Abstract
Lymphotactin/XCL1, the defining member of the C class of chemokines, undergoes a conformational change that involves the complete restructuring of all stabilizing interactions. Other chemokines are restricted to a single conformation by a pair of conserved disulfide crosslinks, one of which is absent in lymphotactin. This structural interconversion is entirely reversible, and the two-state equilibrium is sensitive to changes in temperature and ionic strength. One species adopts the conserved chemokine fold as a monomer and functions as an agonist for XCR1, the specific G-protein-coupled receptor for lymphotactin. Rearrangement to the other conformation produces a novel four-stranded sheet that dimerizes to form a beta sandwich with high affinity for cell-surface glycosaminoglycans. We developed methods for resolving the two species and investigated the dynamics of human lymphotactin structural interconversion with NMR spectroscopy, heparin affinity chromatography, and time-resolved fluorescence on the wild-type protein and a panel of amino acid-substituted lymphotactin variants. Our results show that the lymphotactin structural rearrangement occurs at a rate of approximately 1/s and that mutation of residues required for glycosaminoglycan binding shifts the conformational equilibrium toward the chemokine-like fold. We speculate that charge repulsion between arginines 23 and 43 destabilizes the chemokine fold and promotes conversion to the novel lymphotactin dimer, whereas binding of chloride or another anion stabilizes the chemokine fold by neutralizing the repulsive effect.