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1 Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119991 Moscow, Russia
2 Department of Biology, Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania 16127, USA
3 Department of Medical Biochemistry and Genetics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
Reprint requests to: C. Nick Pace, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Genetics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA; e-mail: nickpace{at}tamu.edu; fax: (979) 847-9481.
(RECEIVED May 1, 2003; FINAL REVISION June 26, 2003; ACCEPTED July 1, 2003)
Article and publication are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.03176803.
4 These authors contributed equally to this work. ![]()
| Abstract |
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Keywords: Ribonuclease Sa; active-site mutants; catalytic activity; specificity; thermal stability
| Introduction |
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2000 amino acids) with a small substrate (H2O2), while ribonuclease Sa (RNase Sa) is a small enzyme (96 amino acids) with a large substrate (RNA). The amino acids most likely to participate in catalysis at the active site of an enzyme are: His, Asp, Arg, Glu, and Lys (Bartlett et al. 2002). It has long been thought that residues that participate in catalysis are probably optimized for their participation in catalysis but not for their contribution to enzyme stability (Williams 1972; Richards 1974; Warshel 1978). This idea is supported by experimental studies (Meiering et al. 1992; Shoichet et al. 1995; Beadle and Shoichet 2002) and theoretical studies (Warshel 1998; Elcock 2001). It is also consistent with the idea that enzymes and their active sites often need to be "flexible" (Endrizzi et al. 2000; Hammes-Schiffer 2002). As proteins become larger, we would expect them to become more stable because they bury more hydrophobic side chains and more peptide groups, and both contribute to the stability (Pace 2001). However, protein stability does not correlate with increasing size. As proteins become larger, the content of charged amino acids increases to a greater extent than the content of polar and hydrophobic amino acids (Kajander et al. 2000). This may allow proteins to destabilize themselves by burying charged groups to counterbalance the expected enhanced stability resulting from the burial of more peptide groups and nonpolar side chains (Kajander et al. 2000). It may be that larger enzymes are better able to tolerate amino acids at the active site that destabilize than smaller enzymes. RNase Sa, a guanosine specific ribonuclease, is the smallest microbial ribonuclease, and one of the smallest enzymes. The structure of the enzyme and its complexes with 2'-GMP, 3'-GMP and guanosine 2',3'-cyclophosphorothioate were determined in crystals at atomic resolution (Sevcik et al. 1991, 1993, 1996, 2002), and the solution structure has been determined with NMR (Laurents et al. 2001). The stability of RNase Sa has been studied as a function of temperature, pH, and salt concentration (Pace et al. 1998). In addition, many mutants have been studied to gain a better understanding of the forces stabilizing the native, biologically active conformation (Grimsley et al. 1999; Pace et al. 2000, 2001; Shaw et al. 2001). The pKs of the ionizable residues have been determined (Huyghues-Despointes et al. 2003; Laurents et al. 2003). The catalytic properties of the enzyme were studied and compared to those of other guanosine-specific ribonucleases (Yakovlev et al. 1992).
The identification of the residues that define the catalytic properties of RNase Sa has not been studied directly using site-directed mutants. A comparison of the amino acid sequences of the microbial ribonucleases and their crystal structures suggests that the key residues of RNase Sa involved in catalysis are Glu 54, Arg 65, and His 85 (Hill et al. 1983; Sevcik et al. 1993). The structures also suggest that the specificity of RNase Sa for the guanine base is due to a network of hydrogen bonds involving the backbone groups of Gln 38, Asn 39, and Arg 40, and the side chain carboxyl group of Glu 41 (Fig. 1
). Residue Glu 74 does not belong to the enzyme active site, but its replacement with Lys may be responsible for the previously observed decrease in activity of the 5K RNase Sa basic variant (Shaw et al. 2001). The goal of the research described here was to gain a better understanding of the contribution of these residues to the catalytic activity and conformational stability of RNase Sa. We report steady-state kinetic studies and thermal denaturation studies of wild-type RNase Sa and the following mutants: Gln38Ala, Glu41Lys, Glu54Gln, Arg65Ala, Glu74Lys, and His 85Gln.
