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1 Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom
2 Center for Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences and Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
3 Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
Reprint requests to: K. Ravi Acharya, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK; e-mail: K.R.Acharya{at}bath.ac.uk; fax: 44-1225-826779.
(RECEIVED April 12, 2001; FINAL REVISION May 21, 2001; ACCEPTED May 23, 2001)
4 Present address: Institute of Biological Research and Biotechnology, The National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48 Vas. Constantinou Avenue, Athens 11635, Greece. ![]()
5 Present address: Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama 35294, USA. ![]()
Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/ps.13601
| Abstract |
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Keywords: Ribonuclease A; angiogenin; phosphate binding; X-ray crystallography; inhibitor design
| Introduction |
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The Ang antagonists available at present are proteins (e.g., monoclonal antibodies) or antisense oligonucleotides (Lee and Vallee 1989; Olson et al. 1995; Olson and Fett 1998). Although these agents are effective against tumors in mice and, in some cases, might have therapeutic utility in humans, low molecular weight inhibitors would clearly be advantageous. In light of the central importance of ribonucleolytic activity in Ang, it seems worthwhile to attempt to exploit this feature of the protein in developing such compounds. Toward this end, we have thus far determined a high-resolution crystal structure for free Ang (Acharya et al. 1994; Leonidas et al. 1999a), and identified nucleotide inhibitors [5'-diphosphoadenosine-2'-phosphate (ppA-2'-p) and 2'-deoxyuridine 3'-pyrophosphate (3'
5') adenosine-2'-phosphate (dUppA-2'-p)] that can potentially serve as starting compounds for structure-based design (Russo et al. 1996a; Russo et al. 2001). However, it has not yet been possible to obtain crystals of Ang in complex with these nucleotides that are suitable for structure determination either by soaking or cocrystallization. The pyrimidine-binding subsite of free Ang is obstructed by the C-terminal segment (see below) and it appears that binding of dUppA-2'-p, and possibly even simpler compounds, would require considerable movement of these residues. In addition, in all crystal forms of Ang grown to date, key phosphate- and purine-binding subsites are occupied by contact residues from neighboring molecules.
In the present study, we have determined the crystal structures of the complexes of Ang with phosphate (Pi) and pyrophosphate (PPi), which are components of the nucleotide inhibitors. Both compounds occupy the catalytic site of Ang without inducing any conformational change. The structure of the complex of phosphate with the superactive Ang variant Q117G (Russo et al. 1994) has also been determined.
| Results |
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-carbons in the structures of free Ang and its complexes with Pi and PPi are 0.28 Å and 0.41 Å, respectively; the RMSD for the Q117GPi complex versus free Ang is 0.26 Å [as is the RMSD for free Q117G (D.D. Leonidas, R. Shapiro, and K.R. Acharya, unpubl.) versus the Pi complex]. The differences in the structures of the various free proteins and complexes occur primarily in the flexible loop regions and at the N- and C-termini. The free Ang structure, determined at 1.8 Å resolution (Leonidas et al. 1999a), contains 53 water molecules, whereas the AngPi, AngPPi, and Q117GPi complexes determined at 2.0 Å resolution contain 46, 104, and 47 water molecules, respectively. A citrate molecule observed in the free Ang structure was not visible in the AngPPi complex, although the same crystallization conditions were used; instead, two water molecules were identified at the same position.
In all of the complex structures, the orientations of the residues in the catalytic center in which Pi and PPi bind (i.e., Gln 12, His 13, Lys 40, and His 114) are similar to those in free Ang, although some small differences were observed that appear to optimize interactions with the ligands. In all of the complexes, the electron density maps showed strong positive peaks for the ions (Fig. 1
).
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2 and Leu 115 O) that also interact with the first phosphate. The greater number of contacts with Ang formed by PPi as compared with Pi presumably accounts for the sixfold lower Ki of this anion. The inhibitor displaces four of the six water molecules observed in the catalytic site of free Ang (Fig. 2A
2 of Gln 12).
Interactions of Pi with Q117GAng
The crystal structure of free Ang had revealed a striking and unexpected feature that accounts in part for the low enzymatic activity of this protein: the site that is spatially analogous to the open pyrimidine binding pocket of RNase A is occluded by Gln 117 (Acharya et al. 1994; Leonidas et al. 1999a). Replacement of Gln 117 by Gly or Ala was found to increase the enzymatic activity by 18- to 30-fold (Russo et al. 1994), indicating that this site is also blocked in solution, as was subsequently confirmed by NMR studies (Lequin et al. 1997). The crystal structure of free Q117GAng shows no significant changes with respect to the native protein other than the loss of the Gln 117 side chain (D.D. Leonidas, R. Shapiro, and K.R. Acharya, unpubl.). In the present study, the structure of the Q117GPi complex was studied to identify possible changes in the interactions at the catalytic site associated with this mutation. The set of potential hydrogen bonds in this complex is identical to those observed in the AngPi complex except that Lys 40 is beyond contact distance (Fig. 2D
, Table 1
). However, most of the hydrogen bonds are significantly shorter in the Q117G complex. Four of the six water molecules observed in the catalytic site of the free Q117G structure (at 1.8Å resolution, D.D. Leonidas, R. Shapiro, and K.R. Acharya, unpubl.) have been displaced in the complex. The remaining waters mediate interactions of the ligand with the protein (O2 to Gln 12 N
2 and O3 to His 114 N
1).
