The NMR structure of the rat calreticulin P-domain, comprising residues 189 -288, CRT(189 -288), shows a hairpin fold that involves the entire polypeptide chain, has the two chain ends in close spatial proximity, and does not fold back on itself. This globally extended structure is stabilized by three antiparallel -sheets, with the -strands comprising the residues 189 -192 and 276 -279, 206 -209 and 262-265, and 223-226 and 248 -251, respectively. The hairpin loop of residues 227-247 and the two connecting regions between the -sheets contain a hydrophobic cluster, where each of the three clusters includes two highly conserved tryptophyl residues, one from each strand of the hairpin. The three -sheets and the three hydrophobic clusters form a repeating pattern of interactions across the hairpin that reflects the periodicity of the amino acid sequence, which consists of three 17-residue repeats followed by three 14-residue repeats. Within the global hairpin fold there are two well-ordered subdomains comprising the residues 219 -258, and 189 -209 and 262-284, respectively. These are separated by a poorly ordered linker region, so that the relative orientation of the two subdomains cannot be precisely described. The structure type observed for CRT(189 -288) provides an additional basis for functional studies of the abundant endoplasmic reticulum chaperone calreticulin.T he two homologous calcium-binding proteins calnexin (CNX) and calreticulin (CRT) serve as molecular chaperones in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of eukaryotic cells. They transiently bind to the majority of nascent and newly synthesized glycoproteins in the cell (1-5). The association promotes efficient folding and oligomeric assembly, and helps to retain the glycoproteins in the ER while they are still incompletely folded (5, 6). CNX and CRT are lectins that associate with the partially trimmed, monoglucosylated N-linked oligosaccharide moieties attached to the substrate proteins (5, 7-9). They cooperate in the ER with several independently acting enzymes that are involved in oligosaccharide trimming-i.e., glucosidases I and II and mannosidase I-and with the UDP-glucose:glycoprotein glucosyltransferase, which functions as a folding sensor (10-12). In this cooperative action, CNX and CRT have primarily a binding function, and the enzymes regulate the on-off cycle. CNX and CRT also associate with a thiol oxidoreductase, ERp57, which interacts with cysteines in the substrate glycoproteins (12, 13). In addition to their well-characterized association with glycan moieties, both CNX and CRT have been shown to bind to unfolded unglycosylated polypeptides and prevent their aggregation in vitro (14,15). It remains to be seen whether this type of interaction observed in vitro has a counterpart in the ER of living cells.In this study we used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to solve the three-dimensional structure of the central ''P-domain'' of CRT, comprising residues 189-288, CRT(189-288). The P-domain is thought to be involved in substrate ...