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Biomedical subjects

R Bott

Publications and source records attributed to R Bott.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Engineered Bacillus lentus subtilisins having altered flexibility.

The three-dimensional structures of engineered variants of Bacillus lentus subtilisin having increased enzymatic activity, K27R/N87S/V104Y/N123S/T274A (RSYSA) and N76D/N87S/S103A/V104I (DSAI), were determined by X-ray crystallography. In addition to identifying changes in atomic position we report a method that identifies protein segments having altered flexibility. The method utilizes a statistical analysis of variance to delineate main-chain temperature factors that represent significant departures from the overall variance between equivalent regions seen throughout the structure. This method reveals changes in main-chain mobility in both variants. Residues 125-127 have increased mobility in the RSYSA variant while residues 100-104 have decreased mobility in the DSAI variant. These segments are located at the substrate-binding site and changes in their mobility are believed to relate to the observed changes in proteolytic activity. The effect of altered crystal lattice contacts on segment flexibility becomes apparent when identical variants, determined in two crystal forms, are compared with the native enzyme.

Bacillus↗
PubMed1999

Altered flexibility in the substrate-binding site of related native and engineered high-alkaline Bacillus subtilisins.

High-alkaline serine proteases have been successfully applied as protein degrading components of detergent formulations and are subject to extensive protein engineering efforts to improve their stability and performance. Dynamics has been suggested to play an important role in determining enzyme activity and specificity and it is therefore of interest to establish how local changes in internal mobility affect protein stability, specificity and performance. Here we present the dynamic properties of the 269 residue serine proteases subtilisin PB92 (Maxacal(TM)) and subtilisin BLS (Savinase(TM)), secreted by Bacillus lentus, and an engineered quadruple variant, DSAI, that has improved washing performance. T1, T2 and heteronuclear NOE measurements of the 15N nuclei indicate that for all three proteins the majority of the backbone is very rigid, with only a limited number of residues being involved in local mobility. Many of the residues that constitute the S1 and S4 pockets, determining substrate specificity, are flexible in solution. In contrast, the backbone amides of the residues that constitute the catalytic triad do not exhibit any motion. Subtilisins PB92, BLS and DSAI demonstrate similar but not identical NMR relaxation rates. A detailed analysis of local flexibility indicates that the motion of residues Thr143 and Ala194 becomes more restricted in subtilisin BLS and DSAI. Noteworthy, the loop regions involved in substrate binding become more structured in the engineered variant as compared with the two native proteases, suggesting a relation between altered dynamics and performance. Similar conclusions have been established by X-ray crystallograpic methods, as shown in the accompanying paper.

Bacillus↗
PubMed1999

Protein engineering of alpha-amylase for low pH performance.

Industrial-scale starch liquefaction is currently constrained to operating at pH 6.0 and above, as the enzyme used in the process, Bacillus licheniformis alpha-amylase, is unstable at lower pH under the conditions used. There is a need to develop an enzyme that can operate at lower pH. Recent progress has been made in engineering the B. licheniformis enzyme for improved industrial performance. The availability of crystal structures and subsequent analysis of improved variants, in a structural context, is revealing common factors and a rationale to make further improvements.

Amino Acid Substitution↗
PubMed1999

The role of high-resolution structural studies in the development of commercial enzymes.

Recent developments in both NMR and X-ray crystallography allow the analysis of commercial enzymes in unprecedented detail. The novel methods provide detailed insights into protein dynamics, establish the existence of special catalytic hydrogen bonds and define the ionization states at the enzyme active site. A more detailed understanding of how the changes in structure are related to altered function should facilitate the design of future commercial enzymes with improved performance for different environmental conditions.

Biotechnology↗
PubMed1998

The 0.78 A structure of a serine protease: Bacillus lentus subtilisin.

