| 1. |
- Eriksson, Adam, et al.
(författare)
-
Protonation-Initiated Cyclization by a ClassII Terpene Cyclase Assisted by Tunneling
- 2017
-
Ingår i: ChemBioChem. - : Wiley-VCH Verlagsgesellschaft. - 1439-4227 .- 1439-7633. ; 18:23, s. 2301-2305
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Terpenes represent one of the most diversified classes of natural products with potent biological activities. The key to the myriad of polycyclic terpene skeletons with crucial functions in organisms from all kingdoms of life are terpene cyclase enzymes. These biocatalysts enable stereospecific cyclization of relatively simple, linear, prefolded polyisoprenes by highly complex, partially concerted, electrophilic cyclization cascades that remain incompletely understood. Herein, additional mechanistic light is shed on terpene biosynthesis by kinetic studies in mixed H2O/D2O buffers of a classII bacterial ent-copalyl diphosphate synthase. Mass spectrometry determination of the extent of deuterium incorporation in the bicyclic product, reminiscent of initial carbocation formation by protonation, resulted in a large kinetic isotope effect of up to seven. Kinetic analysis at different temperatures confirmed that the isotope effect was independent of temperature, which is consistent with hydrogen tunneling.
|
|
| 2. |
- Gustafsson, Camilla, et al.
(författare)
-
MD Simulations Reveal Complex Water Paths in Squalene–Hopene Cyclase: Tunnel-Obstructing Mutations Increase the Flow of Water in the Active Site
- 2017
-
Ingår i: ACS Omega. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2470-1343. ; 2:11, s. 8495-8506
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Squalene–hopene cyclase catalyzes the cyclization of squalene to hopanoids. A previous study has identified a network of tunnels in the protein, where water molecules have been indicated to move. Blocking these tunnels by site-directed mutagenesis was found to change the activation entropy of the catalytic reaction from positive to negative with a concomitant lowering of the activation enthalpy. As a consequence, some variants are faster and others are slower than the wild type (wt) in vitro under optimal reaction conditions for the wt. In this study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been performed for the wt and the variants to investigate how the mutations affect the protein structure and the water flow in the enzyme, hypothetically influencing the activation parameters. Interestingly, the tunnel-obstructing variants are associated with an increased flow of water in the active site, particularly close to the catalytic residue Asp376. MD simulations with the substrate present in the active site indicate that the distance for the rate-determining proton transfer between Asp376 and the substrate is longer in the tunnel-obstructing protein variants than in the wt. On the basis of the previous experimental results and the current MD results, we propose that the tunnel-obstructing variants, at least partly, could operate by a different catalytic mechanism, where the proton transfer may have contributions from a Grotthuss-like mechanism.
|
|
