No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The structure of human pancreatic a-amylase has been determined to 1.8 A resolution using X-ray diffraction techniques. This enzyme is found to be composed of three structural domains. The largest is Domain A (residues 1-99, 169-404), which forms a central eight-stranded parallel @-barrel, to one end of which are located the active site residues Asp 197, Glu 233, and Asp 300. Also found in this vicinity is a bound chloride ion that forms ligand interactions to Arg 195, Asn 298, and Arg 337. Domain B is the smallest (residues 100-168) and serves to form a calcium binding site against the wall of the @-barrel of Domain A. Protein groups making ligand interactions to this calcium include Asn 100, Arg 158, Asp 167, and His 201. Domain C (residues 405-496) is made up of antiparallel @-structure and is only loosely associated with Domains A and B. It is notable that the N-terminal glutamine residue of human pancreatic a-amylase undergoes a posttranslational modification to form a stable pyrrolidone derivative that may provide protection against other digestive enzymes. Structure-based comparisons of human pancreatic a-amylase with functionally related enzymes serve to emphasize three points. Firstly, despite this approach facilitating primary sequence alignments with respect to the numerous insertions and deletions present, overall there is only -15% sequence homology between the mammalian and fungal a-amylases. Secondly, in contrast, these same studies indicate that significant structural homology is present and of the order of -70%. Thirdly, the positioning of Domain C can vary considerably between a-amylases. In terms of the more closely related porcine enzyme, there are four regions of polypeptide chain (residues 237-250, 304-310, 346-354, and 458-461) with significantly different conformations from those in human pancreatic a-amylase. At least two of these could play a role in observed differential substrate and cleavage pattern specificities between these enzymes. Similarly, amino acid differences between human pancreatic and salivary a-amylases have been localized and a number of these occur in the vicinity of the active site.Keywords: amylase; crystallography; enzymology; glycogen; pancreatic; sequences; starch; structure a-Amylases catalyze the hydrolysis of a-1,4 glucan linkages in starch and are widely distributed in nature, being found in bacteria, plants and animals. In humans, a-amylase is composed of 496 amino acids in a single polypeptide chain, which is encoded on chromosome 1 as part of a multigene family (Gumucio et al., 1988). These genes are regulated so that different isozymes are synthesized in either salivary glands or the pancreas. The salivary and pancreatic a-amylases are highly homologous in terms of primary sequence (Nishide et al., 1986) but d o exhibit somewhat different cleavage patterns (Minamiura, 1988). The functional differences observed undoubtedly arise from the 15 amino Reprint requests to: Gary D. Brayer, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of B...

The N-lobe of human serum transferrin (hTF/2N) has been expressed in baby hamster kidney cells and crystallized in both orthorhombic (P212121) and tetragonal (P41212) space groups. Both crystal forms diffract to high resolution (1.6 and 1.8 A, respectively) and have been solved by molecular replacement. Subsequent refinement resulted in final models for the structure of hTF/2N that had crystallographic R-factors of 18.1 and 19.7% for the two crystal forms, respectively; these models represent the highest-resolution transferrin structures determined to date. The hTF/2N polypeptide has a folding pattern similar to those of other transferrins, including the presence of a deep cleft that contains the metal-binding site. In contrast to other transferrins, both crystal forms of hTF/2N display disorder at the iron-binding site; model building suggests that this disorder consists of alternative conformations of the synergistically bound carbonate anion, the side chain for Arg-124, and several solvent molecules. Subsequent refinement revealed that conformation A has an occupancy of 0.63-0. 65 and corresponds to the structure of the iron-binding site found in other transferrins. The alternative conformation B has an occupancy of 0.35-0.37; in this structure, the carbonate has rotated 30 degrees relative to the iron and the side chain for Arg-124 has moved to accommodate the new carbonate position. Several water molecules appear to stabilize the carbonate anion in the two conformations. These structures are consistent with the protonation of the carbonate and resulting partial removal of the anion from the metal; these events would occur prior to cleft opening and metal release.