Par27 from Bordetella pertussis belongs to a newly discovered class of dimeric peptidyl-prolyl isomerase (PPlase)/chaperones from the parvulin family. It is a tripartite protein with a central PPlase domain surrounded by N- and C-terminal sub-domains (NTD and CTD). Here, the Par27 structure was characterized by X-ray crystallography, small-angle X-ray scattering and template-based modeling. In the crystal lattice, Par27 consists of alternating well ordered and poorly ordered domains. The PPlase domains gave rise to diffuse scattering and could not be solved, whereas a 2.2 angstrom resolution crystal structure was obtained for the NTD and CTD, revealing a cradle-shaped dimeric platform. Despite a lack of sequence similarity with corresponding sub-domains, the topology of the peptide chain in the NTD/CTD core is similar to that of other monomeric PPlase/chaperones such as SurA and trigger factor from Escherichia coli. In Par27, dimerization occurs by sub-domain swapping. Because of the strong amino acid sequence similarity to other parvulin domains, a model for the Par27 PPlase domain was built by template-based modeling and validated against small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data. A model of the full-length dimeric Par27 structure was built by rigid-body modeling and filtering against SAXS data using the partial crystal structure of the NTD/CTD core and the template-based PPIase model. The flexibility of protein was accounted for by representing the structure as an ensemble of different conformations that collectively reproduce the scattering data. The refined models exhibit a cradle-like shape reminiscent of other PPIase/chaperones, and the variability in the orientation of the PPlase domains relative to the NTD/CTD core platform observed in the different models suggests inter-domain flexibility that could be important for the biological activity of this protein. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.