Crystallization and preliminary X-ray analysis of CrgA, a LysR-type transcriptional regulator from pathogenic Neisseria meningitidis MC58

Although LysR-type regulators (LTTRs) represent the largest family of transcriptional regulators in bacteria, the full-length structure of only one annotated LTTR (CbnR) has been deposited in the PDB. CrgA, a LTTR from pathogenic Neisseria meningitidis MC58, which is up-regulated upon bacterial cell contact with human epithelial cells, has been cloned, purified and crystallized. Crystals of full-length CrgA were obtained after buffer screening with a thermal shift assay and concentration with 0.2 M NDSB-256. Data were collected from two crystal forms of full-length CrgA belonging to space groups P2₁2₁2₁ and P2₁, diffracting to 3.0 and 3.8 Å resolution and consistent with the presence of between six and ten and between ten and 20 copies of CrgA in the asymmetric unit, respectively. In addition, diffraction data were collected to 2.3 Å resolution from the selenomethionine derivative of the regulatory domain of CrgA. The crystals belonged to space group P2₁ and contained two molecules in the asymmetric unit.