GTP sensing and regulation in Bacillus; structural studies of a GTP-dependent transcription factor and an essential GTPase

This proposal concerns two GTP binding proteins that play important roles in the cellular physiology of Bacillus subtilis. For both proteins, crystals suitable for X-ray analysis have been grown. The first objective is to understand the structural basis of GTP-dependent regulation of transcription of stationary phase genes in Gram-positive bacteria through the determination of the structure of the GTP-sensor CodY, and its complexes with GTP and DNA duplexes which represent CodY binding sites at target promoters. The second objective is to determine the crystal structure of YloQ, an essential GTPase of unknown function in Bacillus subtilis as part of a collaborative study to elucidate this protein’s cellular function. This includes characterising the interactions of this protein with the protein kinase PrkC which is encoded by the neighbouring gene to yloQ and which appears to enhance YloQ’s GTPase activity.