Recombinant Yeast Aha1 [His]

Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is an ATP-dependent molecular chaperone responsible for the activation, maturation, and trafficking of several hundred client proteins in the cell. It is well known that (but not understood how) residues far away from Hsp90's nucleotide binding pocket can regulate its ATPase activity, a phenomenon called allosteric regulation. Here, the computational design of allosteric mutations was combined with in vitro and in vivo experiments to unravel nucleotide-responsive hot spots in the regulation of Hsp90. With this approach, we identified both activating and inhibiting regulation points and show that changes in those amino acids affect the conformational dynamics and ATPase activity of Hsp90 in vitro. Our observations that activating mutations loosen and inhibiting mutations rigidify the protein explain for the first time how Hsp90 changes in response to allosteric mutations. Additionally, mutations of these allosteric regulation points can be controlled by the interplay with Hsp90 co-chaperones, thus providing cells with an efficient mechanism of modifying Hsp90's intrinsic properties via different layers of regulation. Altogether, our results show that a framework for transmitting conformational information exists in the Hsp90 structure. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The chaperone Hsp90 is an ATP-dependent, dimeric molecular machine regulated by several cochaperones, including inhibitors and the unique ATPase activator Aha1. Here, we analyzed the mechanism of the Aha1-mediated acceleration of Hsp90 ATPase activity and identified the interaction surfaces of both proteins using multidimensional NMR techniques. For maximum activation of Hsp90, the two domains of Aha1 bind to sites in the middle and N-terminal domains of Hsp90 in a sequential manner. This binding induces the kinetically unfavored N terminally dimerized state of Hsp90, which primes for the hydrolysis-competent conformation. Surprisingly, this activation mechanism is asymmetric. The presence of one Aha1 molecule per Hsp90 dimer is sufficient to bridge the two subunits and to fully stimulate Hsp90 ATPase activity. is seems to functionalize the two subunits of the Hsp90 dimer in different ways, in that one subunit can be used for conformational ATPase regulation and the other for substrate protein processing.