A study on the flexibility of enzyme active sites

Yang

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

The local flexibility of an enzyme’s active center plays pivotal roles in catalysis, however, little is known about how the flexibility of these flexible residues affects stability. In this study, we proposed an active center stabilization (ACS) strategy to improve the kinetic thermostability of Candida rugosa lipase1. Based on the B-factor ranking at the region ~10 Å within the catalytic Ser209, 18 residues were selected for site-saturation mutagenesis. Based on three-tier high-throughput screening and ordered recombination mutagenesis, the mutant VarB3 (F344I/F434Y/F133Y/F121Y) was shown to be the most stable, with a 40-fold longer in half-life at 60 °C and a 12.7 °C higher Tm value than that of the wild type, without a decrease in catalytic activity. Further analysis of enzymes with different structural complexities revealed that focusing mutations on the flexible residues within around 10 Å of the catalytic residue might increase the success rate for enzyme stabilization. In summary, this study identifies a panel of flexible residues within the active center that affect enzyme stability. This finding not only provides clues regarding the molecular evolution of enzyme stability but also indicates that ACS is a general and efficient strategy for exploring the functional robustness of enzymes for industrial applications.

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A general and efficient strategy for generating the stable enzymes

Yang

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

“…both apo or holo), there should not be too many differences in the coordinates of the residues due to thermal motion. Moreover, it has been observed ( 28 , 29 ) that the variability in terms of binding site conformation is correlated with the size and flexibility of the ligand. Therefore, we investigated whether the performance of Phosfinder, in terms of the results on the holo versus apo conformation of the same protein, is correlated with the size or the number of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors of the cognate ligand.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phosfinder: a web server for the identification of phosphate-binding sites on protein structures

Parca

Mangone

Gherardini

et al. 2011

Nucleic Acids Research

Phosfinder is a web server for the identification of phosphate binding sites in protein structures. Phosfinder uses a structural comparison algorithm to scan a query structure against a set of known 3D phosphate binding motifs. Whenever a structural similarity between the query protein and a phosphate binding motif is detected, the phosphate bound by the known motif is added to the protein structure thus representing a putative phosphate binding site. Predicted binding sites are then evaluated according to (i) their position with respect to the query protein solvent-excluded surface and (ii) the conservation of the binding residues in the protein family. The server accepts as input either the PDB code of the protein to be analyzed or a user-submitted structure in PDB format. All the search parameters are user modifiable. Phosfinder outputs a list of predicted binding sites with detailed information about their structural similarity with known phosphate binding motifs, and the conservation of the residues involved. A graphical applet allows the user to visualize the predicted binding sites on the query protein structure. The results on a set of 52 apo/holo structure pairs show that the performance of our method is largely unaffected by ligand-induced conformational changes. Phosfinder is available at http://phosfinder.bio.uniroma2.it.

“…The shell of flexibility allows the enzyme to adapt to its ligand through an induced fit. The hypothesis was demonstrated in several studies notably by Weng et al in a recent study on the flexibility of enzyme active sites [57], and less recently by Babor et al [58]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Normal Modes Expose Active Sites in Enzymes

2016

Accurate prediction of active sites is an important tool in bioinformatics. Here we present an improved structure based technique to expose active sites that is based on large changes of solvent accessibility accompanying normal mode dynamics. The technique which detects EXPOsure of active SITes through normal modEs is named EXPOSITE. The technique is trained using a small 133 enzyme dataset and tested using a large 845 enzyme dataset, both with known active site residues. EXPOSITE is also tested in a benchmark protein ligand dataset (PLD) comprising 48 proteins with and without bound ligands. EXPOSITE is shown to successfully locate the active site in most instances, and is found to be more accurate than other structure-based techniques. Interestingly, in several instances, the active site does not correspond to the largest pocket. EXPOSITE is advantageous due to its high precision and paves the way for structure based prediction of active site in enzymes.