Ultrahigh-resolution X-ray diffraction data from cryo-cooled, B. lentus subtilisin crystals has been collected to a resolution of 0.78 A. The refined model coordinates have a rms deviation of 0.22 A relative to the same structure determined at room temperature and 2.0 A resolution. Several regions of main-chain and side-chain disorder have been identified for 21 out of 269 residues in one polypeptide chain. Hydrogen atoms appear as significant peaks in the Fo - Fc difference electron density map, and carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms can be differentiated. The estimated standard deviation (ESD) for all main-chain non-hydrogen bond lengths is 0.009 A and 0.5 degrees for bond angles based on an unrestrained full-matrix least-squares refinement. Hydrogen bonds are resolved in the serine protease catalytic triad (Ser-His-Asp). Electron density is observed for an unusual, short hydrogen bond between aspartic acid and histidine in the catalytic triad. The hydrogen atom, identified by NMR in numerous serine proteases, appears to be shared by the heteroatoms in the bond. This represents the first reported correlation between detailed chemical features identified by NMR and those in a cryo-cooled crystallographic structure determination at ultrahigh resolution. The short hydrogen bond, designated "catalytic hydrogen bond", occurs as part of an elaborate hydrogen bond network, involving Asp of the catalytic triad. While unusual, these features appear to have conserved analogues in other serine protease families although specific details differ from family to family.

Aspartic Acid↗
PubMed1996

Engineering enzymes for stability.

There have been many recent developments in elaborating the approaches for stabilizing enzymes by stabilizing the folding state, destabilizing the unfolded state and altering the kinetics of unfolding. However, these represent a series of rules of thumb rather than the reliable principles that would be expected of 'engineering'. Stability is taken to include thermodynamic stability as measured by reversible denaturation, and kinetic stability as measured by the unfolding rate for enzymes that are subject to irreversible denaturation. As such, the factors that affect stability of the folded state versus the unfolded state, as well as factors affecting rates of folding and unfolding, all play a role in maintaining stability. Recent studies on the role of kinetics and the effect that site-specific substitutions have on transition-state free energies add to our understanding of the factors that determine whether or not a particular substitution will result in the measurable stabilization of a protein.

Enzyme Stability↗
PubMed1992

Structures of complexes of rhizopuspepsin with pepstatin and other statine-containing inhibitors.

The three-dimensional structures of the complexes of the aspartic proteinase from Rhizopus chinensis (Rhizopuspepsin, EC 3.4.23.6) with pepstatin and two pepstatin-like peptide inhibitors of renin have been determined by X-ray diffraction methods and refined by restrained least-squares procedures. The inhibitors adopt an extended conformation and lie in the deep groove located between the two domains of the enzyme. Inhibitor binding is accompanied by a conformational change at the "flap," a beta-hairpin loop region, that projects over the binding cleft and closes down over the inhibitor, excluding water molecules from the vicinity of the scissile bond. The hydroxyl group of the central statyl residue of the inhibitors replaces the water molecule found between the two active aspartates, Asp-35 and Asp-218, in the native structure. The refined structures provide additional data to define the specific subsites of the enzyme and also show a system of hydrogen bonding to the inhibitor backbone similar to that observed for a reduced inhibitor.

Aspartic Acid Endopeptidases↗
PubMed1990

Incorporation of crystallographic temperature factors in the statistical analysis of protein tertiary structures.

A method to identify statistically significant differences between equivalent atoms in two closely related protein X-ray crystallographic structures is described. This method uses the linear relationship found between the logarithm of the distance between equivalent atoms and their mean temperature factor to determine, by linear regression, the expected difference and variance.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

The three-dimensional structure of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens subtilisin at 1.8 A and an analysis of the structural consequences of peroxide inactivation.

