Allosteric effects of the oncogenic rasq61l mutant on raf-RBD

Susan K. Fetics, Hugo Guterres, Bradley M. Kearney, Greg Buhrman, Buyong Ma, Ruth Nussinov, Carla Mattos*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

180 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK signal transduction pathway is a major regulator of cell proliferation activated by Ras-guanosine triphosphate (GTP). The oncogenic mutant RasQ61L is not able to hydrolyze GTP in the presence of Raf and thus is a constitutive activator of this mitogenic pathway. The Ras/Raf interaction is essential for the activation of the Raf kinase domain through a currently unknown mechanism. We present the crystal structures of the Ras-GppNHp/Raf-RBD and RasQ61L-GppNHp/Raf-RBD complexes, which, in combination with MD simulations, reveal differences in allosteric interactions leading from the Ras/Raf interface to the Ras calcium-binding site and to the remote Raf-RBD loop L4. In the presence of Raf, the RasQ61L mutant has a rigid switch II relative to the wild-type and increased flexibility at the interface with switch I, which propagates across Raf-RBD. We show that in addition to local perturbations on Ras, RasQ61L has substantial long-range effects on the Ras allosteric lobe and on Raf-RBD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)505-516
Number of pages12
JournalStructure
Volume23
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 3 Mar 2015

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science FoundationMCB-1244203
National Institutes of HealthR01-CA086967
U.S. Department of Energy
National Cancer InstituteHHSN261200800001E, ZIABC010440
Office of ScienceW31-109-Eng-38

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