Structural and Functional Analysis of Validoxylamine A 7′-phosphate Synthase ValL Involved in Validamycin A Biosynthesis

Validamycin A (Val-A) is an effective antifungal agent widely used in Asian countries as crop protectant. Validoxylamine A, the core structure and intermediate of Val-A, consists of two C7-cyclitol units connected by a rare C-N bond. In the Val-A biosynthetic gene cluster in Streptomyces hygroscopicus 5008, the ORF valL was initially annotated as a validoxylamine A 7′-phosphate(V7P) synthase, whose encoded 497-aa protein shows high similarity with trehalose 6-phosphate(T6P) synthase. Gene inactivation of valL abolished both validoxylamine A and validamycin A productivity, and complementation with a cloned valL recovered 10% production of the wild-type in the mutant, indicating the involvement of ValL in validoxylamine A biosynthesis. Also we determined the structures of ValL and ValL/trehalose complex. The structural data indicates that ValL adopts the typical fold of GT-B protein family, featuring two Rossmann-fold domains and an active site at domain junction. The residues in the active site are arranged in a manner homologous to that of Escherichia coli (E.coli) T6P synthase OtsA. However, a significant discrepancy is found in the active-site loop region. Also noticeable structural variance is found around the active site entrance in the apo ValL structure while the region takes an ordered configuration upon binding of product analog trehalose. Furthermore, the modeling of V7P in the active site of ValL suggests that ValL might have a similar SNi-like mechanism as OtsA

Discovery of Inhibitors of Leishmania β-1,2-Mannosyltransferases Using a Click-Chemistry-Derived Guanosine Monophosphate Library

Leishmania spp. are a medically important group of protozoan parasites that synthesize a novel intracellular carbohydrate reserve polymer termed mannogen. Mannogen is a soluble homopolymer of β-1,2-linked mannose residues that accumulates in the major pathogenic stages in the sandfly vector and mammalian host. While several steps in mannogen biosynthesis have been defined, none of the enzymes have been isolated or characterized. We report the development of a simple assay for the GDP-mannose–dependent β-1,2-mannosyltransferases involved in mannogen synthesis. This assay utilizes octyl α-d-mannopyranoside to prime the formation of short mannogen oligomers up to 5 mannose residues. This assay was used to screen a focussed library of 44 GMP-triazole adducts for inhibitors. Several compounds provided effective inhibition of mannogen β-1,2-mannosyltransferases in a cell-free membrane preparation. This assay and inhibitor compounds will be useful for dissecting the role of different mannosyltransferases in regulating de novo biosynthesis and elongation reactions in mannogen metabolism

Insight on an Arginine Synthesis Metabolon from the Tetrameric Structure of Yeast Acetylglutamate Kinase

N-acetyl-L-glutamate kinase (NAGK) catalyzes the second, generally controlling, step of arginine biosynthesis. In yeasts, NAGK exists either alone or forming a metabolon with N-acetyl-L-glutamate synthase (NAGS), which catalyzes the first step and exists only within the metabolon. Yeast NAGK (yNAGK) has, in addition to the amino acid kinase (AAK) domain found in other NAGKs, a ∼150-residue C-terminal domain of unclear significance belonging to the DUF619 domain family. We deleted this domain, proving that it stabilizes yNAGK, slows catalysis and modulates feed-back inhibition by arginine. We determined the crystal structures of both the DUF619 domain-lacking yNAGK, ligand-free as well as complexed with acetylglutamate or acetylglutamate and arginine, and of complete mature yNAGK. While all other known arginine-inhibitable NAGKs are doughnut-like hexameric trimers of dimers of AAK domains, yNAGK has as central structure a flat tetramer formed by two dimers of AAK domains. These dimers differ from canonical AAK dimers in the −110° rotation of one subunit with respect to the other. In the hexameric enzymes, an N-terminal extension, found in all arginine-inhibitable NAGKs, forms a protruding helix that interlaces the dimers. In yNAGK, however, it conforms a two-helix platform that mediates interdimeric interactions. Arginine appears to freeze an open inactive AAK domain conformation. In the complete yNAGK structure, two pairs of DUF619 domains flank the AAK domain tetramer, providing a mechanism for the DUF619 domain modulatory functions. The DUF619 domain exhibits the histone acetyltransferase fold, resembling the catalytic domain of bacterial NAGS. However, the putative acetyl CoA site is blocked, explaining the lack of NAGS activity of yNAGK. We conclude that the tetrameric architecture is an adaptation to metabolon formation and propose an organization for this metabolon, suggesting that yNAGK may be a good model also for yeast and human NAGSs

