Abstract
Diphtheria Toxin (DT) is a 535 amino acid exotoxin, whose active form consists of two polypeptide chains linked by an interchain disulphide bond. DT's N-terminal A fragment kills cells by enzymatically inactivating their protein synthetic machinery; its C terminal B chain is required for the binding of toxin to sensitive cells and for the translocation of the A fragment into the cytosol. This B fragment, consisting of its N-terminal T domain (amino acids 191-386) and its C-terminal R domain (amino acids 387-535) is responsible for the ion-conducting channels formed by DT in lipid bilayers and cellular plasma membranes. To further delineate the channel-forming region of DT, we studied channels formed by deletion mutants of DT in lipid bilayer membranes under several pH conditions. Channels formed by mutants containing only the T domain (i.e., lacking the A fragment and/or the R domain), as well as those formed by mutants replacing the R domain with Interleukin-2 (Il-2), have single channel conductances and selectivities essentially identical to those of channels formed by wild-type DT. Furthermore, deleting the N-terminal 118 amino acids of the T domain also has minimal effect on the single channel conductance and selectivity of the mutant channels. Together, these data identify a 61 amino acid stretch of the T domain, corresponding to the region which includes α-helices TH8 and TH9 in the crystal structure of DT, as the channel-forming region of the toxin.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 17-28 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | The Journal of Membrane Biology |
Volume | 137 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1994 |
Keywords
- Channel-forming peptides
- Diphtheria toxin
- Ion channels
- Planar lipid bilayers
- Site-directed mutagenesis
- T-domain
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biophysics
- Physiology
- Cell Biology