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Journal of Structural Biology, Vol.205, No.3, 72-78, 2019
Structure of G57W mutant of human gamma S-crystallin and its involvement in cataract formation
A recently identified mutant of human gamma S-crystallin, G57W is associated with dominant congenital cataracts, the familial determinate of childhood blindness worldwide. To investigate the structural and functional changes that mediate the effect of this cataract-related mutant to compromise eye lens transparency and cause lens opacification in children, we recently reported complete sequence-specific resonance assignments of gamma S-G57W using a suite of heteronuclear NMR experiments. As a follow up, we have determined the 3D structure of gamma S-G57W and studied its conformational dynamics by solution NMR spectroscopy. Our structural dynamics results reveal greater flexibility of the N-terminal domain, which undergoes site-specific structural changes to accommodate W57, than its C-terminal counterpart. Our structural inferences that the unusual solvent exposure of W57 is associated with rearrangement of the N-terminal domain suggest an efficient pathway for increased aggregation in gamma S-G57W and illuminates the molecular dynamics underlying cataractogenic aggregation of lens crystallins in particular and aggregation of proteins in general.