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Elias M, Guan X, Hudson D, Bose R, Kwak J, Petrounia I, Touah K, Mansour S, Yue P, Errasti G, Delacroix T, Ghosh A, Chakrabarti R. Evolution of Organic Solvent-Resistant DNA Polymerases. ACS Synth Biol 2023; 12:3170-3188. [PMID: 37611245 DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.2c00515] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/25/2023]
Abstract
The introduction of thermostable polymerases revolutionized the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and biotechnology. However, many GC-rich genes cannot be PCR-amplified with high efficiency in water, irrespective of temperature. Although polar organic cosolvents can enhance nucleic acid polymerization and amplification by destabilizing duplex DNA and secondary structures, nature has not selected for the evolution of solvent-tolerant polymerase enzymes. Here, we used ultrahigh-throughput droplet-based selection and deep sequencing along with computational free-energy and binding affinity calculations to evolve Taq polymerase to generate enzymes that are both stable and highly active in the presence of organic cosolvents, resulting in up to 10% solvent resistance and over 100-fold increase in stability at 97.5 °C in the presence of 1,4-butanediol, as well as tolerance to up to 10 times higher concentrations of the potent cosolvents sulfolane and 2-pyrrolidone. Using these polymerases, we successfully amplified a broad spectrum of GC-rich templates containing regions with over 90% GC content, including templates recalcitrant to amplification with existing polymerases, even in the presence of cosolvents. We also demonstrated dramatically reduced GC bias in the amplification of genes with widely varying GC content in quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). By expanding the scope of solvent systems compatible with nucleic acid polymerization, these organic solvent-resistant polymerases enable a dramatic reduction of sequence bias not achievable through thermal resistance alone, with significant implications for a wide range of applications including sequencing and synthetic biology in mixed aqueous-organic media.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammed Elias
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
| | - Xiangying Guan
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
| | - Devin Hudson
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
| | - Rahul Bose
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
| | - Joon Kwak
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
| | - Ioanna Petrounia
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
| | - Kenza Touah
- Center for Protein Engineering & Drug Discovery, PMC Isochem SAS, 32 Rue Lavoisier, Vert-Le-Petit 91710, France
| | - Sourour Mansour
- Center for Protein Engineering & Drug Discovery, PMC Isochem SAS, 32 Rue Lavoisier, Vert-Le-Petit 91710, France
| | - Peng Yue
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
| | - Gauthier Errasti
- Center for Protein Engineering & Drug Discovery, PMC Isochem SAS, 32 Rue Lavoisier, Vert-Le-Petit 91710, France
| | - Thomas Delacroix
- Center for Protein Engineering & Drug Discovery, PMC Isochem SAS, 32 Rue Lavoisier, Vert-Le-Petit 91710, France
| | - Anisha Ghosh
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
- McGill University, 845 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada
| | - Raj Chakrabarti
- Chakrabarti Advanced Technology, LLC, PMC Group Building, 1288 Route 73, Suite 110, Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054, United States
- Center for Protein Engineering & Drug Discovery, PMC Isochem SAS, 32 Rue Lavoisier, Vert-Le-Petit 91710, France
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Chopra A, Bauman JD, Ruiz FX, Arnold E. Halo Library, a Tool for Rapid Identification of Ligand Binding Sites on Proteins Using Crystallographic Fragment Screening. J Med Chem 2023; 66:6013-6024. [PMID: 37115705 PMCID: PMC10184123 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.2c01681] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/29/2023]
Abstract
X-ray crystallographic fragment screening (XCFS) uses fragment-sized molecules (∼60 to 300 Da) to access binding sites on proteins that may be inaccessible to larger drug-like molecules (>300 Da). Previous studies have shown that fragments containing halogen atoms bind more often to proteins than non-halogenated fragments. Here, we designed the Halo Library containing 46 halogenated fragments (including the "universal fragment" 4-bromopyrazole), a majority of which have been reported to bind to or inhibit one or more targets. The library was screened against the crystals of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase with the drug rilpivirine, yielding an overall hit rate of 26%. Two new binding sites were discovered, and several hot spots were identified. This small library may thus provide a convenient tool for rapidly assessing the feasibility of a target for XCFS, mapping hot spots and cryptic sites, as well as finding fragment binders that can be useful for developing drug leads.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashima Chopra
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
| | - Joseph D Bauman
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
| | - Francesc X Ruiz
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
| | - Eddy Arnold
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States
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Kalinin S, Peulen T, Sindbert S, Rothwell PJ, Berger S, Restle T, Goody RS, Gohlke H, Seidel CAM. A toolkit and benchmark study for FRET-restrained high-precision structural modeling. Nat Methods 2012; 9:1218-25. [PMID: 23142871 DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.2222] [Citation(s) in RCA: 299] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2012] [Accepted: 10/05/2012] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
We present a comprehensive toolkit for Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET)-restrained modeling of biomolecules and their complexes for quantitative applications in structural biology. A dramatic improvement in the precision of FRET-derived structures is achieved by explicitly considering spatial distributions of dye positions, which greatly reduces uncertainties due to flexible dye linkers. The precision and confidence levels of the models are calculated by rigorous error estimation. The accuracy of this approach is demonstrated by docking a DNA primer-template to HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. The derived model agrees with the known X-ray structure with an r.m.s. deviation of 0.5 Å. Furthermore, we introduce FRET-guided 'screening' of a large structural ensemble created by molecular dynamics simulations. We used this hybrid approach to determine the formerly unknown configuration of the flexible single-strand template overhang.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stanislav Kalinin
- Lehrstuhl für Molekulare Physikalische Chemie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität (HHU), Düsseldorf, Germany.
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Scarth B, McCormick S, Götte M. Effects of mutations F61A and A62V in the fingers subdomain of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase on the translocational equilibrium. J Mol Biol 2010; 405:349-60. [PMID: 21056575 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2010.10.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2010] [Revised: 09/30/2010] [Accepted: 10/08/2010] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Abstract
Changes of the translocational status of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase (RT) can affect susceptibility to antiretroviral drugs. The pyrophosphate analogue phosphonoformic acid (PFA) binds specifically to and traps the pretranslocated complex of HIV-1 RT, while nucleotide-competing RT inhibitors trap the posttranslocated conformation. Here, we attempted to assess the potential role of residues in the fingers subdomain as determinants of polymerase translocation. The fingers can exist in open and closed conformations; however, the relationship between such conformational changes and the translocation status of HIV-1 RT remains elusive. We focused on substitution F61A and the neighboring A62V that is frequently associated with drug-resistance-conferring mutations. The proximity of these residues to the nucleic acid substrate suggested a possible role in translocation for these amino acid changes. We employed site-specific footprinting, binding assays, and DNA-synthesis inhibition experiments to study F61A and A62V, alone and against a background of known drug-resistance mutations. We demonstrate that F61A causes a strong bias to the posttranslocational state, while A62V shows a subtle bias toward pretranslocation regardless of the mutational background. Increases in the population of pretranslocated complexes were accompanied by increases in PFA activity, while F61A is literally resistant to PFA. Our data shed light on equilibria between pre- and posttranslocated complexes with the fingers subdomain in its open or closed conformations. We propose that a binary, pretranslocated complex in a closed conformation is stabilized with A62V and destabilized with F61A.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian Scarth
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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