Papain does not cleave operator-bound lambda repressor: structural characterization of the carboxy terminal domain and the hinge

The circular dichroism spectra of three different purified carboxy terminal fragments 93-236, 112-236 and 132-236 of the bacteriophage lambda cI repressor have been measured and compared with those of the intact repressor and the amino terminal fragment 1-92. All three carboxy terminal fragments contain mostly beta-strands and loops, a minor helix content increasing with the size of the fragment, showing that the 93-131 region previously called a hinge is structured. Fourier transformed infrared spectra also showed that fragment 93-236 contains alpha-helices, alpha-sheets and turns but fragment 132-236 contains no detectable alpha-helix, only beta-sheets and turns. Papain is known to cleave the lambda repressor, but it is shown here that it cannot cleave the operator-bound repressor dimer. For the 132-236 fragment, both the wt and the SN228 mutant previously shown to be dimerization defective in the intact, gave similar dimerization properties as investigated by HPLC at 2 to 100 microM protein concentration, with a KD of 13.2 microM and 19.1 microM respectively. The papain cleavage for wt and SN228 proceed at equal rates for the first cleavage at 92-93; however, the subsequent cleavages are faster for SN228. The three Cys residues in the 132-236 fragment were found to be unreactive upon incubation with DTNB, indicating the thiol sulfur atoms are buried in the repressor carboxy terminal domain. Denaturation of the 132-236 fragment studied by tryptophan fluorescence shows two transitions centered at 1.5 M and 4.5 M of urea.