Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
The crystal structure of the ATP-dependent DNA ligase from bacteriophage T7 has been solved at 2.6 A resolution. The protein comprises two domains with a deep cleft running between them. The structure of a complex with ATP reveals that the nucleotide binding pocket is situated on the larger N-terminal domain, at the base of the cleft between the two domains of the enzyme. Comparison of the overall domain structure with that of DNA methyltransferases, coupled with other evidence, suggests that DNA also binds in this cleft. Since this structure is the first of the nucleotidyltransferase superfamily, which includes the eukaryotic mRNA capping enzymes, the relationship between the structure of DNA ligase and that of other nucleotidyltransferases is also discussed.