DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Highly multiplexed design of an allosteric transcription factor to sense new ligands

Journal Article · · Nature Communications

Allosteric transcription factors (aTF) regulate gene expression through conformational changes induced by small molecule binding. Although widely used as biosensors, aTFs have proven challenging to design for detecting new molecules because mutation of ligand-binding residues often disrupts allostery. Here, we develop Sensor-seq, a high-throughput platform to design and identify aTF biosensors that bind to non-native ligands. We screen a library of 17,737 variants of the aTF TtgR, a regulator of a multidrug exporter, against six non-native ligands of diverse chemical structures – four derivatives of the cancer therapeutic tamoxifen, the antimalarial drug quinine, and the opiate analog naltrexone – as well as two native flavonoid ligands, naringenin and phloretin. Sensor-seq identifies biosensors for each of these ligands with high dynamic range and diverse specificity profiles. The structure of a naltrexone-bound design shows shape-complementary methionine-aromatic interactions driving ligand specificity. To demonstrate practical utility, we develop cell-free detection systems for naltrexone and quinine. Sensor-seq enables rapid and scalable design of new biosensors, overcoming constraints of natural biosensors.

Research Organization:
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Institute of Health (NIH); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); United States Army Research Office (ARO)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SC0018409
OSTI ID:
2506971
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 15; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (75)

