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Cathepsin L is a member of the papain superfamily of cysteine proteases and, like many other proteases, it is synthesized as an inactive proenzyme. Its prosegment shows little homology to that of procathepsin B, whose structure, the first for a cysteine protease proenzyme, has been determined recently. We report here the 3‐D structure of a mutant of human procathepsin L determined at 2.2 A resolution, describe the mode of binding employed by the prosegment and discuss the molecular basis for other possible roles of the prosegment. The N‐terminal part of the prosegment is globular and contains three alpha‐helices with a small hydrophobic core built around aromatic side chains. This domain packs against a loop on the enzyme's surface, with the aromatic side chain from the prosegment being located in the center of this loop and providing a large contact area. The C‐terminal portion of the prosegment assumes an extended conformation and follows along the substrate binding cleft toward the N‐terminus of the mature enzyme. The direction of the prosegment in the substrate binding cleft is opposite to that of substrates. The previously described role of the prosegment in the interactions with membranes is supported by the structure of its N‐terminal domain. The fold of the prosegment and the mechanism by which it inhibits the enzymatic activity of procathepsin L is similar to that observed in procathepsin B despite differences in length and sequence, suggesting that this mode of inhibition is common to all enzymes from the papain superfamily.

The structure of Candida rugosa lipase in a new crystal form has been determined and refined at 2.1 A resolution. The lipase molecule was found in an inactive conformation, with the active site shielded from the solvent by a part of the polypeptide chain-the flap. Comparison of this structure with the previously determined "open" form of this lipase, in which the active site is accessible to the solvent and presumably the substrate, shows that the transition between these 2 states requires only movement of the flap. The backbone NH groups forming the putative oxyanion hole d o not change position during this rearrangement, indicating that this feature is preformed in the inactive state. The 2 lipase conformations probably correspond to states at opposite ends of the pathway of interfacial activation. Quantitative analysis indicates a large increase of the hydrophobic surface in the vicinity of the active site. The flap undergoes a flexible rearrangement during which some of its secondary structure refolds. The interactions of the flap with the rest of the protein change from mostly hydrophobic in the inactive form to largely hydrophilic in the "open" conformation. Although the flap movement cannot be described as a rigid body motion, it has very definite hinge points at Glu 66 and at Pro 92. The rearrangement is accompanied by a cis-trans isomerization of this proline, which likely increases the energy required for the transition between the 2 states, and may play a role in the stabilization of the active conformation at the water/lipid interface. Carbohydrate attached at Asn 351 also provides stabilization for the open conformation of the flap. Keywords: crystallography; interfacial activation; lipasesLipases of known 3-dimensional structure show significant similarities in their topologies and conform in full or in part to the a/fl hydrolase fold ( Ollis et al., 1992). The catalytic machinery of lipases consists of a serine protease-like triad, Ser-His-Asp/Glu, and their hydrolysis of ester bonds of triacylglycerols is thought to involve an enzymatic mechanism similar to that of the serine proteases (Chapus et al., 1988). The activity of lipases is dramatically enhanced by the presence of a lipid/water interface (Desnuelle, 1972), and it is now well accepted that the phenomenon of interfacial activation involves a conformational change in the enzyme. This has been documented for 2 lipases, one from Rhizomucor miehei (Brzozowski et ai., 199i) and another from human pancreas (van Tilbeurgh et al., 1993), in which binding of an inhibitor or substrate analog causes a conformational rearrangement of 1 or more loops near the active site, exposing the serine nucleophile to the solvent and creating also an oxyanion hole in the process.A similar rearrangement was also proposed for larger lipases from Geotrichum candidurn (GCL;Schrag & Cygler, 1993) Candida rugosa (CRL; Grochubki et ai., 1993). These 2 enzymes show -40% amino acid sequence identity, and their overall 3D structures are very similar (Grochulski ...

The crystal structure of a Ca(2+)-binding domain (dVI) of rat m-calpain has been determined at 2.3 A resolution, both with and without bound Ca2+. The structures reveal a unique fold incorporating five EF-hand motifs per monomer, three of which bind calcium at physiological calcium concentrations, with one showing a novel EF-hand coordination pattern. This investigation gives us a first view of the calcium-induced conformational changes, and consequently an insight into the mechanism of calcium induced activation in calpain. The crystal structures reveal a dVI homodimer which provides a preliminary model for the subunit dimerization in calpain.

