TY - JOUR
T1 - Discovery and characterization of a family of insecticidal neurotoxins with a rare vicinal disulfide bridge
AU - Wang, Xiu Hong
AU - Connor, Mark
AU - Smith, Ross
AU - Maciejewski, Mark W.
AU - Howden, Merlin E H
AU - Nicholson, Graham M.
AU - Christie, Macdonald J.
AU - King, Glenn F.
PY - 2000/6
Y1 - 2000/6
N2 - We have isolated a family of insect-selective neurotoxins from the venom of the Australian funnel-web spider that appear to be good candidates for biopesticide engineering. These peptides, which we have named the Janus-faced atracotoxins (J-ACTXs), each contain 36 or 37 residues, with four disulfide bridges, and they show no homology to any sequences in the protein/DNA databases. The three-dimensional structure of one of these toxins reveals an extremely rare vicinal disulfide bridge that we demonstrate to be critical for insecticidal activity. We propose that J-ACTX comprises an ancestral protein fold that we refer to as the disulfide-directed β-hairpin.
AB - We have isolated a family of insect-selective neurotoxins from the venom of the Australian funnel-web spider that appear to be good candidates for biopesticide engineering. These peptides, which we have named the Janus-faced atracotoxins (J-ACTXs), each contain 36 or 37 residues, with four disulfide bridges, and they show no homology to any sequences in the protein/DNA databases. The three-dimensional structure of one of these toxins reveals an extremely rare vicinal disulfide bridge that we demonstrate to be critical for insecticidal activity. We propose that J-ACTX comprises an ancestral protein fold that we refer to as the disulfide-directed β-hairpin.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0034043512&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/75921
DO - 10.1038/75921
M3 - Article
C2 - 10881200
AN - SCOPUS:0034043512
SN - 1072-8368
VL - 7
SP - 505
EP - 513
JO - Nature Structural Biology
JF - Nature Structural Biology
IS - 6
ER -