SNi from SN2: a front-face mechanism ‘synthase’ engineered from a retaining hydrolase

SNi or SNi-like mechanisms, in which leaving group departure and nucleophile approach occur on the same ‘front’ face, have been observed previously experimentally and computationally in both the chemical and enzymatic (glycosyltransferase) substitution reactions of α-glycosyl electrophiles. Given the availability of often energetically comparable competing pathways for substitution (SNi vs SN1 vs SN2) the precise modulation of this archetypal reaction type should be feasible. Here, we show that the drastic engineering of a protein that catalyzes substitution, a retaining β-glycosidase (from Sulfolobus solfataricus SSβG), apparently changes the mode of reaction from “SN2” to “SNi”. Destruction of the nucleophilic Glu387 of SSβG-WT through Glu387Tyr mutation (E387Y) created a catalyst (SSβG-E387Y) with lowered but clear transglycosylation substitution activity with activated substrates, altered substrate and reaction preferences and hence useful synthetic (‘synthase’) utility by virtue of its low hydrolytic activity with unactivated substrates. Strikingly, the catalyst still displayed retaining β stereoselectivity, despite lacking a suitable nucleophile; pH-activity profile, mechanism-based inactivators and mutational analyses suggest that SSβG-E387Y operates without either the use of nucleophile or general acid/base residues, consistent with a SNi or SNi-like mechanism. An x-ray structure of SSβG-E387Y and subsequent metadynamics simulation suggest recruitment of substrates aided by a π-sugar interaction with the introduced Tyr387 and reveal a QM/MM free energy landscape for the substitution reaction catalyzed by this unnatural enzyme similar to those of known natural, SNi-like glycosyltransferase (GT) enzymes. Proton flight from the putative hydroxyl nucleophile to the developing p-nitrophenoxide leaving group of the substituted molecule in the reactant complex creates a hydrogen bond that appears to crucially facilitate the mechanism, mimicking the natural mechanism of SNi-GTs. An oxocarbenium ion-pair minimum along the reaction pathway suggests a step-wise SNi-like DN*ANss rather than a concerted SNi DNAN mechanism. This first observation of a front face mechanism in a β-retaining glycosyl transfer enzyme highlights, not only that unusual SNi reaction pathways may be accessed through direct engineering of catalysts with suitable environments, but also suggests that ‘β-SNi’ reactions are also feasible for glycosyl transfer enzymes and the more widespread existence of SNi or SNi-like mechanism in nature

Stepwise Catalytic Mechanism via Short-Lived Intermediate Inferred from Combined QM/MM MERP and PES Calculations on Retaining Glycosyltransferase ppGalNAcT2

The glycosylation of cell surface proteins plays a crucial role in a multitude of biological processes, such as cell adhesion and recognition. To understand the process of protein glycosylation, the reaction mechanisms of the participating enzymes need to be known. However, the reaction mechanism of retaining glycosyltransferases has not yet been sufficiently explained. Here we investigated the catalytic mechanism of human isoform 2 of the retaining glycosyltransferase polypeptide UDP-GalNAc transferase by coupling two different QM/MM-based approaches, namely a potential energy surface scan in two distance difference dimensions and a minimum energy reaction path optimisation using the Nudged Elastic Band method. Potential energy scan studies often suffer from inadequate sampling of reactive processes due to a predefined scan coordinate system. At the same time, path optimisation methods enable the sampling of a virtually unlimited number of dimensions, but their results cannot be unambiguously interpreted without knowledge of the potential energy surface. By combining these methods, we have been able to eliminate the most significant sources of potential errors inherent to each of these approaches. The structural model is based on the crystal structure of human isoform 2. In the QM/MM method, the QM region consists of 275 atoms, the remaining 5776 atoms were in the MM region. We found that ppGalNAcT2 catalyzes a same-face nucleophilic substitution with internal return (SNi). The optimized transition state for the reaction is 13.8 kcal/mol higher in energy than the reactant while the energy of the product complex is 6.7 kcal/mol lower. During the process of nucleophilic attack, a proton is synchronously transferred to the leaving phosphate. The presence of a short-lived metastable oxocarbenium intermediate is likely, as indicated by the reaction energy profiles obtained using high-level density functionals

