Major Change in Regiospecificity for the Exo-1,3-β-glucanase from <i>Candida albicans</i> following Its Conversion to a Glycosynthase
作者:Y. Nakatani、D. S. Larsen、S. M. Cutfield、J. F. Cutfield
DOI:10.1021/bi500239m
日期:2014.5.27
The exo-1,3-beta-glucanase (Exg) from Candida albicans is involved in cell wall beta-D-glucan metabolism and morphogenesis through its hydrolase and transglycosidase activities. Previous work has shown that both these activities strongly favor beta-1,3-linkages. The E292S Exg variant displayed modest glycosynthase activity using alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride (alpha-GlcF) as the donor and pNP-beta-D-glucopyranoside (pNPGlc) as the acceptor but surprisingly showed a marked preference for synthesizing beta-1,6-linked over beta-1,3- and beta-1,4-linked disaccharide products. With pNPXyl as the acceptor, the preference became beta-1,4 over beta-1,3. The crystal structure of the glycosynthase bound to both of its substrates, alpha-GlcF and pNPGlc, is the first such ternary complex structure to be determined. The results revealed that the donor bound in the -1 subsite, as expected, while the acceptor was oriented in the +1 subsite to facilitate beta-1,6-linkage, thereby supporting the results from solution studies. A second crystal structure containing the major product of glycosynthesis, pNP-gentiobiose, showed that the -1 subsite allows another docking position for the terminal sugar; i.e., one position is set up for catalysis, whereas the other is an intermediate stage prior to the displacement of water from the active site by the incoming sugar hydroxyls. The +1 subsite, an aromatic "clamp", permits several different sugar positions and orientations, including a 180 degrees flip that explains the observed variable regiospecificity. The p-nitrophenyl group on the acceptor most likely influences the unexpectedly observed beta-1,6-specificity through its interaction with F229. These results demonstrate that tailoring the specificity of a particular glycosynthase depends not only on the chemical structure of the acceptor but also on understanding the structural basis of the promiscuity of the native enzyme.