Crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of a novel nuclease from Serratia marcescens

Crystals have been obtained of the extracellular endonuclease from the bacterial pathogen Serratia marcescens. This magnesium-dependent enzyme is equally active against single and double-stranded DNA, as well as RNA, without any apparent base preference. The Serratia nuclease is not homologous with staphylococcal nuclease, the only other broad specificity endonuclease for which a structure exists, nor is it homologous with other nucleases that have been solved by X-ray diffraction. The structure of this enzyme should, therefore, provide new information about this class of enzyme. At present we have succeeded in obtaining large, high quality crystals using ammonium sulfate. They crystallize in the orthorhombic space group P2₁2₁2₁, with cell dimensions a = 106·7 A ̊, b = 74·5 A ̊, c = 68·9 A ̊, and diffract to beyond 2 Å. Low-resolution native data sets have been recorded and a search is under way for heavy-atom derivatives.