Facile conversion of cysteine and alkyl cysteines to dehydroalanine on protein surfaces: Versatile and switchable access to functionalized proteins

An efficient and robust oxidative elimination of cysteine to dehydroalanine has been discovered. The reaction is induced by O-mesitylenesulfonylhydroxylamine (MSH) and is compatible with methionine. The key elimination has been executed on protein surfaces and allows ready access to different post-translationally modified proteins through conjugate addition of sulfur nucleophiles to dehydroalanine. Treatment of the resulting thioether with MSH results in regeneration of dehydroalanine, allowing a "functional switch" by subsequent addition of a different thiol. Copyright © 2008 American Chemical Society

Group epitope mapping considering relaxation of the ligand (GEM-CRL): including longitudinal relaxation rates in the analysis of saturation transfer difference (STD) experiments.

In the application of saturation transfer difference (STD) experiments to the study of protein-ligand interactions, the relaxation of the ligand is one of the major influences on the experimentally observed STD factors, making interpretation of these difficult when attempting to define a group epitope map (GEM). In this paper, we describe a simplification of the relaxation matrix that may be applied under specified experimental conditions, which results in a simplified equation reflecting the directly transferred magnetisation rate from the protein onto the ligand, defined as the summation over the whole protein of the protein-ligand cross-relaxation multiplied by with the fractional saturation of the protein protons. In this, the relaxation of the ligand is accounted for implicitly by inclusion of the experimentally determined longitudinal relaxation rates. The conditions under which this "group epitope mapping considering relaxation of the ligand" (GEM-CRL) can be applied were tested on a theoretical model system, which demonstrated only minor deviations from that predicted by the full relaxation matrix calculations (CORCEMA-ST) [7]. Furthermore, CORCEMA-ST calculations of two protein-saccharide complexes (Jacalin and TreR) with known crystal structures were performed and compared with experimental GEM-CRL data. It could be shown that the GEM-CRL methodology is superior to the classical group epitope mapping approach currently used for defining ligand-protein proximities. GEM-CRL is also useful for the interpretation of CORCEMA-ST results, because the transferred magnetisation rate provides an additional parameter for the comparison between measured and calculated values. The independence of this parameter from the above mentioned factors can thereby enhance the value of CORCEMA-ST calculations

Probing the breadth of macrolide glycosyltransferases: in vitro remodeling of a polyketide antibiotic creates active bacterial uptake and enhances potency.

The glycan portion of macrolide antibiotics modulates their efficacy. High-level expression of three macrolide GTs and kinetic analysis has revealed a highly selective synthetic "tool kit" with such plasticity that 12 glycan-modified macrolide antibiotics have been readily created. One of these (1-Gal) is enhanced over its parent oleandomycin (1) by "glycotargeting", allowing higher uptake through active internalization by virtue of the attachment of a glycan (Gal) not normally found on 1. Subsequent release of the targeting glycan by endogenous galactosidase activity releases 1

Site-selective chemoenzymatic construction of synthetic glycoproteins using endoglycosidases

Combined chemical tagging followed by Endo-A catalysed elongation allows access to homogeneous, elaborated glycoproteins. A survey of different linkages and sugars demonstrated not only that unnatural linkages can be tolerated but they can provide insight into the scope of Endo-A transglycosylation activity. S-linked GlcNAc-glycoproteins are useful substrates for Endo-A extensions and display enhanced stability to hydrolysis at exposed sites. O-CH 2-triazole-linked GlcNAc-glycoproteins derived from azidohomoalanine-tagged protein precursors were found to be optimal at sterically demanding sites. © The Royal Society of Chemistry

From disulfide- to thioether-linked glycoproteins

(Chemical Presented) Strengthening the bond: The introduction of a thiol tag in combination with chemoselective ligation to form a disulfide-linked bioconjugate is a selective and useful method for site-selective protein glycosylation. The phosphine-mediated desulfurization of such glycoconjugates to their reductant-resistant thioether-linked counterparts completes a convergent, site-selective synthesis of thioether-linked glycoproteins (see scheme). © 2008 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA