It has been shown by scanning calorimetry and 'H NMR spectroscopy that thermal denaturation of mutant 11 phage cro repressor in which Valss was substituted for Cys, proceeds in 2 stages in contrast to the wild type protein. At neutral pH values, an additional cooperative transition has been observed at about 100°C. Calorimetric measurements on the mutant and its tryptic fragment lead to the conclusion that the two-stagecharacter of thermal unfolding of the mutant is due to a disruption of an additional cooperative domain in the dimer molecule which is stabilized by the S-S crosslink.

Binding specificity of mutant V55C disulfide bonded dimeric lambda-Cro protein (CroVC) to double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) was studied using generic hexamer oligonucleotide microchip. The curves of dissociation of hybridized DNA in the presence and absence of CroVC were converted into the effective discriminant constants to assess the relevant thermodynamic equilibrium binding constants for dsDNA-protein complexes. Then, tiling of longer oligonucleotides with shorter oligomers was used to search for sequence motifs with the highest binding specificity similarly to sequencing by hybridization. The comparison of the deduced sequences with the known natural operator half-sites demonstrated the principal ability to discern and reconstruct the major parts of 7-mer motifs corresponding to the strongest binding of CroVC subunits. Our results show the applicability of generic microchips to the analysis of binding specificity in the case of multi-subunit DNA-binding proteins.

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