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| Results and Discussion |
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The functional role of Glu 54, Arg 65, and His 85 at the active site of RNase Sa
Based on homology between the primary structures of RNase Sa and other guanine-specific RNases, Glu 54, Arg 65, and His 85 are thought to play key catalytic roles at the active site of RNase Sa. In the microbial ribonuclease family, the catalytic mechanism of RNase T1 has been studied in most detail: first by the Walz group (Osterman and Walz 1978) and the Saenger group (Heinemann and Saenger 1982; Pace et al. 1991; Koellner et al. 1992), and more recently, using protein engineering, by the Steyaert group (Steyaert 1997) and the Walz group (Chitester and Walz 2002). The results suggest that the transesterification reaction catalyzed by the microbial ribonucleases consists of a nucleophilic displacement at the phosphorus atom of the 5' leaving group by the 2' entering oxygen atom. The reaction proceeds through the formation of an intermediate pentacovalent phosphorus atom. In the case of RNase Sa, the role of the side chain carboxyl of Glu 54 is to accept a proton from the ribose 2'OH group, and the role of the protonated imidazole ring of His 85 is to donate a proton to the leaving 5'O group. The role of the positively charged side chain of Arg 65 is to promote formation of a negatively charged, pentacovalent intermediate state of the phosphate group.
The substitution of Glu 54, Arg 65, or His 85 results in dramatic decreases in the RNase Sa activity (Table 1
). This confirms their important contribution to the catalytic function. His85Gln has no measurable catalytic activity. Similar substitutions of the functionally equivalent His 102 in barnase with Asp (Paddon and Hartley 1987) or Ala (Meiering et al. 1992) also resulted in complete inactivation of the enzyme. In the Glu54Gln mutant, the affinity for the substrate was only halved, but there was a 356-fold decrease in kcat. In the Arg65Ala mutant, the affinity for substrate decreased slightly, but kcat was lowered by approximately three orders of magnitude. This is consistent with the idea that the role of this residue is to promote the formation of the transition state of the reaction by favorable coulombic interactions with the negatively charged pentacovalent phosphate (Meiering et al. 1992; Yakovlev et al. 1998).
The effect of the Glu74Lys substitution on the RNase Sa activity
Glu 74 is located over 15 Å from the active site of RNase Sa. Nevertheless, replacement of this residue with lysine results in a sixfold decrease in the enzyme activity for poly(I) as substrate and in a fourfold decrease for GpU, mainly due to lowering kcat (Table 1
). Because this substitution replaced a negative with a positive charge, we thought this change might alter the pK values of groups involved in catalysis. To test this, we measured the pH dependence of the kcat/KM ratio for the cleavage of poly(I) by this mutant and by the wild-type enzyme (Fig. 2
). This allowed us to estimate the ionization constants of the ionizable groups of the catalytic residues (Table 2
). The changes are small and not in the direction expected for replacing a negative charge with a positive charge. This suggests that the decrease in the activity of the mutant is not due to changes in the pK values of the catalytic groups. Instead, it more likely reflects a change in the orientation of the enzyme catalytic groups near the site of the bond to be cleaved in the substrate.
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Hcal/
Heff is between 0.89 and 1.04 for all measurements, suggesting a close approximation to a two-state unfolding process. The results are summarized in Table 3
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The Glu41Lys and Glu74Lys mutants were studied previously (Pace et al. 2000). The Glu41Lys mutant is about 1 kcal/mole less stable and the Glu74Lys mutant 1 kcal/mole more stable than RNase Sa at pH 7 (Table 3
; Pace et al. 2000). The side chains of both Glu 41 and Glu 74 are exposed to solvent and form no hydrogen bonds. In our previous study, we showed that an increase in stability was expected for both mutants based on more favorable Coulombic interactions of the positive charge of the amino group with the excess negative charges on the folded state of RNase Sa. The observed decrease in stability for Glu41Lys led us to the surprising conclusion that Coulombic interactions between the charged groups are more favorable in the denatured state ensemble than in the native state for this mutant (Pace et al. 2000).
The Glu54Ala mutant is about 2 kcal/mole less stable than RNase Sa. This is expected, because Glu 54 is largely buried at the active site and has favorable Coulombic interactions with the neighboring positive charges of Arg 65, Arg 69, and His 53. Decreases in stability are also observed when the equivalent Glu residues are replaced with Ala in barnase (Meiering et al. 1992) and RNase T1 (Steyaert and Wyns 1993).
The Arg65Ala mutant is 1 kcal/mole less stable than RNase Sa. Arg 65 is largely buried at the active site. The mutant will lose a favorable Coulombic interaction with Glu 54, but the repulsive interactions with the other positive charges at the active site will be reduced so the decrease in stability is lower than for the Glu54Ala mutant.
We previously studied the effect of net charge and salt concentration on the pK of His 85 in RNase Sa (Huyghues-Despointes et al. 2003). The side chain of His 85 is partially buried at the active site. It is not hydrogen bonded, but there are four charged residues (Glu 54, Arg 65, Arg 69, Asp 84) within 10 Å. The His 85 pK = 6.35 in 0.1 M NaCl, and depends only slightly on salt concentration. This is very similar to the pK expected based on model peptides, and this suggests that electrostatic interactions with the neighboring charges largely cancel. The fact that the stability of His85Gln is almost identical to that of RNase Sa at both pH 5.5 and 7.0 provides further support for this idea.
