α-Glucosidases, which catalyze the hydrolysis of the α-glucosidic linkage at the nonreducing end of the substrate, are important for the metabolism of α-glucosides. Halomonas sp. H11 α-glucosidase (HaG), belonging to glycoside hydrolase family 13 (GH13), only has high hydrolytic activity towards the α-(1 → 4)-linked disaccharide maltose among naturally occurring substrates. Although several three-dimensional structures of GH13 members have been solved, the disaccharide specificity and α-(1 → 4) recognition mechanism of α-glucosidase are unclear owing to a lack of corresponding substrate-bound structures. In this study, four crystal structures of HaG were solved: the apo form, the glucosyl-enzyme intermediate complex, the E271Q mutant in complex with its natural substrate maltose and a complex of the D202N mutant with D-glucose and glycerol. These structures explicitly provide insights into the substrate specificity and catalytic mechanism of HaG. A peculiar long β → α loop 4 which exists in α-glucosidase is responsible for the strict recognition of disaccharides owing to steric hindrance. Two residues, Thr203 and Phe297, assisted with Gly228, were found to determine the glycosidic linkage specificity of the substrate at subsite +1. Furthermore, an explanation of the α-glucosidase reaction mechanism is proposed based on the glucosyl-enzyme intermediate structure.
Molluscan hemocyanin, a copper-containing oxygen transporter, is one of the largest known proteins. Although molluscan hemocyanins are currently applied as immunotherapeutic agents, their precise structure has not been determined because of their enormous size. Here, we have determined the first X-ray crystal structure of intact molluscan hemocyanin. The structure unveiled the architecture of the 3.8-MDa supermolecule composed of homologous functional units (FUs), wherein the dimers of FUs hierarchically associated to form the entire cylindrical decamer. Most of the specific inter-FU interactions were localized at narrow regions in the FU dimers, suggesting that rigid FU dimers formed by specific interactions assemble with flexibility. Furthermore, the roles of carbohydrates in assembly and allosteric effect, and conserved sulfur-containing residues in copper incorporation, were revealed. The precise structural information obtained in this study will accelerate our understanding of the molecular basis of hemocyanin and its future applications.
Azo dyes are major synthetic dyestuffs with one or more azo bonds and are widely used for various industrial purposes. The biodegradation of residual azo dyes via azoreductase-catalyzed cleavage is very efficient as the initial step of wastewater treatment. The structures of the complexes of azoreductases with various substrates are therefore indispensable to understand their substrate specificity and catalytic mechanism. In this study, the crystal structures of AzrA and of AzrC complexed with Cibacron Blue (CB) and the azo dyes Acid Red 88 (AR88) and Orange I (OI) were determined. As an inhibitor/analogue of NAD(P)H, CB was located on top of flavin mononucleotide (FMN), suggesting a similar binding manner as NAD(P)H for direct hydride transfer to FMN. The structures of the AzrC-AR88 and AzrC-OI complexes showed two manners of binding for substrates possessing a hydroxy group at the ortho or the para position of the azo bond, respectively, while AR88 and OI were estimated to have a similar binding affinity to AzrC from ITC experiments. Although the two substrates were bound in different orientations, the hydroxy groups were located in similar positions, resulting in an arrangement of electrophilic C atoms binding with a proton/electron-donor distance of ∼3.5 Å to N5 of FMN. Catalytic mechanisms for different substrates are proposed based on the crystal structures and on site-directed mutagenesis analysis.
We found that the red alga dulse (Palmaria palmata) contains a lot of proteins, which is mainly composed of phycoerythrin (PE) and the protein hydrolysates showed high angiotensin I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activities. Therefore, we investigated the structure of dulse PE to discuss its structure‐function relationship. We prepared the chloroplast DNA and analyzed the nucleotide sequences encoding PE by cDNA cloning method. It was clarified that dulse PE has α‐ and β‐subunits and they are composed by 164 amino acids (MW: 17,638) and 177 amino acids (MW: 18,407), respectively. The dulse PE contained conserved cysteine residues for chromophore attachment site. On the alignment of amino acid sequences of dulse PE with those of other red algal PE, the sequence identities were very high (81–92%). In addition, we purified and crystallized the dulse PE, and its crystal structure was determined at 2.09 Å resolution by molecular replacement method. The revealed 3D structure of dulse PE which forms an (αβ)6 hexamer was similar to other red algal PEs. Conversely, it was clarified that the dulse PE proteins are rich in hydrophobic amino acid residues (51.0%), especially aromatic amino acid and proline residues. The data imply that the high ACE inhibitory activity of dulse protein hydrolysates would be caused by the specific amino acid composition and sequence of dulse PE. Practical Applications Dulse is an abundant and underused resource, which contains a lot of phycobiliproteins. Then, the dulse protein hydrolysates strongly inhibited the activity of ACE. Therefore, it has the potential to be an ingredient of functional food.
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