Engineering Coenzyme Specificity of Formate Dehydrogenases: The Role of Amino Acid Residues at Positions 379 and 380.

Understanding the Functional Roles of Amino Acid Residues in Enzyme Catalysis

Protein engineering of formate dehydrogenase

Sequence Analysis of Holins by Reduced Amino Acid Alphabet Model and Permutation Approaches Objective: Holins are small proteins which perform many important functions in the cytoplasmic membrane of the cell. There is no crystal structure of holins reported in Protein Data Bank and hence computational sequence analysis is the only alternative to understand structure and functional consequences of these proteins. In the present work, we engaged several careful computational procedures to explore the important amino acid residues responsible for functioning of holins on membranes. Methods: To explore role of amino acid residues in holins, we used reduced amino acid alphabet model by reducing twenty amino acids to fifteen. Transmembrane regions in holin sequences are extracted and subjected to multiple sequence alignment to bring out the role of conserved amino acid residues. Further transmembrane regions in holins are permutated to different possible positions by keeping loops as static to understand the role of transmembrane and non transmembrane regions. Results: We found that the reduced amino acid alphabet model is successful, when no relationship is established between the proteins belonging to similar families. Also, the important physico-chemical properties conserved in the non-redundant holin sequences is explored in detail by computing correlation coefficients. Permutation of transmembrane regions in holins and database search showed that the holin sequence composition and arrangement is unique to perform its specific function. Conclusion: Analysis presented in this paper reveal the vital role of each and every amino acid residue in the holin and this may help to accurately model the structure to understand the sequence-structure-function relationship of holins on the membrane.

Malaria is an infectious disease for which effective treatment and prevention strategies remain limited. Our group recently reported that angiotensin II (AII) presents antiplasmodial activity and inhibits the development of Plasmodium gallinaceum in Aedes aegypti. However, details concerning role of each amino acid residue in the antiplasmodial activity of the peptide and information about the minimal structure responsible for this activity remain unknown. In this work, we investigated the effects of specific deletions (i.e., mono-, di-, tri- and tetra-deletions) of AII amino acids on the antiplasmodial activity of this molecule. The peptides were synthesized on solid phase method using the t-Boc strategy, purified using high performance liquid chromatography and characterized using mass spectrometry. The lytic activity of the peptides was assessed in vitro using mature sporozoites extracted from the salivary glands of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The results demonstrate that all of the deletions reduced antiplasmodial activity compared to native AII and that active analogs tend to adopt β-turn conformations; however, the deletion of bulky hydrophobic residues causes greater reductions of bioactivity than the deletion of hydrophilic residues. Corroborating previous studies, we observed that analog extremities are susceptible to changes and can be carefully modified without compromising the activity of this compound. This research contributes to our understanding of the role of each AII amino acid residue in activity against Plasmodium gallinaceum and identifies two short analogs with similar antiplasmodial activity to AII. These analogs may be candidates for additional antimalarial assays because they are inexpensive and easy to synthesize.

A novel NADP +-dependent formate dehydrogenase from Burkholderia stabilis 15516: Screening, purification and characterization

We developed a strategy for finding out the adapted variants of enzymes, and we applied it to an enzyme, dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), in terms of its catalytic activity so that we successfully obtained several hyperactive cysteine- and methionine-free variants of DHFR in which all five methionyl and two cysteinyl residues were replaced by other amino acid residues. Among them, a variant (M1A/M16N/M20L/M42Y/C85A/M92F/C152S), named as ANLYF, has an approximately seven times higher k(cat) value than wild type DHFR. Enzyme kinetics and crystal structures of the variant were investigated for elucidating the mechanism of the hyperactivity. Steady-state and transient binding kinetics of the variant indicated that the kinetic scheme of the catalytic cycle of ANLYF was essentially the same as that of wild type, showing that the hyperactivity was brought about by an increase of the dissociation rate constants of tetrahydrofolate from the enzyme-NADPH-tetrahydrofolate ternary complex. The crystal structure of the variant, solved and refined to an R factor of 0.205 at 1.9-angstroms resolution, indicated that an increased structural flexibility of the variant and an increased size of the N-(p-aminobenzoyl)-L-glutamate binding cleft induced the increase of the dissociation constant. This was consistent with a large compressibility (volume fluctuation) of the variant. A comparison of folding kinetics between wild type and the variant showed that the folding of these two enzymes was similar to each other, suggesting that the activity enhancement of the enzyme can be attained without drastic changes of the folding mechanism.

Identification of an amino acid residue important for binding of methiothepin and sumatriptan to the human 5-HT 1B receptor

Characterization of five Neisseria homoserine dehydrogenases with diverse coenzyme specificities reveals adaptive evolution of the hom6 genes.

