Expanded Substrate Activity of OXA-24/40 in Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Involves Enhanced Binding Loop Flexibility

Abstract

Gram-negative bacteria resist β-lactam antibiotics primarily by deploying β-lactamase proteins that hydrolytically destroy the antibiotics. In clinical settings, these bacteria are producing variant β-lactamases with "gain-of-activity" mutations that inactivate a broader range of β-lactams. Learning how these mutations broaden substrate activity is important for coping with β-lactam resistance. Here, we investigate a gain of activity mutation in OXA-24/40, a carbapenem-hydrolyzing class D β-lactamase (CHDL) in Acinetobacter baumannii. OXA-24/40 was originally active against penicillin and carbapenem classes of β-lactams, but a clinical variant of OXA-24/40, the single-site substitution mutant P227S, has emerged with expanded activity that now includes advanced cephalosporins and the monobactam aztreonam. Using solution-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, we have compared the site-specific backbone dynamics of wild-type OXA-24/40 and the P227S variant. P227S changes local backbone flexibility in segments that are important for both binding and hydrolysis of carbapenem and cephalosporin substrates. Our results suggest that mutation-induced changes in sequence-specific dynamics can expand substrate activity and thus highlight the role of protein conformational dynamics in antibiotic resistance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first NMR study of CHDL conformational dynamics and its impact on the expansion of β-lactam antibiotic resistance.