Structural basis of the interaction between ESV1 and LESV from Arabidopsis thaliana with starch glucans.

Starch is the major energy storage compound in plants. Whether it is transient or stored, it is accumulated in the form of insoluble, semi-crystalline granules. The structure of these granules is related to the structure of the main component: amylopectin. Amylopectin consists of linear polymers of glucose units linked by -1,4 bonds, forming double helices that combine to form the semi-crystalline lamellae of the granules, and -1,6 branching points that form the amorphous lamellae. This particular structure of amylopectin is linked to the action of isoamylases, which cut the excess of branching points and allow the granules to be structured. For a long time, it was thought that the action of these enzymes was responsible for the structuring of starch granules. Recently, two new proteins, LESV and ESV1, have been characterized and are involved in the phase transition of amylopectin (LESV) or in the maintenance of the granule structure (ESV1). These proteins share a tryptophan-rich domain folded into an antiparallel {beta}-sheet that is particularly well suited to bind amylopectin double helices. In this paper we present the structural study of these interactions using integrative structural biology approaches and show that LESV, in contrast to ESV1 can intervenes during amylopectin biosynthesis.