Diurnal expression of T. pseudonana CP12 in vivo
Cells from T. pseudonana (strain CCMP 1335 from https://ncma.bigelow.org/) were grown in F/2 + Si medium (http://www.ccap.ac.uk/) under continuous light (50 µmol.photon.m− 2.s− 1) in an incubator (Innova 4230, New Brunswick Scientific) at 19 °C and shaken at 100 rpm. Growth of T. pseudonana was monitored using the absorbance at 680 nm. When the cells reached the exponential phase, half of the culture was put in the dark, and half left in the light. After 24 hours, cells were collected by centrifugation for 15 min at 3275 g, 19 °C with a Beckman Allegra X15R centrifuge, and resuspended in 15 mM tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane (Tris), 4 mM ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), pH 7.9 with protease inhibitors (Sigma) 0.5 µg.mL− 1. The cells were sonicated (Sonic Ruptor 250, one ice, 4 cycles, 1 min sonication and 1 min rest), then centrifuged at 16 000 g for 20 min at 4 °C and the supernatant collected. Protein amount was measured by the Bradford protein assay using bovine serum albumin as a standard (Bio-Rad). Proteins were loaded to 12% sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) that was stained with Coomassie Blue or immediately transferred onto a 0.45 µm nitrocellulose membrane (Thermo Fisher Scientific). The antibodies raised against recombinant His-tagged CP12 in rabbits were produced by Eurogentec (https://www.eurogentec.com/en/custom-antibodies ). The membrane was incubated first with \(\alpha\)-CP12 antibody diluted 1: 10 000, then with goat anti-rabbit IgG horse radish peroxidase (HRP, Invitrogen) diluted 1: 10 000. Finally, the membrane was revealed with luminol-based substrate (Amersham Enhanced Chemiluminescence western blotting kit detection reagent) using ImageQuant LAS 4000 biomolecular imager (GE Healthcare).
Expression of CP12 during different phases of growth
A preculture of T. pseudonana cells in F/2 + Si medium, under continuous light (50 µmol.photon.m− 2.s− 1), was first grown at 19 °C, shaken at 100 rpm under high CO2 concentration (20 000 ppm) to increase biomass. After five days, the pellet of a 40 mL aliquot of this pre-culture obtained by centrifugation at 3275 g for 15 min at 4 °C was washed and re-suspended in fresh F/2 + Si medium. This was performed three times. These cells were then inoculated into fresh F/2 + Si medium at an initial absorbance at 680 nm of 0.2 (pathway length 1 cm) and grown under air-concentration of CO2 (400 ppm). Growth of T. pseudonana was monitored using the absorbance at 680 nm. Every day, a volume of the culture was collected that was normalized to obtain 30 µg of total protein according to the following equation: \(Volume \left(mL\right)= \frac{0.908}{OD {A}_{680nm}}\). A pellet of cells was obtained after centrifugation for one minute at 3275 g and re-suspended into SDS-PAGE loading buffer containing 1 mM dithiothreïtol. Cell lysis and protein denaturation were performed at 95 °C for 10 min. During the exponential phase and the beginning of the stationary phase, the expression of CP12 was monitored using western-blot analysis.
In silico bioinformatic analysis
The subcellular localization of CP12 from five species of diatoms was predicted using a signal peptide predictor dedicated to diatoms, HECTAR (https://webtools.sb-roscoff.fr/) [27]. The signal peptides of CP12 from other organisms were predicted using ChloroP (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/ChloroP/, [28]), SignalP (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/SignalP/ [29]) and TargetP (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/TargetP/ [30]). These enabled the N-terminus of the mature chloroplast CP12 proteins to be determined. Disordered regions were predicted using PONDR VL-XT (http://www.pondr.com/) [31], DisEMBL Remark-465 (http://dis.embl.de/) [32], IUPred2A (https://iupred2a.elte.hu/) [33] and s2D (http://www-mvsoftware.ch.cam.ac.uk/index.php/s2D) [34]. Coiled coil regions were predicted using Paircoil (http://cb.csail.mit.edu/cb/paircoil2/paircoil2-like.html), with a minimum search window of 21 residues [35]. Amino acid frequency in the algal and diatom CP12 was analyzed by composition profiler (http://www.cprofiler.org/cgi-bin/profiler.cgi) [36] against the Protein Data Bank (PDB) (https://www.rcsb.org/).
