Three critical regions of the erythromycin resistance methyltransferase, ErmE, are required for function supporting a model for the interaction of Erm family enzymes with substrate rRNA

A computational model of ErmE bound to its 23S rRNA substrate suggests three regions are critical for RNA recognition. (A) A superposition of three models derived from the Rosetta Relax calculation is shown with the residues E160, K164, and R171 shown as sticks. The Rossmann-fold (RF) catalytic domain and the carboxy-terminal domain (CTD) are indicated. (B) A plot is shown of the Rosetta score versus root mean squared (RMS) deviation of Cα atoms for all models obtained versus model 0425. (C) Rosetta model 0515 is shown highlighting interactions of three regions of the protein with rRNA: the adenosine pocket, the basic patch, and the α4 cleft.