Structural basis of the binding of fatty acids to peptidoglycan recognition protein, PGRP-S through second binding site

► PGRP-S belongs to innate immune system and provides the first line of defense. ► Structure of camel PGRP-S forms a linear chain polymer with two unique contacts. ► It is found that fatty acids including mycolic acid bind at one of these two contacts. ► Structures of the complexes of CPGRP-S with fatty acids revealed a new binding site. ► This indicates that CPGRP-S may play a role in the treatment of tuberculosis. Short peptidoglycan recognition protein (PGRP-S) is a member of the mammalian innate immune system. PGRP-S from Camelus dromedarius (CPGRP-S) has been shown to bind to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), lipoteichoic acid (LTA) and peptidoglycan (PGN). Its structure consists of four molecules A, B, C and D with ligand binding clefts situated at A–B and C–D contacts. It has been shown that LPS, LTA and PGN bind to CPGRP-S at C–D contact. The cleft at the A–B contact indicated features that suggested a possible binding of fatty acids including mycolic acid of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Therefore, binding studies of CPGRP-S were carried out with fatty acids, butyric acid, lauric acid, myristic acid, stearic acid and mycolic acid which showed affinities in the range of 10−5 to 10−8M. Structure determinations of the complexes of CPGRP-S with above fatty acids showed that they bound to CPGRP-S in the cleft at the A–B contact. The flow cytometric studies showed that mycolic acid induced the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, TNF-α and IFN-γ by CD3+ T cells. The concentrations of cytokines increased considerably with increasing concentrations of mycolic acid. However, their levels decreased substantially on adding CPGRP-S.