Understanding Functional Evolution in the Alkaline Phosphatase Superfamily

• Over the past 40 years, it has been demonstrated that many enzymes are capable of promiscuous catalytic activities, facilitating the turnover of more than one chemically distinct substrate. This has been argued to play an important role in enzyme evolution, with highly promiscuous progenitor enzymes evolving under evolutionary pressure to modern day specialists, while still retaining some level of their former promiscuous activities1. This theory has been extensively tested by different experiments using in vitro evolution2. The alkaline phosphatase superfamily members provide a particularly attractive showcase for studying enzyme promiscuity, as they often show reciprocal promiscuity, in that the native reaction for one member is often a side-reaction for another3. While deceptively similar, their catalyzed reactions (cleavage of P-O and S-O bonds) proceed via distinct transition states and protonation requirements4,5. We present detailed computational studies of the promiscuous catalytic activity of three evolutionarily related members: the arylsulfatase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa6, and the phosphonate monoester hydrolases from Burkholderia caryophili7and Rhizobium leguminosarum8. By tracking their structural and electrostatic features, and comparing to other known members of the superfamily, we provide an atomic-level map for functional evolution within this superfamily.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Biofysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Biophysics (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

art (subject category)