Functional Dynamics in the Enzyme Adenylate Kinase

Abstract

An important question in biology is how the energy landscape of enzymes can enable efficient catalysis of chemical reactions. We have undertaken an in-depth analysis of conformational exchange dynamics in the enzyme adenylate kinase (adk). Adk is an essential enzyme in higher organisms that catalyzes the reversible interconversion of AMP and ATP into two ADP molecules. The enzyme is modular and is composed of distinct ATP and AMP binding subdomains and in addition a core subdomain (where core is responsible for global thermodynamic and thermal stability). We have previously shown that substrate binding is accompanied by rate-limiting spatial displacements of both the ATP and AMP binding motifs. Here, we present a solution state chemical shift based NMR approach to probe the native energy landscape of adenylate kinase with and without its natural substrates present. Binding of ATP induces a dynamic equilibrium in which the ATP binding subdomain populates both open and closed conformations with equal weights. A similar scenario is observed upon AMP binding in the AMP binding subdomain. These structural ensembles represent complexes that are populated transiently during the enzymatic reaction cycle. Our proposed dynamic mode of protein-ligand interaction in adk stands in contrast to the traditional view of substrate/enzyme complexes as rigid, low entropy states. Finally, by using a combination of protein engineering and hydrogen to deuterium exchange experiments we have shown that the individual subdomains in adk can fold independently of each other. Independent folding of subdomains can, in principle, be utilized to accommodate the structural change during the functional open to closed transition.