Overexpression, purification, and preliminary x-ray crystallographic studies of methionine sulfoxide reductase B from Bacillus subtilis

The peptide methionine sulfoxide reductases (Msrs) are enzymes that catalyze the reduction of methionine sulfoxide back to methionine. Because of two enantiomers of methionine sulfoxide (S and R forms), this reduction reaction is carried out by two structurally unrelated classes of enzymes, MsrA (E.C. 1.8.4.11) and MsrB (E.C. 1.8.4.12). Whereas MsrA has been well characterized structurally and functionally, little information on MsrB is available. The recombinant MsrB from Bacillus subtilis has been purified and crystallized by the hanging-drop vapor-diffusion method, and the functional and structural features of MsrB have been elucidated. The crystals belong to the trigonal space group P3, with unit-cell parameters a=b=136.096, c=61.918 a with ring above and diffracted to 2.5 a with ring above resolution using a synchrotron-radiation source at Pohang Light Source. The asymmetric unit contains six subunits of MsrB with a crystal volume per protein mass (V∧M) of 3.37 a with ring above³ Da-¹ and a solvent content of 63.5%.