Many enzymes catalyse reactions that proceed through covalent acyl–enzyme (ester or thioester) intermediates1. These enzymes include serine hydrolases2,3 (encoded by one per cent of human genes, and including serine proteases and thioesterases), cysteine proteases (including caspases), and many components of the ubiquitination machinery4,5. Their important acyl–enzyme intermediates are unstable, commonly having half-lives of minutes to hours6. In some cases, acyl–enzyme complexes can be stabilized using substrate analogues or active-site mutations but, although these approaches can provide valuable insight7–10, they often result in complexes that are substantially non-native. Here we develop a strategy for incorporating 2,3-diaminopropionic acid (DAP) into recombinant proteins, via expansion of the genetic code11. We show that replacing catalytic cysteine or serine residues of enzymes with DAP permits their first-step reaction with native substrates, allowing the efficient capture of acyl–enzyme complexes that are linked through a stable amide bond. For one of these enzymes, the thioesterase domain of valinomycin synthetase12, we elucidate the biosynthetic pathway by which it progressively oligomerizes tetradepsipeptidyl substrates to a dodecadepsipeptidyl intermediate, which it then cyclizes to produce valinomycin. By trapping the first and last acyl–thioesterase intermediates in the catalytic cycle as DAP conjugates, we provide structural insight into how conformational changes in thioesterase domains of such nonribosomal peptide synthetases control the oligomerization and cyclization of linear substrates. The encoding of DAP will facilitate the characterization of diverse acyl–enzyme complexes, and may be extended to capturing the native substrates of transiently acylated proteins of unknown function.
Cereulide is a cyclic depsidodecapeptide produced in Bacillus cereus by two non-ribosomal peptide synthetases, CesA and CesB. While highly similar in structure and with a homologous biosynthetic gene cluster to valinomycin, recent work suggests that cereulide is produced via a different mechanism, which relys on a non-canonical coupling of two didepsipeptide-PCP bound intermediates. Ultimately this alternative mechanism generates a tetradepsipeptide-PCP bound intermediate that is prosed to differ from the tetradepsipeptide predicted from canonical activity of CesA and CesB. To test this hypothesis, we chemically synthetize both tetradepsipeptides as N-acetyl cysteamine thioesters and probed the ability of the purified recombinant terminal CesB thioesterase (CesB TE) to oligomerize and macrocyclize each substrate. Only the canonical substrate is converted cereulide, ruling out this alternative mechanism. We also show that CesB TE can use related tertradepsipeptide substrates, such as the valinomycin tetradespipetide and a hybride cereulide-valinomycin tetradespispetide in conjunction with its native substrate to generate chimeric natural products. This work clarifies the biosynthetic origins of cereulide and provides a powerful biocatalyst to access analogs of these ionophoric forming natural products. File list (2) download file view on ChemRxiv cereulide_thioesterase_2020_GWH_CNB.pdf (0.92 MiB) download file view on ChemRxiv cereulide_thioesterase_SI_2020_GWH_CNB.pdf (1.15 MiB) Thioesterase from Cereulide biosynthesis is responsible for oligomerization and macrocyclization of a linear tetradepsipeptide
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