Hevamine is a chitinase from the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis. Its active site contains Asp125, Glu127, and Tyr183, which interact with the -1 sugar residue of the substrate. To investigate their role in catalysis, we have successfully expressed wild-type enzyme and mutants of these residues as inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli ...
Hevamine is a chitinase from the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis. Its active site contains Asp125, Glu127, and Tyr183, which interact with the -1 sugar residue of the substrate. To investigate their role in catalysis, we have successfully expressed wild-type enzyme and mutants of these residues as inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli. After refolding and purification they were characterized by both structural and enzyme kinetic studies. Mutation of Tyr183 to phenylalanine produced an enzyme with a lower k(cat) and a slightly higher K(m) than the wild-type enzyme. Mutating Asp125 and Glu127 to alanine gave mutants with approximately 2% residual activity. In contrast, the Asp125Asn mutant retained substantial activity, with an approximately twofold lower k(cat) and an approximately twofold higher K(m) than the wild-type enzyme. More interestingly, it showed activity to higher pH values than the other variants. The X-ray structure of the Asp125Ala/Glu127Ala double mutant soaked with chitotetraose shows that, compared with wild-type hevamine, the carbonyl oxygen atom of the N-acetyl group of the -1 sugar residue has rotated away from the C1 atom of that residue. The combined structural and kinetic data show that Asp125 and Tyr183 contribute to catalysis by positioning the carbonyl oxygen of the N-acetyl group near to the C1 atom. This allows the stabilization of a positively charged transient intermediate, in agreement with a previous proposal that the enzyme makes use of substrate-assisted catalysis.
Related Citations:
The 1.8 A Resolution Structure of Hevamine, a
Plant Chitinase/Lysozyme, and Analysis of the
Conserved Sequence and Structure Motifs of
Glycosyl Hydrolase Family 18. Terwisscha van Scheltinga, A.C., Hennig, M., Dijkstra, B.W. (1996) J Mol Biol 262: 243
Stereochemistry of Chitin Hydrolysis by a Plant
Chitinase/Lysozyme and X-ray Structure of a Complex
with Allosamidin: Evidence for Substrate Assisted
Catalysis. Terwisscha van Scheltinga, A.C., Armand, S., Kalk, K.H., Isogai, A., Henrissat, B., Dijkstra, B.W. (1995) Biochemistry 34: 15619
Crystal Structures of Hevamine, a Plant Defence
Protein with Chitinase and Lysozyme Activity, and its
Complex with an Inhibitor. Terwisscha van Scheltinga, A.C., Kalk, K.H., Beintema, J.J., Dijkstra, B.W. (1994) Structure 2: 1181
Crystallization of Hevamine, an Enzyme with
Lysozyme/Chitinase Activity from Hevea brasiliensis
Latex. Rozeboom, H.J., Budiani, A., Beintema, J.J., Dijkstra, B.W. (1990) J Mol Biol 212: 441
Organizational Affiliation:
Department of Biochemistry, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands. eb272@mole.bio.cam.ac.uk
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