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Structure and nucleic-acid binding of the Drosophila Argonaute 2 PAZ domain

Nature volume 426, pages 465–469 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

RNA interference is a conserved mechanism that regulates gene expression in response to the presence of double-stranded (ds)RNAs1,2. The RNase III-like enzyme Dicer first cleaves dsRNA into 21–23-nucleotide small interfering RNAs (siRNAs)3,4,5,6. In the effector step, the multimeric RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) identifies messenger RNAs homologous to the siRNAs and promotes their degradation3,7. The Argonaute 2 protein (Ago2) is a critical component of RISC8,9. Both Argonaute and Dicer family proteins contain a common PAZ domain whose function is unknown10. Here we present the three-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance structure of the Drosophila melanogaster Ago2 PAZ domain. This domain adopts a nucleic-acid-binding fold that is stabilized by conserved hydrophobic residues. The nucleic-acid-binding patch is located in a cleft between the surface of a central β-barrel and a conserved module comprising strands β3, β4 and helix α3. Because critical structural residues and the binding surface are conserved, we suggest that PAZ domains in all members of the Argonaute and Dicer families adopt a similar fold with nucleic-acid binding function, and that this plays an important part in gene silencing.

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Figure 1: Structure of the Ago2 PAZ domain from D. melanogaster.
Figure 2: Nucleic-acid-binding surface of the Ago2 PAZ domain.
Figure 3: Nucleic-acid binding activity of the Ago2 PAZ domain.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Ladurner, E. Conti and R. Russell for discussions; G. Stier and S. Bäckström for the pETM60 vector; M. Rode for technical support; F. Ciccarreli and P. Bork for help with sequence alignments; and the NMR centre in Frankfurt, Germany for NMR measurement time. This study was supported by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the German Research Foundation (DFG), and the Human Frontier Science Program Organization.

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Author notes

  1. Andreas Lingel, Bernd Simon and Michael Sattler: These authors contributed equally to this work

  2. The coordinates and NMR data of the Ago2 PAZ domain have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank under accession number 1upo.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, D-69117, Heidelberg, Germany

    Andreas Lingel, Bernd Simon, Elisa Izaurralde & Michael Sattler

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  1. Andreas Lingel
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Correspondence to Michael Sattler.

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Lingel, A., Simon, B., Izaurralde, E. et al. Structure and nucleic-acid binding of the Drosophila Argonaute 2 PAZ domain. Nature 426, 465–469 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02123

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