half of the TMD pocket to recognize the common segments shared by GIP homologous peptides, while uses non-conserved residues in the upper half of the TMD pocket to interact with residues specific for GIP. These results provide a structural framework of hormone recognition and GIPR activation.
Data availability
Atomic coordinates of the GIP-GIPR-Gs complex have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank under accession code 7DTY and Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB) accession code EMD-30860.All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data files have been provided for Figure 2, Figure 1-figure supplement 1 and Figure 4-figure supplement 4.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Natural Science Foundation of China (81872915)
- Ming-Wei Wang
Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (2019SHZDZX02)
- Eric Xu
Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB37030103)
- Eric Xu
Shanghai Municipality Science and Technology Development Fund (18430711500)
- Ming-Wei Wang
Novo Nordisk-CAS Research Fund (NNCAS-2017-1-CC)
- Dehua Yang
Shanghai Science and Technology Development Foundation (18ZR1447800)
- Dehua Yang
The Young Innovator Association of CAS (2018325)
- Lihua Zhao
SA-SIBS Scholarship Program
- Dehua Yang
- Lihua Zhao
National Natural Science Foundation of China (32071203)
- Lihua Zhao
National Natural Science Foundation of China (81773792)
- Dehua Yang
National Natural Science Foundation of China (81973373)
- Dehua Yang
National Natural Science Foundation of China (21704064)
- Qingtong Zhou
National Science and Technology Major Project of China (2018ZX09735-001)
- Ming-Wei Wang
National Science and Technology Major Project of China (2018ZX09711002-002-005)
- Dehua Yang
National Key Basic Research Program of China (2018YFA0507000)
- Ming-Wei Wang
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (2018YFA0507002)
- Eric Xu
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2021, Zhao 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
-
- 4,219
- views
-
- 723
- downloads
-
- 34
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
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)
Further reading
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
The SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro or Nsp5) is critical for production of viral proteins during infection and, like many viral proteases, also targets host proteins to subvert their cellular functions. Here, we show that the human tRNA methyltransferase TRMT1 is recognized and cleaved by SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. TRMT1 installs the N2,N2-dimethylguanosine (m2,2G) modification on mammalian tRNAs, which promotes cellular protein synthesis and redox homeostasis. We find that Mpro can cleave endogenous TRMT1 in human cell lysate, resulting in removal of the TRMT1 zinc finger domain. Evolutionary analysis shows the TRMT1 cleavage site is highly conserved in mammals, except in Muroidea, where TRMT1 is likely resistant to cleavage. TRMT1 proteolysis results in reduced tRNA binding and elimination of tRNA methyltransferase activity. We also determined the structure of an Mpro-TRMT1 peptide complex that shows how TRMT1 engages the Mpro active site in an uncommon substrate binding conformation. Finally, enzymology and molecular dynamics simulations indicate that kinetic discrimination occurs during a later step of Mpro-mediated proteolysis following substrate binding. Together, these data provide new insights into substrate recognition by SARS-CoV-2 Mpro that could help guide future antiviral therapeutic development and show how proteolysis of TRMT1 during SARS-CoV-2 infection impairs both TRMT1 tRNA binding and tRNA modification activity to disrupt host translation and potentially impact COVID-19 pathogenesis or phenotypes.
-
- Developmental Biology
- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Wnt/β-catenin signaling directs animal development and tissue renewal in a tightly controlled, cell- and tissue-specific manner. In the mammalian central nervous system, the atypical ligand Norrin controls angiogenesis and maintenance of the blood-brain barrier and blood-retina barrier through the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Like Wnt, Norrin activates signaling by binding and heterodimerizing the receptors Frizzled (Fzd) and low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 5 or 6 (LRP5/6), leading to membrane recruitment of the intracellular transducer Dishevelled (Dvl) and ultimately stabilizing the transcriptional coactivator β-catenin. Unlike Wnt, the cystine knot ligand Norrin only signals through Fzd4 and additionally requires the co-receptor Tetraspanin12 (Tspan12); however, the mechanism underlying Tspan12-mediated signal enhancement is unclear. It has been proposed that Tspan12 integrates into the Norrin-Fzd4 complex to enhance Norrin-Fzd4 affinity or otherwise allosterically modulate Fzd4 signaling. Here, we measure direct, high-affinity binding between purified Norrin and Tspan12 in a lipid environment and use AlphaFold models to interrogate this interaction interface. We find that Tspan12 and Fzd4 can simultaneously bind Norrin and that a pre-formed Tspan12/Fzd4 heterodimer, as well as cells co-expressing Tspan12 and Fzd4, more efficiently capture low concentrations of Norrin than Fzd4 alone. We also show that Tspan12 competes with both heparan sulfate proteoglycans and LRP6 for Norrin binding and that Tspan12 does not impact Fzd4-Dvl affinity in the presence or absence of Norrin. Our findings suggest that Tspan12 does not allosterically enhance Fzd4 binding to Norrin or Dvl, but instead functions to directly capture Norrin upstream of signaling.