NMR study of non-structural proteins-part III: ¹H, ¹³C, ¹⁵N backbone and side-chain resonance assignment of macro domain from Chikungunya virus (CHIKV)

Macro domains are conserved protein domains found in eukaryotic organisms, bacteria, and archaea as well as in certain viruses. They consist of 130-190 amino acids and can bind ADP-ribose. Although the exact role of these domains is not fully understood, the conserved binding affinity for ADP-ribose indicates that this ligand is important for the function of the domain. Such a macro domain is also present in the non-structural protein 3 (nsP3) of Chikungunya Alphavirus (CHIKV) and consists of 160 amino acids. In this study we describe the high yield expression of the macro domain from CHIKV and its preliminary structural analysis via solution NMR spectroscopy. The macro domain seems to be folded in solution and an almost complete backbone assignment was achieved. In addition, the α/β/α sandwich topology with 4 α-helices and 6 β-strands was predicted by TALOS+.