Investigation of the active site of the extracellular β-D-glucosidase from Aspergillus carbonarius

Orthogonal Active-Site Labels for Mixed-Linkage endo-β-Glucanases

Small molecule irreversible inhibitors are valuable tools for determining catalytically important active-site residues and revealing key details of the specificity, structure, and function of glycoside hydrolases (GHs). β-glucans that contain backbone β(1,3) linkages are widespread in nature, e.g., mixed-linkage β(1,3)/β(1,4)-glucans in the cell walls of higher plants and β(1,3)glucans in yeasts and algae. Commensurate with this ubiquity, a large diversity of mixed-linkage endoglucanases (MLGases, EC 3.2.1.73) and endo-β(1,3)-glucanases (laminarinases, EC 3.2.1.39 and EC 3.2.1.6) have evolved to specifically hydrolyze these polysaccharides, respectively, in environmental niches including the human gut. To facilitate biochemical and structural analysis of these GHs, with a focus on MLGases, we present here the facile chemo-enzymatic synthesis of a library of active-site-directed enzyme inhibitors based on mixed-linkage oligosaccharide scaffolds and N-bromoacetylglycosylamine or 2-fluoro-2-deoxyglycoside warheads. The effectiveness and irreversibility of these inhibitors were tested with exemplar MLGases and an endo-β(1,3)-glucanase. Notably, determination of inhibitor-bound crystal structures of a human-gut microbial MLGase from Glycoside Hydrolase Family 16 revealed the orthogonal labeling of the nucleophile and catalytic acid/base residues with homologous 2-fluoro-2-deoxyglycoside and N-bromoacetylglycosylamine inhibitors, respectively. We anticipate that the selectivity of these inhibitors will continue to enable the structural and mechanistic analyses of β-glucanases from diverse sources and protein families.

Suite of activity-based probes for cellulose-degrading enzymes

Microbial glycoside hydrolases play a dominant role in the biochemical conversion of cellulosic biomass to high-value biofuels. Anaerobic cellulolytic bacteria are capable of producing multicomplex catalytic subunits containing cell-adherent cellulases, hemicellulases, xylanases, and other glycoside hydrolases to facilitate the degradation of highly recalcitrant cellulose and other related plant cell wall polysaccharides. Clostridium thermocellum is a cellulosome-producing bacterium that couples rapid reproduction rates to highly efficient degradation of crystalline cellulose. Herein, we have developed and applied a suite of difluoromethylphenyl aglycone, N-halogenated glycosylamine, and 2-deoxy-2-fluoroglycoside activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) probes to the direct labeling of the C. thermocellum cellulosomal secretome. These activity-based probes (ABPs) were synthesized with alkynes to harness the utility and multimodal possibilities of click chemistry and to increase enzyme active site inclusion for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. We directly analyzed ABP-labeled and unlabeled global MS data, revealing ABP selectivity for glycoside hydrolase (GH) enzymes, in addition to a large collection of integral cellulosome-containing proteins. By identifying reactivity and selectivity profiles for each ABP, we demonstrate our ability to widely profile the functional cellulose-degrading machinery of the bacterium. Derivatization of the ABPs, including reactive groups, acetylation of the glycoside binding groups, and mono- and disaccharide binding groups, resulted in considerable variability in protein labeling. Our probe suite is applicable to aerobic and anaerobic microbial cellulose-degrading systems and facilitates a greater understanding of the organismal role associated with biofuel development.

Functional diversity of four glycoside hydrolase family 3 enzymes from the rumen bacterium Prevotella bryantii B14

Prevotella bryantii B(1)4 is a member of the phylum Bacteroidetes and contributes to the degradation of hemicellulose in the rumen. The genome of P. bryantii harbors four genes predicted to encode glycoside hydrolase (GH) family 3 (GH3) enzymes. To evaluate whether these genes encode enzymes with redundant biological functions, each gene was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. Biochemical analysis of the recombinant proteins revealed that the enzymes exhibit different substrate specificities. One gene encoded a cellodextrinase (CdxA), and three genes encoded beta-xylosidase enzymes (Xyl3A, Xyl3B, and Xyl3C) with different specificities for either para-nitrophenyl (pNP)-linked substrates or substituted xylooligosaccharides. To identify the amino acid residues that contribute to catalysis and substrate specificity within this family of enzymes, the roles of conserved residues (R177, K214, H215, M251, and D286) in Xyl3B were probed by site-directed mutagenesis. Each mutation led to a severely decreased catalytic efficiency without a change in the overall structure of the mutant enzymes. Through amino acid sequence alignments, an amino acid residue (E115) that, when mutated to aspartic acid, resulted in a 14-fold decrease in the k(cat)/K(m) for pNP-beta-d-xylopyranoside (pNPX) with a concurrent 1.1-fold increase in the k(cat)/K(m) for pNP-beta-d-glucopyranoside (pNPG) was identified. Amino acid residue E115 may therefore contribute to the discrimination between beta-xylosides and beta-glucosides. Our results demonstrate that each of the four GH3 enzymes has evolved to perform a specific role in lignopolysaccharide hydrolysis and provide insight into the role of active-site residues in catalysis and substrate specificity for GH3 enzymes.

Covalent inhibitors of glycosidases and their applications in biochemistry and biology

Glycoside hydrolases are important enzymes in a number of essential biological processes. Irreversible inhibitors of this class of enzyme have attracted interest as probes of both structure and function. In this review we discuss some of the compounds used to covalently modify glycosidases, their use in residue identification, structural and mechanistic investigations, and finally their applications, both in vitro and in vivo, to complex biological systems.