scholarly journals Nucleases: diversity of structure, function and mechanism

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Yang

AbstractNucleases cleave the phosphodiester bonds of nucleic acids and may be endo or exo, DNase or RNase, topoisomerases, recombinases, ribozymes, or RNA splicing enzymes. In this review, I survey nuclease activities with known structures and catalytic machinery and classify them by reaction mechanism and metal-ion dependence and by their biological function ranging from DNA replication, recombination, repair, RNA maturation, processing, interference, to defense, nutrient regeneration or cell death. Several general principles emerge from this analysis. There is little correlation between catalytic mechanism and biological function. A single catalytic mechanism can be adapted in a variety of reactions and biological pathways. Conversely, a single biological process can often be accomplished by multiple tertiary and quaternary folds and by more than one catalytic mechanism. Two-metal-ion-dependent nucleases comprise the largest number of different tertiary folds and mediate the most diverse set of biological functions. Metal-ion-dependent cleavage is exclusively associated with exonucleases producing mononucleotides and endonucleases that cleave double- or single-stranded substrates in helical and base-stacked conformations. All metal-ion-independent RNases generate 2′,3′-cyclic phosphate products, and all metal-ion-independent DNases form phospho-protein intermediates. I also find several previously unnoted relationships between different nucleases and shared catalytic configurations.

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.V. Lutay ◽  
E. L. Chernolovskaya ◽  
M. A. Zenkova ◽  
V. V. Vlasso

Abstract. The nonenzymatic template-directed ligation of oligonucleotides containing 2',3'-cyclic phosphate was investigated in the presence of divalent cations. Ligation of the oligonucleotides readily occurred in the presence of Mg2+, Mn2+, Co2+, Zn2+, Pb2+. Efficacy of the metal ion catalysts inversely correlated with pKa values of the metal-bound water molecules. The intermolecular transesterification reaction yielded at least 95% of 2',5'-phosphodiester bonds independently on the nature of the metal ion. Relatively high reaction yields (up to 15%) suggest, that RNA fragmentation to oligonucleotides with 2',3'-cyclic phosphates, followed by reactions of those oligonucleotides could provide a source of new RNA molecules under prebiotic conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 476 (21) ◽  
pp. 3333-3353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malti Yadav ◽  
Kamalendu Pal ◽  
Udayaditya Sen

Cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) have emerged as the central molecules that aid bacteria to adapt and thrive in changing environmental conditions. Therefore, tight regulation of intracellular CDN concentration by counteracting the action of dinucleotide cyclases and phosphodiesterases (PDEs) is critical. Here, we demonstrate that a putative stand-alone EAL domain PDE from Vibrio cholerae (VcEAL) is capable to degrade both the second messenger c-di-GMP and hybrid 3′3′-cyclic GMP–AMP (cGAMP). To unveil their degradation mechanism, we have determined high-resolution crystal structures of VcEAL with Ca2+, c-di-GMP-Ca2+, 5′-pGpG-Ca2+ and cGAMP-Ca2+, the latter provides the first structural basis of cGAMP hydrolysis. Structural studies reveal a typical triosephosphate isomerase barrel-fold with substrate c-di-GMP/cGAMP bound in an extended conformation. Highly conserved residues specifically bind the guanine base of c-di-GMP/cGAMP in the G2 site while the semi-conserved nature of residues at the G1 site could act as a specificity determinant. Two metal ions, co-ordinated with six stubbornly conserved residues and two non-bridging scissile phosphate oxygens of c-di-GMP/cGAMP, activate a water molecule for an in-line attack on the phosphodiester bond, supporting two-metal ion-based catalytic mechanism. PDE activity and biofilm assays of several prudently designed mutants collectively demonstrate that VcEAL active site is charge and size optimized. Intriguingly, in VcEAL-5′-pGpG-Ca2+ structure, β5–α5 loop adopts a novel conformation that along with conserved E131 creates a new metal-binding site. This novel conformation along with several subtle changes in the active site designate VcEAL-5′-pGpG-Ca2+ structure quite different from other 5′-pGpG bound structures reported earlier.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 540-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiu-Xin Tan ◽  
Hao Lv ◽  
Fang Wang ◽  
Fu-Ying Dao ◽  
Wei Chen ◽  
...  