Conclusion
Our results clearly show that Glu 54, Arg 65, and His 85 make important contributions to the catalytic activity of wild type RNase Sa. It is interesting that the activity of Glu74Lys is substantially lower than the wild type because the mutation site is over 15 Å from the active site. It is suprising that the activity of Glu41Lys is almost identical to the wild type because the carboxyl of Glu 41 is clearly involved in binding the guanine base in crystal structures of RNase Sa with nucleotides bound. Glu 41, Glu 54, and Arg 65 make important favorable contributions to the stability of RNase Sa. Gln 38 and Glu 74 contribute unfavorably to the stability, but neither of their side chains are directly involved in binding or catalysis. Thus, unlike most of the enzymes that have been studied, for RNase Sa two of the residues actively involved in catalysis and one involved in substrate specificity make important favorable contributions to the stability. Perhaps because RNase Sa is one of the smallest enzymes, it cannot tolerate unfavorable contributions to the stability as well as a larger enzyme might.
| Materials and methods |
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The E41K and E74K variants of RNase Sa were constructed, expressed, and purified according to Hebert et al. (1998). The Q38A, E54Q, R65A, and H85Q mutants were constructed using the QuickChange site-directed mutagenesis kit from Stratagene. All mutant genes were sequenced at the Gene Technologies Laboratory at Texas A&M University to confirm the introduction of the mutation. The Q38A, E54Q, R65A, and H85Q mutants were expressed and purified according to Shaw et al. (2001). Protein purity was confirmed using SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.
Steady-state kinetic studies of ribonucleases catalyzing hydrolysis of poly(I) and GpU were performed at 25°C and pH 6.5. The buffer used was 0.05 M Tris, 0.1 M potassium chloride, and 0.05 M sodium acetate. Concentrations of RNase Sa and its mutants were determined spectrophotometrically using the same molar extinction coefficient
280 = 12,300 M-1 cm-1 (Hebert et al. 1997). The poly(I) and GpU concentrations were measured using
248 = 10,000 M-1 cm-1 at pH 7.8 (Chamberlin and Patterson 1965), and
280 = 10,600 M-1 cm-1 at pH 7.0 (Zabinski and Walz 1976), respectively. Initial reaction rates were determined by recording changes in absorption at 248 nm for poly(I) and 280 nm for GpU, using the difference molar extinction coefficients of 1330 M-1 cm-1 (Yakovlev et al. 1992) and 850 M-1 cm-1 (Zabinski and Walz 1976), respectively. To obtain kinetic parameters, initial rates were measured for seven to eight substrate concentrations. The rate of substrate hydrolysis changed hyperbolically as the substrate concentration increased. Values of kcat and KM were determined from Lineweaver-Burk plots using a weighted least-square procedure.
For RNase Sa and its Glu74Lys mutant, the pH dependence of catalytic parameters of poly(I) hydrolysis was determined in the pH interval 4.08.5 using the same buffer titrated to the desired pH with acetic acid. Initial reaction rates were determined using the same value of the difference molar extinction coefficient 1330 M-1 cm-1 because poly(I) is not titrated in the pH interval studied. Analysis of the pH dependences of kcat/KM was carried out according to Osterman and Walz (1978) using the equation
![]() | (1) |
where
cat and
M are the pH independent values of the turnover number and the Michaelis constant, respectively; KA0, KB0, KC0, and KD0 are macroscopic acid dissociation constants characterizing pertinent groups on the free enzyme or substrate (Osterman and Walz 1978).
Microcalorimetric measurements were carried out on a DASM-4 microcalorimeter (NPO Biopribor) in 0.48-mL cells at a heating rate of 1 K/min on 0.41.2 mg/mL protein solutions. Curves were corrected for the instrumental baseline obtained by heating the solvent used for the protein solutions. The reversibility of denaturation was checked routinely by sample reheating after cooling in the calorimetric cell. The partial molar heat capacity of the protein (Cp), denaturation temperature (Td), calorimetric denaturation enthalpy (
Hcal), and effective or vant Hoff denaturation enthalpy (
Heff) were determined as described elsewhere (Makarov et al. 1991). To analyze functions of excess heat capacity, the SCAL2 software package developed at the Institute of Protein Research was used. The accuracy of the calorimetric and effective enthalpies was ±6%, that of Td ± 0.1°C. The buffers used were 0.01 M sodium acetate, 0.05 M potassium chloride for pH 5.5, and 0.03 M PIPES for pH 7.0.
| Acknowledgments |
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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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