Crystal structure and centromere binding of the plasmid segregation protein ParB from pCXC100

Plasmid pCXC100 from the Gram-positive bacterium Leifsonia xyli subsp. cynodontis uses a type Ib partition system that includes a centromere region, a Walker-type ATPase ParA and a centromere-binding protein ParB for stable segregation. However, ParB shows no detectable sequence homology to any DNA-binding motif. Here, we study the ParB centromere interaction by structural and biochemical approaches. The crystal structure of the C-terminal DNA-binding domain of ParB at 1.4 Å resolution reveals a dimeric ribbon–helix–helix (RHH) motif, supporting the prevalence of RHH motif in centromere binding. Using hydroxyl radical footprinting and quantitative binding assays, we show that the centromere core comprises nine uninterrupted 9-nt direct repeats that can be successively bound by ParB dimers in a cooperative manner. However, the interaction of ParB with a single subsite requires 18 base pairs covering one immediate repeat as well as two halves of flanking repeats. Through mutagenesis, sequence specificity was determined for each position of an 18-bp subsite. These data suggest an unique centromere recognition mechanism by which the repeat sequence is jointly specified by adjacent ParB dimers bound to an overlapped region.