Enzymes are proteins that act as biological catalysts to speed up cellular biochemical processes. According to their main Enzyme Commission (EC) numbers, enzymes are divided into six categories: EC-1: oxidoreductase; EC-2: transferase; EC-3: hydrolase; EC-4: lyase; EC-5: isomerase and EC-6: synthetase. Different enzymes have different biological functions and acting objects. Therefore, knowing which family an enzyme belongs to can help infer its catalytic mechanism and provide information about the relevant biological function. With the large amount of protein sequences influxing into databanks in the post-genomics age, the annotation of the family for an enzyme is very important. Since the experimental methods are cost ineffective, bioinformatics tool will be a great help for accurately classifying the family of the enzymes. In this review, we summarized the application of machine learning methods in the prediction of enzyme family from different aspects. We hope that this review will provide insights and inspirations for the researches on enzyme family classification.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1150 ◽  
pp. 316-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.G. Ferraresso ◽  
E.G.R. de Arruda ◽  
T.P.L. de Moraes ◽  
R.B. Fazzi ◽  
A.M. Da Costa Ferreira ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (7) ◽  
pp. 1854-1872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Bejger ◽  
Barbara Imiolczyk ◽  
Damien Clavel ◽  
Miroslaw Gilski ◽  
Agnieszka Pajak ◽  
...  

Plant-type L-asparaginases, which are a subclass of the Ntn-hydrolase family, are divided into potassium-dependent and potassium-independent enzymes with different substrate preferences. While the potassium-independent enzymes have already been well characterized, there are no structural data for any of the members of the potassium-dependent group to illuminate the intriguing dependence of their catalytic mechanism on alkali-metal cations. Here, three crystal structures of a potassium-dependent plant-type L-asparaginase fromPhaseolus vulgaris(PvAspG1) differing in the type of associated alkali metal ions (K+, Na+or both) are presented and the structural consequences of the different ions are correlated with the enzyme activity. As in all plant-type L-asparaginases, immature PvAspG1 is a homodimer of two protein chains, which both undergo autocatalytic cleavage to α and β subunits, thus creating the mature heterotetramer or dimer of heterodimers (αβ)2. The αβ subunits of PvAspG1 are folded similarly to the potassium-independent enzymes, with a sandwich of two β-sheets flanked on each side by a layer of helices. In addition to the `sodium loop' (here referred to as the `stabilization loop') known from potassium-independent plant-type asparaginases, the potassium-dependent PvAspG1 enzyme contains another alkali metal-binding loop (the `activation loop') in subunit α (residues Val111–Ser118). The active site of PvAspG1 is located between these two metal-binding loops and in the immediate neighbourhood of three residues, His117, Arg224 and Glu250, acting as a catalytic switch, which is a novel feature that is identified in plant-type L-asparaginases for the first time. A comparison of the three PvAspG1 structures demonstrates how the metal ion bound in the activation loop influences its conformation, setting the catalytic switch to ON (when K+is coordinated) or OFF (when Na+is coordinated) to respectively allow or prevent anchoring of the reaction substrate/product in the active site. Moreover, it is proposed that Ser118, the last residue of the activation loop, is involved in the potassium-dependence mechanism. The PvAspG1 structures are discussed in comparison with those of potassium-independent L-asparaginases (LlA, EcAIII and hASNase3) and those of other Ntn-hydrolases (AGA and Tas1), as well as in the light of noncrystallographic studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Kyun Kim ◽  
Cheol Lee ◽  
Seon Woo Lim ◽  
Aniruddha Adhikari ◽  
Jacob T. Andring ◽  
...  

