Crystal structure of archaeal homolog of proteasome-assembly chaperone PbaA

•3D structure of archaeal homolog of proteasome assembly chaperone PbaA was solved.•The crystal structure reveals that PbaA forms a homopentamer.•C-terminal segments with proteasome-activating motif are packed against the core.•Homologous PbaA and PbaB have distinct tertiary and quaternary structures.

Formation of the eukaryotic proteasome is not a spontaneous process but a highly ordered process assisted by several assembly chaperones. In contrast, archaeal proteasome subunits can spontaneously assemble into an active form. Recent bioinformatic analysis identified the proteasome-assembly chaperone-like proteins, PbaA and PbaB, in archaea. Our previous study showed that the PbaB homotetramer functions as a proteasome activator through its tentacle-like C-terminal segments. However, a functional role of the other homolog PbaA has remained elusive. Here we determined the 2.25-Å resolution structure of PbaA, illustrating its disparate tertiary and quaternary structures compared with PbaB. PbaA forms a homopentamer in which the C-terminal segments, with a putative proteasome-activating motif, are packed against the core. These findings offer deeper insights into the molecular evolution relationships between the proteasome-assembly chaperones and the proteasome activators.