Allosteric Activation of HtrA Protease DegP by Stress Signals during Bacterial Protein Quality Control

Unleashing the proteolytic activity of DegP: A study with synthetic mimics of cellular stress signals reveals an allosteric (chemical) activation mechanism of the bacterial HtrA protease DegP, leading to a fine-tuned amplification of protein degradation during bacterial protein quality control (see scheme: binding of a peptide sequence (circles) increases activation. The nature of the penultimate residue (red) is shown to be decisive).