Abstract Why metalloenzymes often show dramatic changes in their catalytic activity when subjected to chemically similar but non-native metal substitutions is a long-standing puzzle. Here, we report on the catalytic roles of metal ions in a model metalloenzyme system, human carbonic anhydrase II (CA II). Through a comparative study on the intermediate states of the zinc-bound native CA II and non-native metal-substituted CA IIs, we demonstrate that the characteristic metal ion coordination geometries (tetrahedral for Zn2+, tetrahedral to octahedral conversion for Co2+, octahedral for Ni2+, and trigonal bipyramidal for Cu2+) directly modulate the catalytic efficacy. In addition, we reveal that the metal ions have a long-range (~10 Å) electrostatic effect on restructuring water network in the active site. Our study provides evidence that the metal ions in metalloenzymes have a crucial impact on the catalytic mechanism beyond their primary chemical properties.


2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. V. Lutay ◽  
E. L. Chernolovskaya ◽  
M. A. Zenkova ◽  
V. V. Vlassov

Abstract. The nonenzymatic template-directed ligation of oligonucleotides containing 2', 3'-cyclic phosphate was investigated in the presence of divalent cations. Ligation of the oligonucleotides readily occurred in the presence of Mg2+, Mn2+, Co2+, Zn2+, Pb2+. Efficacy of the metal ion catalysts inversely correlated with pKa values of the metal-bound water molecules. The intermolecular transesterification reaction yielded at least 95metal ion. Relatively high reaction yields (up to 15fragmentation to oligonucleotides with 2',3'-cyclic phosphates, followed by reactions of those oligonucleotides could provide a source of new RNA molecules under prebiotic conditions.


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1343-1348 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.J. Thornalley

Glyoxalase I is part of the glyoxalase system present in the cytosol of cells. The glyoxalase system catalyses the conversion of reactive, acyclic α-oxoaldehydes into the corresponding α-hydroxyacids. Glyoxalase I catalyses the isomerization of the hemithioacetal, formed spontaneously from α-oxoaldehyde and GSH, to S-2-hydroxyacylglutathione derivatives [RCOCH(OH)-SG→RCH(OH)CO-SG], and in so doing decreases the steady-state concentrations of physiological α-oxoaldehydes and associated glycation reactions. Physiological substrates of glyoxalase I are methylglyoxal, glyoxal and other acyclic α-oxoaldehydes. Human glyoxalase I is a dimeric Zn2+ metalloenzyme of molecular mass 42 kDa. Glyoxalase I from Escherichia coli is a Ni2+ metalloenzyme. The crystal structures of human and E. coli glyoxalase I have been determined to 1.7 and 1.5 Å resolution. The Zn2+ site comprises two structurally equivalent residues from each domain – Gln-33A, Glu-99A, His-126B, Glu-172B and two water molecules. The Ni2+ binding site comprises His-5A, Glu-56A, His-74B, Glu-122B and two water molecules. The catalytic reaction involves base-catalysed shielded-proton transfer from C-1 to C-2 of the hemithioacetal to form an ene-diol intermediate and rapid ketonization to the thioester product. R- and S-enantiomers of the hemithioacetal are bound in the active site, displacing the water molecules in the metal ion primary co-ordination shell. It has been proposed that Glu-172 is the catalytic base for the S-substrate enantiomer and Glu-99 the catalytic base for the R-substrate enantiomer; Glu-172 then reprotonates the ene-diol stereospecifically to form the R-2-hydroxyacylglutathione product. By analogy with the human enzyme, Glu-56 and Glu-122 may be the bases involved in the catalytic mechanism of E. coli glyoxalase I. The suppression of α-oxoaldehyde-mediated glycation by glyoxalase I is particularly important in diabetes and uraemia, where α-oxoaldehyde concentrations are increased. Decreased glyoxalase I activity in situ due to the aging process and oxidative stress results in increased glycation and tissue damage. Inhibition of glyoxalase I pharmacologically with specific inhibitors leads to the accumulation of α-oxoaldehydes to cytotoxic levels; cell-permeable glyoxalase I inhibitors are antitumour and antimalarial agents. Glyoxalase I has a critical role in the prevention of glycation reactions mediated by methylglyoxal, glyoxal and other α-oxoaldehydes in vivo.


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