Solid-state 31P NMR Spectroscopy of Microcrystals of the Ras Protein and its Effector Loop Mutants: Comparison Between Crystalline and Solution State

Cycling between a GTP bound “on” state and a GDP bound “off” state, guanine nucleotide-binding (GNB) proteins act as molecular switches. The switching process and the interaction with effectors, GTPase-activating proteins, and guanosine nucleotide-exchange factors is accompanied by pronounced conformational changes of the switch regions of the GNB proteins. The aim of the present contribution is to correlate conformational changes observed by liquid-state NMR with solid-state 31P NMR data and with the results of X-ray crystallography. Crystalline wild-type Ras complexed with GTP analogs such as GppCH2p and GppNHp could be prepared. At low temperatures, two different signals were found for the γ-phosphate group of GppNHp bound to wild-type Ras. This behavior indicates the existence of two different conformations of the molecule in the crystalline state as it is found in solution but not by X-ray crystallography. In contrast to the GppNHp complex, the two separate γ-phosphate signals could not be observed for GppCH2p bound to wild-type Ras. However, an increasing linewidth at low temperature indicates the presence of an exchange process. The results obtained for the wild-type protein are compared with the behavior of GppNHp complexes of the effector loop mutants Ras(T35S) and Ras(T35A). These mutants prefer a conformation similar to the GDP bound “off” state.