The molecular mechanisms that regulate invertebrate visual pigment absorption are poorly understood. Through sequence analysis and functional investigation of vertebrate visual pigments, numerous amino acid substitutions important for this adaptive process have been identified. Here we describe a serine/alanine (S/A) substitution in long wavelength-absorbing Drosophila visual pigments that occurs at a site corresponding to Ala-292 in bovine rhodopsin. This S/A substitution accounts for a 10-17-nm absorption shift in visual pigments of this class. Additionally, we demonstrate that substitution of a cysteine at the same site, as occurs in the blue-absorbing Rh5 pigment, accounts for a 4-nm shift. Substitutions at this site are the first spectrally significant amino acid changes to be identified for invertebrate pigments sensitive to visible light and are the first evidence of a conserved tuning mechanism in vertebrate and invertebrate pigments of this class.

Formate dehydrogenase from Candida boidinii (CboFDH) catalyses the oxidation of formate anion to carbon dioxide with concomitant reduction of NAD(+) to NADH. CboFDH is highly specific to NAD(+) and virtually fails to catalyze the reaction with NADP(+). Based on structural information for CboFDH, the loop region between beta-sheet 7 and alpha-helix 10 in the dinucleotide-binding fold was predicted as a principal determinant of coenzyme specificity. Sequence alignment with other formate dehydrogenases revealed two residues (Asp195 and Tyr196) that could account for the observed coenzyme specificity. Positions 195 and 196 were subjected to two rounds of site-saturation mutagenesis and screening and enabled the identification of a double mutant Asp195Gln/Tyr196His, which showed a more than 2 x 10(7)-fold improvement in overall catalytic efficiency with NADP(+) and a more than 900-fold decrease in the efficiency with NAD(+) as cofactors. The results demonstrate that the combined polar interactions and steric factors comprise the main structural determinants responsible for coenzyme specificity. The double mutant Asp195Gln/Tyr196His was tested for practical applicability in a cofactor recycling system composed of cytochrome P450 monooxygenase from Bacillus subtilis, (CYP102A2), NADP(+), formic acid and omega-(p-nitrophenyl)dodecanoic acid (12-pNCA). Using a 1250-fold excess of 12-pNCA over NADP(+) the first order rate constant was determined to be equal to k(obs) = 0.059 +/- 0.004 min(-1).

Pichia stipitis NAD(+)-dependent xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH), a medium-chain dehydrogenase/reductase, is one of the key enzymes in ethanol fermentation from xylose. For the construction of an efficient biomass-ethanol conversion system, we focused on the two areas of XDH, 1) change of coenzyme specificity from NAD(+) to NADP(+) and 2) thermostabilization by introducing an additional zinc atom. Site-directed mutagenesis was used to examine the roles of Asp(207), Ile(208), Phe(209), and Asn(211) in the discrimination between NAD(+) and NADP(+). Single mutants (D207A, I208R, F209S, and N211R) improved 5 approximately 48-fold in catalytic efficiency (k(cat)/K(m)) with NADP(+) compared with the wild type but retained substantial activity with NAD(+). The double mutants (D207A/I208R and D207A/F209S) improved by 3 orders of magnitude in k(cat)/K(m) with NADP(+), but they still preferred NAD(+) to NADP(+). The triple mutant (D207A/I208R/F209S) and quadruple mutant (D207A/I208R/F209S/N211R) showed more than 4500-fold higher values in k(cat)/K(m) with NADP(+) than the wild-type enzyme, reaching values comparable with k(cat)/K(m) with NAD(+) of the wild-type enzyme. Because most NADP(+)-dependent XDH mutants constructed in this study decreased the thermostability compared with the wild-type enzyme, we attempted to improve the thermostability of XDH mutants by the introduction of an additional zinc atom. The introduction of three cysteine residues in wild-type XDH gave an additional zinc-binding site and improved the thermostability. The introduction of this mutation in D207A/I208R/F209S and D207A/I208R/F209S/N211R mutants increased the thermostability and further increased the catalytic activity with NADP(+).

