Crystallization and preliminary X-ray studies of the single-stranded DNA-binding protein from Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Single-stranded DNA-binding proteins play an important role in DNA replication, repair and recombination. The protein from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MtSSB) is a tetramer with 164 amino-acid residues in each subunit. The protein readily crystallizes in space group P3₁21 (or P3₂21) at pH 7.4 under appropriate conditions. Under different conditions, but at the same pH, orthorhombic crystals belonging to space group I222 or I2₁2₁2₁ were obtained after several months. Similar orthorhombic crystals were obtained when protein samples stored for several months were used for crystallization. The orthorhombic crystals obtained in different experiments, though similar to one another, exhibited variations in unit-cell parameters, presumably on account of different extents of proteolytic cleavage of the C-terminal region. Molecular-replacement calculations using different search models did not yield the structure. As part of attempts to solve the structure using isomorphous replacement, a good mercury derivative of the trigonal crystal has been prepared.