Overexpression and purification of CP12 from T. pseudonana
Primers containing the NdeI and BamHI restriction sites were used to amplify and clone the CP12 gene in frame with the N-terminal histidine tag of the pET28a expression vector (Novagen) (forward primer 5′ CATATGGCTGCCATTGAAGCTGCTCT 3′ and reverse primer 5′ GGATCCCTAACGGGAACCAAGGGCC 3′). This plasmid was used to transform Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) pLysS. Freshly transformed bacteria were grown in 2YT medium with 50 µg/mL kanamycin and 34 µg/mL chloramphenicol at 37 °C until the absorbance at 600 nm reached 0.5 to 0.6 (1 cm pathlength). Cultures were cooled on ice for 30 min and then CP12 expression was induced with 1 mM isopropyl-β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG). Cells were cultured at 30 °C overnight in an incubator (Edmund Bühler GmbH, Fisher Bioblock Scientific), then centrifuged at 3275 g at 4 °C (Beckman Allegra X15R centrifuge). The pellets containing cells were re-suspended in 50 mM NaH2PO4/Na2HPO4, 300 mM NaCl, 10 mM imidazole, pH 8.0 (Ni-NTA buffer). Cells were then broken by sonication (Sonic Ruptor 250, 1 min sonication and 1 min on ice, 4 cycles) and centrifuged at 27000 g for 20 min at 4 °C. The supernatant contained the recombinant histidine tagged CP12 (His-CP12) that was then purified by nickel ion affinity chromatography on Ni-NTA agarose column (Qiagen) (1.2 × 8 cm of resin). The column was equilibrated with Ni-NTA buffer. Contaminants were firstly washed out with 10 mM imidazole until the absorbance at 280 nm reached a minimum, then fractions were gradually eluted with an imidazole gradient (10 to 250 mM imidazole, 2 × 45 mL). Proteins elution was followed by absorbance at 280 nm. His-tagged CP12 was eluted with 150 mM imidazole, and dialyzed with 10 mM sodium phosphate buffer, pH 7.4 then stored at -20 °C. Size exclusion chromatography (SEC), electrospray ionization coupled to mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and circular dichroism (CD) were performed on CP12 after His tag removal with thrombin (T4648, Sigma) (1 u for 100 µg of CP12) at room temperature for 18 h. The sample was concentrated using a 500 µL spin X-UF ultra centrifugal concentrator, Corning, 5 kDa cut-off. After His-tag removal, CP12 was stored at -20 °C.
Determination of redox state
The free thiol groups in CP12 were quantified using 5,5'-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) (DTNB) (Sigma-Aldrich). 2 µM CP12 was mixed with 50 µM DTNB in 10 mM phosphate, 2 mM EDTA at pH 8 and the absorbance followed at 412 nm. A control without the protein was recorded in parallel. Number of free SH groups was calculated from N = \(\varDelta OD/ℇCL\) (N: number of thiol; \(ℇ\): DTNB extinction coefficient, 13600 M− 1.cm− 1; \(C\): protein concentration in M; \(L\): light pathlength in cm).
Native electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS)
Prior to native ESI-MS analysis, CP12 without the histidine tag was dialyzed against 200 mM ammonium acetate buffer (pH 8.0) using 5 kDa cut-off concentrator columns (Spin-X, Corning). Experiments at 5 µM of CP12 were carried out on an electrospray Q-ToF mass spectrometer (Synapt G1 HDMS, Waters) using NanoLockSpray ionisation source with borosilicate emitter (NanoES spray capillaries, Thermo Scientific). Optimized instrument parameters were as follows: source pressure 5.3 mbar, source temperature 20 °C, capillary voltage 1.8 kV, sampling cone voltage 180 V, extractor cone voltage 4 V, trap collision energy 30 V and transfer collision energy 20 V. Mass spectrometer was calibrated in positive mode from 1000–5000 m/z with CsI (1 mg/mL) just prior acquisition.
Size exclusion chromatography
500 µL of CP12 after histidine tag removal, at 0.5 mM were loaded on a Hiload Superdex 200 (prep grade 26/60) equilibrated with 150 mM NaCl, 50 mM sodium phosphate buffer at pH 7.5. The column was calibrated with seven globular proteins of different molecular mass: thyroglobulin, ferritin, alcohol dehydrogenase, conalbumin, ovalbumin andcarbonic anhydrase. Throughout elution, the absorbance at 280 nm was monitored to determine the presence of proteins. The fractions were collected, concentrated (spin X-UF ultra centrifugal concentrator, Corning, 5 kDa cut-off) and stored at -20 °C.
