Volume 63, Issue 13 e202316942
Research Article

Conditional Cooperativity in RAS Assembly Pathways on Nanodiscs and Altered GTPase Cycling

Soo-Yeon Lee

Soo-Yeon Lee

Department of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy and Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, CHA University, Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea

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Ki-Young Lee

Corresponding Author

Ki-Young Lee

Department of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy and Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, CHA University, Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea

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First published: 02 February 2024
Citations: 2

Graphical Abstract

Size-tunable nanodisc platforms and NMR revealed the structural mechanism for the cooperative self-assembly of both wild-type and oncogenic mutants of native, fully processed KRAS on the membrane. The cooperativity is modulated by the mutation and nucleotide states of KRAS and the lipid composition of the membrane. Higher-order oligomers retain higher numbers of active GTP-bound protomers by reducing GTP hydrolysis and increasing GDP/GTP exchange.

Abstract

Self-assemblies (i.e., nanoclusters) of the RAS GTPase on the membrane act as scaffolds that activate downstream RAF kinases and drive MAPK signaling for cell proliferation and tumorigenesis. However, the mechanistic details of nanoclustering remain largely unknown. Here, size-tunable nanodisc platforms and paramagnetic relaxation enhancement (PRE) analyses revealed the structural basis of the cooperative assembly processes of fully processed KRAS, mutated in a quarter of human cancers. The cooperativity is modulated by the mutation and nucleotide states of KRAS and the lipid composition of the membrane. Notably, the oncogenic mutants assemble in nonsequential pathways with two mutually cooperative ‘α/α’ and ‘α/β’ interfaces, while α/α dimerization of wild-type KRAS promotes the secondary α/β interaction sequentially. Mutation-based interface engineering was used to selectively trap the oligomeric intermediates of KRAS and probe their favorable interface interactions. Transiently exposed interfaces were available for the assembly. Real-time NMR demonstrated that higher-order oligomers retain higher numbers of active GTP-bound protomers in KRAS GTPase cycling. These data provide a deeper understanding of the nanocluster-enhanced signaling in response to the environment. Furthermore, our methodology is applicable to assemblies of many other membrane GTPases and lipid nanoparticle-based formulations of stable protein oligomers with enhanced cooperativity.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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