A step towards understanding of the molecular basis of ligand promiscuity in the aminoglycoside modifying enzymes

Aminoglycosides have proven very useful in the treatment of infections; lately their effectiveness has been greatly reduced due to increasing resistance. Among many known mechanisms of resistance to aminoglycosides, enzymatic modification is the most prevailing. More than 14 aminoglycoside -N3-acetyltransferases- a class of aminoglycoside modifying enzymes, are known today. This study focuses on a pair of acetyl transferases: The aminoglycoside-N3- acetyltransferase IIIb (AAC-IIIb) and the aminoglycoside-N3- acetyltransferase IIa (AAC-IIa). AAC-IIa and AAC-IIIb are very similar in their amino acid sequence and structure – yet they have a strong difference in their substrate selectivity, kinetic and thermodynamic properties. This work represents a comparative study of these two enzymes in an effort to determine thermodynamic basis of the differential substrate profiles of AAC-IIa to AAC-IIIb

Effects of Branched O‑Glycosylation on a Semiflexible Peptide Linker

Glycosylation is an essential modification of proteins and lipids by the addition of carbohydrate residues. These attached carbohydrates range from single monomers to elaborate branched glycans. Here, we examine how the level of glycosylation affects the conformation of a semiflexible peptide linker using the example of the hinge peptide from immunoglobulin A. Three sets of atomistic models of this hinge peptide with varying degrees of glycosylation are constructed to probe how glycosylation affects the physical properties of the linker. We found that glycosylation greatly altered the predominant conformations of the peptide, causing it to become elongated in reference to the unglycosylated form. Furthermore, glycosylation restricts the conformational exploration of the peptide. At the residue level, glycans are found to introduce a bias for the formation of more extended secondary structural elements for glycosylated serines. Additionally, the flexibility of this semiflexible proline-rich peptide is significantly reduced by glycosylation