Cold Adaptation of Zinc Metalloproteases in the Thermolysin Family from Deep Sea and Arctic Sea Ice Bacteria Revealed by Catalytic and Structural Properties and Molecular Dynamics

Abstract

Increased conformational flexibility is the prevailing explanation for the high catalytic efficiency of cold-adapted enzymes at low temperatures. However, less is known about the structural determinants of flexibility. We reported two novel cold-adapted zinc metalloproteases in the thermolysin family, vibriolysin MCP-02 from a deep sea bacterium and vibriolysin E495 from an Arctic sea ice bacterium, and compared them with their mesophilic homolog, pseudolysin from a terrestrial bacterium. Their catalytic efficiencies, k(cat)/K(m) (10-40 degrees C), followed the order pseudolysin < MCP-02 < E495 with a ratio of approximately 1:2:4. MCP-02 and E495 have the same optimal temperature (T(opt), 57 degrees C, 5 degrees C lower than pseudolysin) and apparent melting temperature (T(m) = 64 degrees C, approximately 10 degrees C lower than pseudolysin). Structural analysis showed that the slightly lower stabilities resulted from a decrease in the number of salt bridges. Fluorescence quenching experiments and molecular dynamics simulations showed that the flexibilities of the proteins were pseudolysin < MCP-02 < E495, suggesting that optimization of flexibility is a strategy for cold adaptation. Molecular dynamics results showed that the ordinal increase in flexibility from pseudolysin to MCP-02 and E495, especially the increase from MCP-02 to E495, mainly resulted from the decrease of hydrogen-bond stability in the dynamic structure, which was due to the increase in asparagine, serine, and threonine residues. Finally, a model for the cold adaptation of MCP-02 and E495 was proposed. This is the first report of the optimization of hydrogen-bonding dynamics as a strategy for cold adaptation and provides new insights into the structural basis underlying conformational flexibility.