Structural and thermodynamic behavior of eukaryotic initiation factor 4E in supramolecular formation with 4E-binding protein 1 and mRNA cap analogue, studied by spectroscopic methods

The structural and thermodynamic behavior of the complex formation of eIF4E with either or both mRNA cap analogue (m7GTP, m7GpppA, or m7GpppG) and 4EBP1 has been investigated by spectroscopic measurements. Although the circular dichroism (CD) spectrum of eIF4E was little affected by the association with any cap analogue, the association constant of eIF4E with m7GpppA/G, estimated from the fluorescence quenching, was about 10 times larger than that with m7GTP. The van't Hoff analyses showed that the m7GpppA/G binding is enthalpy-driven with a large negative deltaH(o), and this is in contrast with the entropy-driven binding of m7GTP, where the positive deltaS(o) is large enough to overcome an increase of deltaH(o). This different behavior obviously originates in the interaction of the second nucleotide in m7GpppA with eIF4E, suggesting the importance of the nucleotide sequence linked to the m7Gppp terminal moiety, in addition to the specific interaction with the m7G base, for the recognition of mRNA cap structure by eIF4E. On the other hand, the CD spectra indicated that the binding of 4EBP1, an endogenous eIF4E-regulatory protein without having any defined secondary structure, shifted the m7GTP- or m7GpppA/G-bound eIF4E to an irregular structure, although such a structural change was not observed for eIF4E alone. The association constant of 4EBP1 with m7GTP- or m7GpppA/G-bound eIF4E was by two orders of magnitude larger than that with eIF4E alone. These results suggest the close interrelation in the supramolecular formation of 4EBP-eIF4E-mRNA cap structure.