The x-ray structure of a short-chain dehydrogenase, the bacterial holo 3a,20/3-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (EC 1.1.1.53), is described at 2.6 A resolution. This enzyme is active as a tetramer and crystallizes with four identical subunits in the asymmetric unit. It has the a/( fold characteristic ofthe dinucleotide binding region. The fold of the rest of the subunit, the quarternary structure, and the nature of the cofactor-enzyme interactions are, however, significantly different from those observed in the long-chain dehydrogenases. The architecture of the postulated active site is consistent with the observed stereospecificity of the enzyme and the fact that the tetramer is the active form. There is only one cofactor and one substrate-binding site per subunit; the specificity for both 3a-and 2013-ends of the steroid results from the binding of the steroid in two orientations near the same cofactor at the same catalytic site. (1), which includes 11f,-hydroxysteroid (llP-HSD) (2), 7a-hydroxysteroid (3), and 15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenases (4) from mammals; glucose (5) and ribitol (6) dehydrogenases, as well as a putative nodulation factor (7) from bacteria; and an ADH (8) from insects. Enzymes belonging to this family have -250 amino acid residues, similar coenzyme specificity, and partial sequence homology. Although more than 40 crystal structures of =15 types of NAD(H)-and NADP(H)-linked dehydrogenase enzymes have been determined at medium-to-high resolution (9), to our knowledge no x-ray crystallographic study describing the three-dimensional structure of a dehydrogenase belonging to this short-chain class has been reported. This is only the third structure of an enzyme for which steroids are the substrate to be determined by x-ray diffraction techniques. A lowresolution structure of keto-steroid isomerase (10) and the refined structure of cholesterol oxidase (11) have been published.To account for the ability of 3a,20f3-HSD to transfer a hydride to either end of a steroid molecule, "one steroid-two cofactor sites" and "two steroid orientations-one cofactor site" models (12) have been proposed. When analyzed in conjunction with sequence homology studies, the threedimensional structured especially at the cofactor binding and the substrate binding regions, offers further insight concerning the significance of conserved residues and their possible roles in substrate specificity and overall enzyme function. MATERIALS AND METHODSThe crystals, grown in the presence of 4 mM NADH, belong to the space group P43212 having unit cell dimensions a = 106.2 A and c = 203.8 A and contain one full tetramer (106 kDa) in the asymmetric unit (13 .091], was collected on film from six crystals at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source and processed by using Rossmann's program at Purdue University. The area detector data to 3 A and film data between 3 and 2.6 A were merged into a composite native data set. The Hg derivatives each had a single major binding site per subunit, whereas the Au reagent gave a "multip...

Crystal structures of Norwalk virus polymerase bound to an RNA primer-template duplex and either the natural substrate CTP or the inhibitor 5-nitrocytidine triphosphate have been determined to 1.8 Å resolution. These structures reveal a closed conformation of the polymerase that differs significantly from previously determined open structures of calicivirus and picornavirus polymerases. These closed complexes are trapped immediately prior to the nucleotidyl transfer reaction, with the triphosphate group of the nucleotide bound to two manganese ions at the active site, poised for reaction to the 3-hydroxyl group of the RNA primer. The positioning of the 5-nitrocytidine triphosphate nitro group between the ␣-phosphate and the 3-hydroxyl group of the primer suggests a novel, general approach for the design of antiviral compounds mimicking natural nucleosides and nucleotides. Norwalk virus (NV)4 is the prototype species of the Norovirus genus within the Caliciviridae and is a major cause of gastroenteritis outbreaks in developed countries (1). Unfortunately, effective treatments are not currently available for many important diseases caused by NV and related RNA viruses. The virally encoded RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) is the central enzyme required for replication (2) and is one of the key targets for the development of novel antiviral agents. Recently, 5-nitrocytidine triphosphate (NCT) was identified as a potent inhibitor of picornaviral polymerases, and the nucleoside 5-nitrocytidine was found to have low toxicity and significant antiviral activity in a cultured cell viral infection model (3). A structural and mechanistic basis for rationalizing the inhibitory activity of NCT and related inhibitors is currently lacking because of a shortage of high resolution structural information on RdRP replication complexes.Details on the structure and mechanism of viral RdRPs are clearly required to understand the replication of RNA viruses and to develop more effective antiviral agents. Previous structural studies of viral RdRPs from positive strand RNA viruses and double-strand RNA viruses indicate that the general features of RdRP architecture are highly conserved throughout a diverse range of viruses (reviewed in Refs. 2 and 4). The threedimensional arrangement of N-terminal, fingers, palm, and thumb domains, as well as the active site residues in motifs A-F are nearly universally shared (5).The structural conservation seen in RdRPs suggests that the enzymatic mechanism of nucleotidyl transfer is also highly conserved. Studies primarily on poliovirus RdRP have revealed many of the basic features underlying the nucleotidyl transfer reaction in RdRPs (6, 7). These studies and others indicate that RdRPs, like other polynucleotide polymerases, follow a fivestep reaction cycle involving (i) the binding of an NTP complementary to the base of the template to form an initial "open" complex, followed by (ii) a conformational change to the "closed" complex, (iii) nucleotidyl transfer and translocation, (iv) a second confor...

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The structures of Candida rugosa lipase-inhibitor complexes demonstrate that the scissile fatty acyl chain is bound in a narrow, hydrophobic tunnel which is unique among lipases studied to date. Modeling of triglyceride binding suggests that the bound lipid must adopt a "tuning fork" conformation. The complexes, analogs of tetrahedral intermediates of the acylation and deacylation steps of the reaction pathway, localize the components of the oxyanion hole and define the stereochemistry of ester hydrolysis. Comparison with other lipases suggests that the positioning of the scissile fatty acyl chain and ester bond and the stereochemistry of hydrolysis are the same in all lipases which share the alpha/beta-hydrolase fold.