It has been shown by an X-ray structural analysis that the amino acid residues Ala198, which are located in the coenzyme-binding domain of NAD(+)-dependent formate dehydrogenases (EC 1.2.1.2., FDH) from bacteria Pseudomonas sp.101 and Moraxella sp. C-1 (PseFDH and MorFDH, respectively), have non-optimal values of the angles ψ and φ. These residues were replaced with Gly by site-directed mutagenesis. The mutants PseFDH A198G and MorFDH A198G were expressed in E.coli cells and obtained in active and soluble forms with more than 95% purity. The study of thermal inactivation kinetics showed that the mutation A198G results in a 2.5- fold increase in stability compared to one for the wild-type enzymes. Kinetic experiments indicate that A198G replacement reduces the KM (NAD+) value from 60 to 35 and from 80 to 45 μM for PseFDH and MorFDH, respectively, while the KM (HCOO-) value remains practically unchanged. Amino acid replacement A198G was also added to the mutant PseFDH D221S with the coenzyme specificity changed from NAD(+) to NADP(+). In this case, an increase in thermal stability was also observed, but the influence of the mutation on the kinetic parameters was opposite: KM increased from 190 to 280 μM and from 43 to 89 mM for NADP(+) and formate, respectively. According to the data obtained, inference could be drawn that earlier formate dehydrogenase from bacterium Pseudomonas sp. 101 was specific to NADP(+), but not to NAD(+).

Haloferax volcanii Ds-threo-isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICDH) was highly expressed in bacteria as inclusion bodies. The recombinant enzyme was refolded, purified and characterized, and was found to be NADP-dependent like the wild-type protein. Sequence alignment of several isocitrate dehydrogenases from evolutionarily divergent organisms including H. volcanii revealed that the amino acid residues involved in coenzyme specificity are highly conserved. Our objective was to switch the coenzyme specificity of halophilic ICDH by altering these conserved amino acids. We were able to switch coenzyme specificity from NADP+ to NAD+ by changing five amino acids by site-directed mutagenesis (Arg291, Lys343, Tyr344, Val350 and Tyr390). The five mutants of ICDH were overexpressed in Escherichia coli as inclusion bodies and each recombinant ICDH protein was refolded and purified, and its kinetic parameters were determined. Coenzyme specificity did not switch until all five amino acids were substituted.

APOBEC3F (A3F), an apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme catalytic polypeptide-like 3 (APOBEC3) family protein, catalyzes cytosine-to-uracil conversion in single-stranded (ss) DNA. A3F acts as an inhibitor of retrovirus replication and exhibits antiviral activity against viral infectivity factor (Vif)-deficient human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1). Previous studies have mostly been focused on the interaction between A3F and Vif, and the studies on A3F's deamination properties are limited. Here, we report comprehensive characterization of the deaminase activity and ssDNA binding of the C-terminal domain (CTD) of A3F. It was shown that the deaminase activity of A3F-CTD is affected by the nucleic acid residues adjacent to the target sequence, TC, and that TTCA/G are the most preferred sequences. A3F-CTD deaminates the target sequence in longer ssDNAs most efficiently. Mutation analysis identified the amino acid residues that are responsible for the deaminase activity and ssDNA binding in the loops surrounding the catalytic center. The functions of these residues were rationally interpreted on the basis of the co-crystal structure of A3A-ssDNA and the known roles of the equivalent amino acid residues found in other A3s. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the deaminase activity of A3F-CTD could be regulated through phosphorylation of a putative site, S216. Finally, A3F-CTD was found to be active in a wide pH range (5.5 to 9.5) with similar activity. Interestingly, the A3F-CTD N214H mutant exhibited a dramatic increase in activity at pH 5.5.

Mouse lung carbonyl reductase, a member of the short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR) family, exhibits coenzyme specificity for NADP(H) over NAD(H). Crystal structure of the enzyme-NADPH complex shows that Thr-38 interacts with the 2'-phosphate of NADPH and occupies the position spatially similar to an Asp residue of the NAD(H)-dependent SDRs that hydrogen-bonds to the hydroxyl groups of the adenine ribose of the coenzymes. Using site-directed mutagenesis, we constructed a mutant mouse lung carbonyl reductase in which Thr-38 was replaced by Asp (T38D), and we compared kinetic properties of the mutant and wild-type enzymes in both forward and reverse reactions. The mutation resulted in increases of more than 200-fold in the Km values for NADP(H) and decreases of more than 7-fold in those for NAD(H), but few changes in the Km values for substrates or in the kcat values of the reactions. NAD(H) provided maximal protection against thermal and urea denaturation of T38D, in contrast to the effective protection by NADP(H) for the wild-type enzyme. Thus, the single mutation converted the coenzyme specificity from NADP(H) to NAD(H). Calculation of free energy changes showed that the 2'-phosphate of NADP(H) contributes to its interaction with the wild-type enzyme. Changing Thr-38 to Asp destabilized the binding energies of NADP(H) by 3.9-4.5 kcal/mol and stabilized those of NAD(H) by 1.2-1.4 kcal/mol. These results indicate a significant role of Thr-38 in NADP(H) binding for the mouse lung enzyme and provide further evidence for the key role of Asp at this position in NAD(H) specificity of the SDR family proteins.