Circular dichroism (CD)
10 µM CP12 without histidine tag in 50 mM sodium phosphate pH 6.5 was used to record CD spectra (Jasco 815CD spectrometer, 2 mm thick quartz cells) scanned from 190 to 260 nm at a speed of 10 nm/min (n = 3). The data were analyzed using Dichroweb standard algorithms (http://dichroweb.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/html/home.shtml) [37].
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
15N labelled histidine tagged CP12 were produced using the enhanced M9 medium (protocol of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, https://www.embl.de/pepcore/pepcore_services/protein_expression/ecoli/n15/index.html) and purified as described above. The final sample was buffer exchanged in 50 mM sodium phosphate pH 6.5, 50 mM NaCl, 10% D2O with traces of sodium trimethylsilylpropanesulfonate (DSS) and at a final protein concentration of 250 µM.
The data were recorded at 4 ºC and 15 ºC. Fast 1H-15N heteronuclear single quantum correlation (fHSQC [38]) spectra were recorded with a 1H acquisition time of 243 ms, 15N acquisition time of 42 ms and with 24 scans on a 600 MHz NMR spectrum equipped with a cryogenic probe (Bruker). Translational diffusion was measured using standard bi-polar stimulated echo experiment [39], with a diffusion delay (Δ) of 200 ms. Ten experiments were recorded in which the encoding and decoding pair of gradients are produced with squared 1.4 ms long gradients (δ) with strength (G) ranging from 2–98% of the maximum gradient strengths (5.1 G.mm1). The data were processed using nmrPipe [40], plotted using Sparky[41]. The diffusion coefficient was calculated using Octave [42] from the integral of proton signals of the methyl side chains of the protein from 1.2 to 0.7 ppm. The linear dependency of the logarithm of the integral as a function of the gradient strength was used to determine D as follows:
\(ln\left(\frac{{I}_{G}}{{I}_{0}}\right)=D.\left[\varDelta -\frac{\delta }{3}\right]{.\left(\delta .\text{G}.{\gamma }_{H}\right)}^{2}\) , where IG is the integral as a function of the gradient strength, I0 is the integral in the absence of gradient, γH is the proton gyromagnetic ratio, and Δ, δ and G are defined above. The hydrodynamic radius associated with the diffusion coefficient was determined using the Stokes-Einstein equation:
\({r}_{H}= \frac{{k}_{B}. T}{6\pi .D.{\eta }_{\left(T\right)}}\) where kB is the Boltzmann constant, T the temperature in Kelvin and \({\eta }_{\left(T\right)}\) the viscosity.
Small angle X ray scattering (SAXS)
SAXS experiments were performed on SWING beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron using the online HPLC size exclusion chromatography facilities [43]. The sample-to-detector (CCD Aviex) distance was set at 2 m, leading to scattering vectors (q = 4 π/λsinθ, where 2θ is the scattering angle and λ the wavelength, equal to 1.033 Å) ranging from 0.01 to 0.46 Å. 50 µL of His-tagged CP12 (11 mg/mL) were injected into a pre-equilibrated size exclusion chromatography column (Agilent Bio-SEC-3 300 Å) upstream of the measurement capillary at a temperature of 15 °C. Frames of 990 ms with dead-time of 10 ms were recorded throughout the elution, with 100 frames recorded at the very first minutes of the elution to measure the buffer background. The protein concentration was monitored via the absorbance at 280 nm with an in situ spectrophotometer. The experiment was performed in 30 mM Tris, 50 mM NaCl, 2 mM EDTA, 1 mM Tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine (TCEP), pH 7.5.
Data reduction to absolute units and solvent subtraction were performed using FOXTROT, a dedicated in-house application. The frames recorded during the elution peak were carefully compared with each other, and data corresponding to identical scattering profiles and radius of gyration (Rg) were averaged to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. Data analysis was performed using the ATSAS suite of software [44]. The Rg and forward scattering intensity I(0) were obtained via PRIMUS using the Guinier approximation up to q.Rg < 1.0, and the distance distribution function P(r) was obtained via GNOM. The molecular mass of CP12 was determined using the forward scattering intensity I(0) of the frame corresponding to the top of the peak, at the highest protein concentration as described in [45]. Ab initio models of 3D envelopes corresponding to the scattering curve were constructed using DAMMIF (10 runs) and GASBOR (5 runs) with P1 and P2 symmetry [44].
3D-modelling
3-D modelling of the coiled coil domain has been performed using Swiss-model (https://swissmodel.expasy.org/ [46]) on a sequence including 5 residues before and 6 residues after the predicted coiled coil sequence highlighted in bold (APIVDSEYEAKVKSLSQMLTKTKAELDQVKALADDLKGVKLASPSV), without any other input.