The three-dimensional structure of the subtilisin from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (BAS) has been refined to 1.8 A using the amino acid sequence deduced from the DNA coding sequence. The structure is essentially the same as the previously reported structures of subtilisin BPN' (Wright, C.S., Alden, R.A., and Kraut, J. (1969) Nature 221, 235-242) and Novo (Drenth, J., Hol, W. G. J., Jansonius, J. N., and Koekoek, R. (1972) Eur. J. Biochem. 26, 177-181) determined in different crystal forms, at 2.5 and 2.8 A resolution, respectively. The largest differences in the three crystallographic models are seen in regions where the amino acid sequence used in the fit to the electron density maps of BPN' and Novo differs from the gene sequence of BAS (Wells, J. A., Ferrari, E., Henner, D. J., Estell, D. A., and Chen, E. Y. (1983) Nucleic Acids Res. 11, 7911-7925). The refined BAS model shows new features of cation binding, hydrogen bonding, and internal solvent structure. The refined BAS model has served as a basis for the analysis of stereochemical factors involved in the peroxide inactivation of the enzyme. Methionine 222, which is adjacent to the catalytic Ser221, is quantitatively oxidized to the sulfoxide by hydrogen peroxide as had been previously shown for the related Bacillus licheniformis enzyme (Stauffer, C. E., and Etson, D. (1969) J. Biol. Chem. 244, 5333-5338). In addition to this site of modification, we observe partial to full oxidation of two of the four remaining methionines. The oxidation of the methionines does not correlate well with their solvent accessibility calculated from the x-ray structure coordinates; in addition, only one of the two possible stereoisomers of methionine sulfoxide is formed. We also detect hydrogen peroxide-induced modification of the hydroxyl groups of two tyrosines. Modeling suggests that most of the observed effect of oxidation on the enzyme's catalytic efficiency can be attributed to unfavorable interactions at the oxyanion binding site between the sulfoxide group at 222 and the carbonyl oxygen of the scissile peptide bond of the bound substrate.

Bacillus↗
PubMed1982

Three-dimensional structure of the complex of the Rhizopus chinensis carboxyl proteinase and pepstatin at 2.5-A resolution.

An X-ray diffraction analysis has been carried out at 2.5-A resolution of the three-dimensional structure of the Rhizopus chinensis carboxyl proteinase complexed with pepstatin. The resulting model of the complex supports the hypothesis [Marciniszyn, J., Hartsuck, J.A., & Tang, J. (1976) J. Biol. Chem. 251, 7088-7094] that statine (3-hydroxy-4-amino-6-methylheptanoic acid) approaches an analogue of the transition state for catalysis. The way in which pepstatin binds to the enzyme can be extended to provide a model of substrate binding and a model of the transition-state complex. This in turn has led to a proposed mechanism of action based on general acid-base catalysis with no covalent intermediates. These predictions are in general agreement with kinetic studies using several carboxyl proteinases, which together with their sequence homology and their common three-dimensional structures suggest that this mechanism can be extrapolated to all carboxyl proteinases.

Aspartic Acid Endopeptidases↗
PubMed1982

The refined crystal structure of ribonuclease A at 2.0 A resolution.

This paper describes the structure of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A, refined by a restrained parameter least squares procedure at 2.0 A resolution, and rebuilt using computer graphics. The final agreement factor (formula see text) is 0.159. The positions of the 951 main chain atoms have been determined with an estimated accuracy of 0.17 A. In addition, the model includes a phosphate group in the active site and 176 waters, many of them with partial occupancy. The bond lengths in the refined structure of RNase A differ from the ideal values by an overall root mean square deviation of 0.022 A; the corresponding value for angle distances is 0.06 A. The root mean square deviation of planar atoms from ideality is 0.017 A, and root mean square deviation of the peptide torsion angles from 180 degrees is 3.4 degrees. The model is in good agreement with the final difference Fourier maps. Two active site histidines, His 12 and His 119, form hydrogen bonds to the phosphate ion. His 119 is also hydrogen bonded to the carboxyl of ASp 121 and His 12 to the carbonyl of Thr 45. The structure of the RNase A is very similar to that of RNase S, particularly in the active site region. The root mean square discrepancy of all atoms from residues 1 to 16 and 24 to 123 is 1.06 A and the root mean square discrepancy for the active site region is 0.6 A.

Animals↗