Positioning Of Catalytic Residues Research Articles

Mechanistic Investigations of Unsaturated Glucuronyl Hydrolase from Clostridium perfringens

Experiments were carried out to probe the details of the hydration-initiated hydrolysis catalyzed by the Clostridium perfringens unsaturated glucuronyl hydrolase of glycoside hydrolase family 88 in the CAZy classification system. Direct (1)H NMR monitoring of the enzymatic reaction detected no accumulated reaction intermediates in solution, suggesting that rearrangement of the initial hydration product occurs on-enzyme. An attempt at mechanism-based trapping of on-enzyme intermediates using a 1,1-difluoro-substrate was unsuccessful because the probe was too deactivated to be turned over by the enzyme. Kinetic isotope effects arising from deuterium-for-hydrogen substitution at carbons 1 and 4 provide evidence for separate first-irreversible and overall rate-determining steps in the hydration reaction, with two potential mechanisms proposed to explain these results. Based on the positioning of catalytic residues in the enzyme active site, the lack of efficient turnover of a 2-deoxy-2-fluoro-substrate, and several unsuccessful attempts at confirmation of a simpler mechanism involving a covalent glycosyl-enzyme intermediate, the most plausible mechanism is one involving an intermediate bearing an epoxide on carbons 1 and 2.

Mutability of an HNH Nuclease Imidazole General Base and Exchange of a Deprotonation Mechanism

Several unique protein folds that catalyze the hydrolysis of phosphodiester bonds have arisen independently in nature, including the PD(D/E)XK superfamily (typified by type II restriction endonucleases and many recombination and repair enzymes) and the HNH superfamily (found in an equally wide array of enzymes, including bacterial colicins and homing endonucleases). Whereas the identity and position of catalytic residues within the PD(D/E)XK superfamily are highly variable, the active sites of HNH nucleases are much more strongly conserved. In this study, the ability of an HNH nuclease to tolerate a mutation of its most conserved catalytic residue (its histidine general base), and the mechanism of the most active enzyme variant, were characterized. Conversion of this residue into several altered chemistries, glutamine, lysine, or glutamate, resulted in measurable activity. The histidine to glutamine mutant displays the highest residual activity and a pH profile similar to that of the wild-type enzyme. This activity is dependent on the presence of a neighboring imidazole ring, which has taken over as a less efficient general base for the reaction. This result implies that mutational pathways to alternative HNH-derived catalytic sites do exist but are not as extensively or successfully diverged or reoptimized in nature as variants of the PD(D/E)XK nuclease superfamily. This is possibly due to multiple steric constraints placed on the compact HNH motif, which is simultaneously involved in protein folding, DNA binding, and catalysis, as well as the use of a planar, aromatic imidazole group as a general base.

Evolution of function in protein superfamilies, from a structural perspective

The recent growth in protein databases has revealed the functional diversity of many protein superfamilies. We have assessed the functional variation of homologous enzyme superfamilies containing two or more enzymes, as defined by the CATH protein structure classification, by way of the Enzyme Commission (EC) scheme. Combining sequence and structure information to identify relatives, the majority of superfamilies display variation in enzyme function, with 25 % of superfamilies in the PDB having members of different enzyme types. We determined the extent of functional similarity at different levels of sequence identity for 486,000 homologous pairs (enzyme/enzyme and enzyme/non-enzyme), with structural and sequence relatives included. For single and multi-domain proteins, variation in EC number is rare above 40 % sequence identity, and above 30 %, the first three digits may be predicted with an accuracy of at least 90 %. For more distantly related proteins sharing less than 30 % sequence identity, functional variation is significant, and below this threshold, structural data are essential for understanding the molecular basis of observed functional differences. To explore the mechanisms for generating functional diversity during evolution, we have studied in detail 31 diverse structural enzyme superfamilies for which structural data are available. A large number of variations and peculiarities are observed, at the atomic level through to gross structural rearrangements. Almost all superfamilies exhibit functional diversity generated by local sequence variation and domain shuffling. Commonly, substrate specificity is diverse across a superfamily, whilst the reaction chemistry is maintained. In many superfamilies, the position of catalytic residues may vary despite playing equivalent functional roles in related proteins. The implications of functional diversity within supefamilies for the structural genomics projects are discussed. More detailed information on these superfamilies is available at http://www.biochem.ucl.ac.uk/bsm/FAM-EC/.