4P1Z

Structure of the MID domain from MIWI

Summary for 4P1Z

• Entry DOI: 10.2210/pdb4p1z/pdb
• Descriptor: Piwi-like protein 1 (2 entities in total)
• Functional Keywords: mid domain, miwi, pirna biogenesis, rna binding protein
• Biological source: Mus musculus (Mouse)
• Cellular location: Cytoplasm : Q9JMB7
• Total number of polymer chains: 4
• Total formula weight: 57603.94

Authors

Cora, E.,McCarthy, A.A.,Pillai, R.S. (deposition date: 2014-02-28, release date: 2014-05-07, Last modification date: 2024-10-23)

Primary citation

Cora, E.,Pandey, R.R.,Xiol, J.,Taylor, J.,Sachidanandam, R.,McCarthy, A.A.,Pillai, R.S.
The MID-PIWI module of Piwi proteins specifies nucleotide- and strand-biases of piRNAs.
Rna, 20:773-781, 2014

PubMed Abstract: Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) guide Piwi Argonautes to suppress transposon activity in animal gonads. Known piRNA populations are extremely complex, with millions of individual sequences present in a single organism. Despite this complexity, specific Piwi proteins incorporate piRNAs with distinct nucleotide- and transposon strand-biases (antisense or sense) of unknown origin. Here, we examined the contribution of structural domains in Piwi proteins toward defining these biases. We report the first crystal structure of the MID domain from a Piwi Argonaute and use docking experiments to show its ability to specify recognition of 5' uridine (1U-bias) of piRNAs. Mutational analyses reveal the importance of 5' end-recognition within the MID domain for piRNA biogenesis in vivo. Finally, domain-swapping experiments uncover an unexpected role for the MID-PIWI module of a Piwi protein in dictating the transposon strand-orientation of its bound piRNAs. Our work identifies structural features that allow distinguishing individual Piwi members during piRNA biogenesis.

PubMed: 24757166
DOI: 10.1261/rna.044701.114

Experimental method

X-RAY DIFFRACTION (2.3 Å)