| Discussion |
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The structural rearrangement that opens the pyrimidine binding site of Ang has not yet been defined, and it is not known whether this conformational change occurs prior to substrate binding or is triggered by docking of substrate components outside of the pyrimidine site. Such information should be valuable, and might even be essential, for structure-based design of nucleotide inhibitors of Ang. The present crystal structures show, minimally, that binding of phosphates at the catalytic center of Ang is not sufficient to induce this change, that is, Gln 117 retains its obstructive position in both the Pi and PPi complexes. There is also no reorientation of the C-terminal segment when Pi binds to the Q117G variant. In this regard, it should be noted that the pyrimidine site in Q117G remains obstructed by the main-chain atoms of residue 117, and that a conformational change is still required for RNA cleavage.
The structure of the complex of Ang with PPi may also provide more direct insights that can be used for inhibitor design. The most effective nucleotide inhibitors of Ang identified to date, ppA-2'-p and dUppA-2'-p [Ki = 110 and 150 µM, respectively; (Russo et al. 1996a,b; Russo et al. 2001)], contain pyrophosphate moieties. In the absence of a crystal structure for the complex of Ang with one of these compounds, it would be helpful to know how the pyrophosphate portion might interact with the protein. The crystal structure of the complex of RNaseA with ppA-2'-p [PDB entry 1AFL (Leonidas et al. 1997)] shows that the ß-phosphate occupies the catalytic site and the
-phosphate forms two hydrogen bonds with the side chain of Lys 7; this arrangement forces the adenosine to adopt a syn conformation in which the glycosyl torsion angle differs by
180 ° from that observed in previous RNase complex structures. However, superposition of the AngPPi structure onto that of the RNase AppA-2'-p complex (Fig. 3
) reveals that only one of the phosphates (corresponding to the ß-phosphate of ppA-2'-p) is bound at an equivalent position. The second phosphate of PPi and the
-phosphate of ppA-2'-p are positioned on opposite sides of this phosphate, toward the pyrimidine site for PPi and toward the purine site for ppA-2'-p. One possible reason for this difference is that the RNase residue that hydrogen bonds with the
-phosphate, Lys 7, is not conserved in Ang. Thus, the
-phosphate of PPi binds on the opposite side because it finds a greater number of hydrogen-bonding interactions with Ang. If the pyrophosphate in the AngppA-2'-p complex binds in the same manner as PPi itself, then the conformation of the adenosine must be anti, rather than syn as in the RNase A complex. The orientation of the adenine ring is an important consideration for the design of modifications to improve binding affinity.
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| Materials and methods |
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Refinement
The 1.8 Å resolution native Pyr 1Ang structure (Leonidas et al. 1999a) was used as the starting model for the Ang complexes with Pi and PPi. The coordinates of free Q117GAng (D.D. Leonidas, R. Shapiro, and K.R. Acharya, unpubl.) were used for refinement of the Q117GPi complex. Alternating cycles of manual model building with the program O (Jones et al. 1991), conventional positional refinement, and simulated annealing refinement as implemented in X-PLOR improved each model, whereas solvent correction as implemented in X-PLOR 3.851 (Jiang and Brünger 1994) allowed all measured data to be used in the refinement. Further refinement of the AngPPi complex was performed with the program CNS v 0.5 (Brünger et al. 1998). Procedures carried out with CNS included torsion angle dynamics, simulated annealing using a maximum likelihood target function, restrained individual B-factor refinement, conjugate gradient minimization, and bulk solvent correction. The program O was used to adjust the model to fit
A weighted 2 |Fo| - |Fc| electron density maps. During the final stages of refinement, water molecules were inserted into the models at previous positions only if there were peaks in the |Fo| - |Fc| electron density maps with heights greater than 3
and these were at hydrogen bond forming distances from appropriate atoms. The 2 |Fo| - |Fc| maps were used to verify the presence of these water molecules. Water molecules with a temperature factor >60 Å2 were excluded from subsequent refinement steps. Ligand molecules were included during the final stages of refinement by use of their respective coordinates from the Protein Data Bank. For Pi, the coordinates were obtained from the crystal structure of a phosphate-binding protein in complex with phosphate [PDB entry 1IXH (Wang et al. 1997)] and for PPi the coordinates were obtained from the crystal structure of NH3-dependant NAD synthetase [PDB entry 1NSY (Rizzi et al. 1996)]. The program PROCHECK (CCP4 1994) was used to assess the quality of the final structures. All residues for each of the structures lie in the allowed regions of the Ramachandran (
) plot. Two peptide bonds connecting residues Ser 37 to Pro 38 and Pro 90 to Pro 91 adopt a cis conformation.
Kinetics
Ki values for inhibition of Ang by Pi and PPi (10 mM and 1.7 mM, respectively) were determined from plots of kcat/Km versus inhibitor concentration as described previously (Shapiro 1998). Assays were performed in 0.2 M MESNaOH buffer (pH 5.9) at 25°C.
| Acknowledgments |
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The atomic coordinates for AngPi, AngPPi, and Q117GPi complexes have been deposited with the RCSB Protein Data Bank (PDB ID codes are 1HBY, 1H52, and 1H53 respectively).
The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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