X-ray analysis of beta B2-crystallin and evolution of oligomeric lens proteins.
Bax, B., Lapatto, R., Nalini, V., Driessen, H., Lindley, P.F., Mahadevan, D., Blundell, T.L., Slingsby, C.(1990) Nature 347: 776-780
- PubMed: 2234050 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/347776a0
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
2BB2 - PubMed Abstract: 
The beta, gamma-crystallins form a class of homologous proteins in the eye lens. Each gamma-crystallin comprises four topologically equivalent, Greek key motifs; pairs of motifs are organized around a local dyad to give domains and two similar domains are in turn related by a further local dyad. Sequence comparisons and model building predicted that hetero-oligomeric beta-crystallins also had internally quadruplicated subunits, but with extensions at the N and C termini, indicating that beta, gamma-crystallins evolved in two duplication steps from an ancestral protein folded as a Greek key. We report here the X-ray analysis at 2.1 A resolution of beta B2-crystallin homodimer which shows that the connecting peptide is extended and the two domains separated in a way quite unlike gamma-crystallin. Domain interactions analogous to those within monomeric gamma-crystallin are intermolecular and related by a crystallographic dyad in the beta B2-crystallin dimer. This shows how oligomers can evolve by conserving an interface rather than connectivity. A further interaction between dimers suggests a model for more complex aggregates of beta-crystallin in the lens.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Department of Crystallography, Birkbeck College, London University, UK.