Design and Application of a Mevalonate-Responsive Regulatory Protein journal December 2010
Biology of MarR family transcription factors and implications for targets of antibiotics against tuberculosis journal April 2019
Prediction of impacts of mutations on protein structure and interactions: SDM, a statistical approach, and mCSM, using machine learning journal November 2019
Zero‐shot mutation effect prediction on protein stability and function using RoseTTAFold journal October 2023
Rosetta comparative modeling for library design: Engineering alternative inducer specificity in a transcription factor: A Comparative Approach for Protein Design journal May 2015
Density-Based Clustering Based on Hierarchical Density Estimates book January 2013
Transcription factor-based biosensors in biotechnology: current state and future prospects journal October 2015
Model-guided mechanism discovery and parameter selection for directed evolution journal November 2019
Unexpected removal of the most neutral cationic pharmaceutical in river waters journal September 2016
Targeted Opioid Receptor Antagonists in the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorders journal July 2013
Rosetta3: An Object-Oriented Software Suite for the Simulation and Design of Macromolecules book January 2011
The interaction between methionine and two aromatic amino acids is an abundant and multifunctional motif in proteins journal September 2019
Biosensor-based engineering of biosynthetic pathways journal December 2016
Transcription factor-based biosensors: a molecular-guided approach for natural product engineering journal June 2021
Crystal Structures of Multidrug Binding Protein TtgR in Complex with Antibiotics and Plant Antimicrobials journal June 2007
Automated Design of Efficient and Functionally Diverse Enzyme Repertoires journal October 2018
Design and engineering of allosteric communications in proteins journal April 2022
Molecular determinants of protein evolvability journal September 2023
The development and application of a single-cell biosensor for the detection of l-methionine and branched-chain amino acids journal July 2012
Kraken: A set of tools for quality control and analysis of high-throughput sequence data journal September 2013
The Rosetta All-Atom Energy Function for Macromolecular Modeling and Design journal May 2017
New Insights into Quinine–DNA Binding Using Raman Spectroscopy and Molecular Dynamics Simulations journal October 2018
GroovDB: A Database of Ligand-Inducible Transcription Factors journal September 2022
Sort-Seq Approach to Engineering a Formaldehyde-Inducible Promoter for Dynamically Regulated Escherichia coli Growth on Methanol journal May 2017
Deconstructing Cell-Free Extract Preparation for in Vitro Activation of Transcriptional Genetic Circuitry journal December 2018
Design of a Transcriptional Biosensor for the Portable, On-Demand Detection of Cyanuric Acid journal December 2019
Transcription Factor-Based Screens and Synthetic Selections for Microbial Small-Molecule Biosynthesis journal September 2012
Pharmacological Characterization of 4-hydroxy-N-desmethyl Tamoxifen, a Novel Active Metabolite of Tamoxifen journal May 2004
Design of a dynamic sensor-regulator system for production of chemicals and fuels derived from fatty acids journal March 2012
Mutation effects predicted from sequence co-variation journal January 2017
The 'evolvability' of promiscuous protein functions journal November 2004
Engineering an allosteric transcription factor to respond to new ligands journal December 2015
Evolutionarily conserved networks of residues mediate allosteric communication in proteins journal December 2002
Epistasis shapes the fitness landscape of an allosteric specificity switch journal September 2021
Cell-free biosensors for rapid detection of water contaminants journal July 2020
Deep generative models of genetic variation capture the effects of mutations journal September 2018
SciPy 1.0: fundamental algorithms for scientific computing in Python journal February 2020
Molecular organization of the E. coli cellulose synthase macrocomplex journal March 2021
Differences in δ- and μ-Opioid Receptor Blockade Measured by Positron Emission Tomography in Naltrexone-Treated Recently Abstinent Alcohol-Dependent Subjects journal May 2007
Composability of regulatory sequences controlling transcription and translation in Escherichia coli journal August 2013
Improving fatty acids production by engineering dynamic pathway regulation and metabolic control journal July 2014
Evolution-guided optimization of biosynthetic pathways journal December 2014
Functional plasticity and evolutionary adaptation of allosteric regulation journal September 2020
Neural networks to learn protein sequence–function relationships from deep mutational scanning data journal November 2021
The Methionine-aromatic Motif Plays a Unique Role in Stabilizing Protein Structure journal August 2012
PEAR: a fast and accurate Illumina Paired-End reAd mergeR journal October 2013
fastp: an ultra-fast all-in-one FASTQ preprocessor journal September 2018
AAindex: Amino Acid Index Database journal January 1999
Programmable cross-ribosome-binding sites to fine-tune the dynamic range of transcription factor-based biosensor journal September 2020
PRODORIC: prokaryotic database of gene regulation journal January 2003
Novel insights from hybrid LacI/GalR proteins: family-wide functional attributes and biologically significant variation in transcription repression journal September 2012
UMI-tools: modeling sequencing errors in Unique Molecular Identifiers to improve quantification accuracy journal January 2017
Coot model-building tools for molecular graphics journal November 2004
XDS journal January 2010
Data processing and analysis with the autoPROC toolbox journal March 2011
Macromolecular structure determination using X-rays, neutrons and electrons: recent developments in Phenix journal October 2019
Emergence of novel functions in transcriptional regulators by regression to stem protein types journal August 2007
Robust deep learning–based protein sequence design using ProteinMPNN journal October 2022
Generation of Novel Bacterial Regulatory Proteins That Detect Priority Pollutant Phenols journal January 2000
The TetR Family of Regulators journal September 2013
High-Throughput Metabolic Engineering: Advances in Small-Molecule Screening and Selection journal June 2010
Ellagic Acid: A Review on Its Natural Sources, Chemical Stability, and Therapeutic Potential journal February 2022
RegPrecise 3.0 – A resource for genome-scale exploration of transcriptional regulation in bacteria journal January 2013
Quinine, an old anti-malarial drug in a modern world: role in the treatment of malaria journal May 2011
NGmerge: merging paired-end reads via novel empirically-derived models of sequencing errors journal December 2018
Sort-seq under the hood: implications of design choices on large-scale characterization of sequence-function relations journal March 2016
Molecular Binding Mechanism of TtgR Repressor to Antibiotics and Antimicrobials journal September 2015
UMAP: Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection journal September 2018
Transcription Factor Engineering for High-Throughput Strain Evolution and Organic Acid Bioproduction: A Review journal February 2020
Transcription factor-based biosensors for screening and dynamic regulation journal February 2023
Bacterial Multidrug Efflux Pumps at the Frontline of Antimicrobial Resistance: An Overview journal April 2022
Point-of-Care Drug of Abuse Testing in the Opioid Epidemic journal June 2020
Intermolecular epistasis shaped the function and evolution of an ancient transcription factor and its DNA binding sites journal June 2015
Structural and functional characterization of G protein–coupled receptors with deep mutational scanning journal October 2020
Deep mutational scanning and machine learning reveal structural and molecular rules governing allosteric hotspots in homologous proteins journal October 2022