Zinc uptake regulator

Zinc uptake regulation protein
The E. coli Zur protein in a dimer-of-dimers orientation (blue/light blue and red/orange), interacting with DNA (yellow) and zinc ions (gray spheres). Rendered from PDB: 4MTD ​.
Identifiers
Organism	Escherichia coli
Symbol	Zur
PDB	4MTD
UniProt	P0AC51
Search for Structures Swiss-model Domains InterPro

The zinc uptake regulator (Zur) gene is a bacterial gene that codes for a transcription factor protein involved in zinc homeostasis. The protein is a member of the ferric uptake regulator family and binds zinc with high affinity. It typically functions as a repressor of zinc uptake proteins via binding to characteristic promoter DNA sequences in a dimer-of-dimers arrangement that creates strong cooperativity. ^[1] Under conditions of zinc deficiency, the protein undergoes a conformational change that prevents DNA binding, thereby lifting the repression and causing zinc uptake genes such as ZinT and the ZnuABC zinc transporter to be expressed. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

References

1. Gilston BA, Wang S, Marcus MD, Canalizo-Hernández MA, Swindell EP, Xue Y, Mondragón A, O'Halloran TV (November 2014). "Structural and mechanistic basis of zinc regulation across the E. coli Zur regulon". PLOS Biology. 12 (11) e1001987. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001987 . PMC   4219657 . PMID   25369000.
2. Blindauer CA (March 2015). "Advances in the molecular understanding of biological zinc transport" (PDF). Chemical Communications. 51 (22): 4544–63. doi: 10.1039/c4cc10174j . PMID   25627157.
3. Graham AI, Hunt S, Stokes SL, Bramall N, Bunch J, Cox AG, McLeod CW, Poole RK (July 2009). "Severe zinc depletion of Escherichia coli: roles for high affinity zinc binding by ZinT, zinc transport and zinc-independent proteins". The Journal of Biological Chemistry. 284 (27): 18377–89. doi: 10.1074/jbc.m109.001503 . PMC   2709383 . PMID   19377097.