PNNL

Abstract

BAG proteins are molecular chaperone regulators that affect diverse cellular pathways. All members share a conserved motif, called the "BAG domain" (BD), which binds to Hsp70/Hsc70 family proteins and modulates their activity. We have determined the solution structure of BD from BAG4/SODD (Bcl-2 ? Associated Athanogene / Silencer of Death Domains) by multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance methods and compared it to the corresponding domain in BAG1 (Briknarova et al., Nature Struct. Biol. 8:349-352). The difference between BDs from these two BAG proteins is striking and the structural comparison defines two subfamilies of mammalian BD-containing proteins. One subfamily includes the closely related BAG3, BAG4 and BAG5 proteins, and the other is represented by BAG1 which contains a structurally and evolutionarily distinct BD. BDs from both BAG1 and BAG4 are three-helix bundles; however, in BAG4, each helix in this bundle is three to four turns shorter than its counterpart in BAG1, which reduces the length of the domain by one-third. BAG4 BD thus represents a prototype of the minimal functional fragment that is capable of binding to Hsc70 and modulating its chaperone activity.