Acta Crystallographica Section F

Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications

Volume 64, Part 4 (April 2008)

crystallization communications

Acta Cryst. (2008). F64, 274-276 [ doi:10.1107/S1744309108005186 ]

Crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of the second GAF domain of DevS from Mycobacterium smegmatis

H. Y. Cho, H. J. Cho, Y. M. Kim, J. I. Oh and B. S. Kang

Abstract: Mycobacterium tuberculosis is known to transform into the nonreplicating persistence state under the influence of hypoxia or nitric oxide. DevS-DevR is a two-component regulatory system that mediates the genetic response for the transformation. DevS is a histidine kinase that contains two GAF domains for sensing hypoxia or nitric oxide. The second GAF from M. smegmatis DevS was crystallized using the sitting-drop vapour-diffusion method in the presence of sodium citrate and 2-propanol as precipitants. X-ray diffraction data were collected from crystals containing selenomethionine to a maximum resolution of 2.0 Å on a synchrotron beamline. The crystals belong to the hexagonal space group P6₁. The asymmetric unit contains one molecule, corresponding to a packing density of 2.5 Å³ Da^-1. The selenium substructure was determined by the single anomalous dispersion method and structure refinement is in progress.

Keywords: mycobacteria; GAF domain; hypoxia sensing.