Structural basis of autoregulation of phenylalanine hydroxylase.

Phenylalanine hydroxylase converts phenylalanine to tyrosine, a rate-limiting step in phenylalanine catabolism and protein and neurotransmitter biosynthesis. It is tightly regulated by the substrates phenylalanine and tetrahydrobiopterin and by phosphorylation. We present the crystal structures of dephosphorylated and phosphorylated forms of a dimeric enzyme with catalytic and regulatory properties of the wild-type protein. The structures reveal a catalytic domain flexibly linked to a regulatory domain. The latter consists of an N-terminal autoregulatory sequence (containing Ser 16, which is the site of phosphorylation) that extends over the active site pocket, and an alpha-beta sandwich core that is, unexpectedly, structurally related to both pterin dehydratase and the regulatory domains of metabolic enzymes. Phosphorylation has no major structural effects in the absence of phenylalanine, suggesting that phenylalanine and phosphorylation act in concert to activate the enzyme through a combination of intrasteric and possibly allosteric mechanisms.

Structural and kinetic evidence for strain in biological catalysis.

A classic hypothesis for enzyme catalysis is the induction of strain in the substrate. This notion was first expressed by Haldane with the lock and key analogy-"the key does not fit the lock perfectly but exercises a certain strain on it" (1). This mechanism has often been invoked to explain the catalytic efficiency of enzymes but has been difficult to establish conclusively (2-7). Here we describe X-ray crystallographic and mutational studies of an antibody metal chelatase which strongly support the notion that this antibody catalyzes metal ion insertion into the porphyrin ring by inducing strain. Analysis of the germline precursor suggests that this strain mechanism arose during the process of affinity maturation in response to a conformationally distorted N-alkylmesoporphyrin.

The interplay between binding energy and catalysis in the evolution of a catalytic antibody.

Antibody catalysis provides an opportunity to examine the evolution of binding energy and its relation to catalytic function in a system that has many parallels with natural enzymes. Here we report such a study involving an antibody AZ-28 that catalyses an oxy-Cope rearrangement, a pericyclic reaction that belongs to a well studied and widely used class of reactions in organic chemistry. Immunization with transition state analogue 1 results in a germline-encoded antibody that catalyses the rearrangement of hexadiene 2 to aldehyde 3 with a rate approaching that of a related pericyclic reaction catalysed by the enzyme chorismate mutase. Affinity maturation gives antibody AZ-28, which has six amino acid substitutions, one of which results in a decrease in catalytic rate. To understand the relationship between binding and catalytic rate in this system we characterized a series of active-site mutants and determined the three-dimensional crystal structure of the complex of AZ-28 with the transition state analogue. This analysis indicates that the activation energy depends on a complex balance of several stereoelectronic effects which are controlled by an extensive network of binding interactions in the active site. Thus in this instance the combinatorial diversity of the immune system provided both an efficient catalyst for a reaction where no enzyme is known, as well as an opportunity to explore the mechanisms and evolution of biological catalysis.

Refined crystal structure of rat parvalbumin, a mammalian alpha-lineage parvalbumin, at 2.0 A resolution.

We present here the X-ray crystal structure of the rat alpha-parvalbumin from fast twitch muscle. This protein (M(r) 11.8 kDa) crystallizes in space group P2(1)2(1)2(1) with unit cell dimensions of a = 34.3 A, b = 55.0 A, c = 156.1 A and three molecules in the asymmetric unit. The protein structure was solved by the molecular replacement method and has been refined to a crystallographic R-factor [formula: see text] of 0.181 for all reflections with I/sigma(I) > or = 2 (I = intensity) between 8.0 and 2.0 A resolution. The molecules located most easily in the molecular replacement rotation function had lower overall thermal motion parameters and higher numbers of intermolecular crystal packing contacts. The overall fold of the polypeptide chain for the rat alpha-parvalbumin is similar to other known parvalbumin structures (root-mean-square deviations in alpha-carbon atom positions range from 0.60 to 0.87 A). There are two Ca(2+)-binding sites in parvalbumins, and there is some evidence for a third ion-binding site, adjacent to the CD site, in the rat species. The level of structural variability among the best-ordered regions of the three independent rat alpha-parvalbumin molecules in the crystallographic asymmetric unit is two to three times higher than the mean coordinate error (0.10 A), indicating flexibility in the molecule. Sequence differences between alpha and beta-lineage parvalbumins result in repacking of the hydrophobic core and some shifts in the protein backbone. The shifts are localized, however, and entire helices do not shift as rigid units.