Abstract
Vibrio extracellular metalloprotease (vEP), secreted from Vibrio vulnificus, shows various proteolytic function such as prothrombin activation and fibrinolytic activities. Premature form of vEP has an N-terminal (nPP) and a C-terminal (C-ter100) region. The nPP and C-ter100 regions are autocleaved for the matured metalloprotease activity. It has been proposed that two regions play a key role in regulating enzymatic activity of vEP. Especially, C-ter100 has a regulatory function on proteolytic activity of vEP. C-ter100 domain has been cloned into the E. coli expression vectors, pET32a and pGEX 4T-1 with TEV protease cleavage site and purified using gel-filtration chromatography followed by affinity chromatography. To understand how C-ter100 modulates proteolytic activity of vEP, structural studies were performed by heteronuclar multi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy. Backbone $^1H$, $^{15}N$ and $^{13}C$ resonances were assigned by data from standard triple resonance and HCCH-TOCSY experiments. The secondary structures of vEP C-ter100 were determined by TALOS+ and CSI software based on hydrogen/deuterium exchange. NMR data show that C-ter100 of vEP forms a ${\beta}$-barrel structure consisting of eight ${\beta}$-strands.
