Structural Coupling Throughout the Active Site Hydrogen Bond Networks of Ketosteroid Isomerase and Photoactive Yellow Protein.

Hydrogen bonds are fundamental to biological systems and are regularly found in networks implicated in folding, molecular recognition, catalysis, and allostery. Given their ubiquity, we asked the fundamental questions of whether, and to what extent, hydrogen bonds within networks are structurally coupled. To address these questions, we turned to three protein systems, two variants of ketosteroid isomerase and one of photoactive yellow protein.

BIOPHYSICS. Comment on "Extreme electric fields power catalysis in the active site of ketosteroid isomerase".

Fried et al. (Reports, 19 December 2014, p. 1510) demonstrated a strong correlation between reaction rate and the carbonyl stretching frequency of a product analog bound to ketosteroid isomerase oxyanion hole mutants and concluded that the active-site electric field provides 70% of catalysis.

Using unnatural amino acids to probe the energetics of oxyanion hole hydrogen bonds in the ketosteroid isomerase active site.

Hydrogen bonds are ubiquitous in enzyme active sites, providing binding interactions and stabilizing charge rearrangements on substrate groups over the course of a reaction. But understanding the origin and magnitude of their catalytic contributions relative to hydrogen bonds made in aqueous solution remains difficult, in part because of complexities encountered in energetic interpretation of traditional site-directed mutagenesis experiments. It has been proposed for ketosteroid isomerase and other enzymes that active site hydrogen bonding groups provide energetic stabilization via "short, strong" or "low-barrier" hydrogen bonds that are formed due to matching of their pKa or proton affinity to that of the transition state.

Fundamental challenges in mechanistic enzymology: progress toward understanding the rate enhancements of enzymes.

Enzymes are remarkable catalysts that lie at the heart of biology, accelerating chemical reactions to an astounding extent with extraordinary specificity. Enormous progress in understanding the chemical basis of enzymatic transformations and the basic mechanisms underlying rate enhancements over the past decades is apparent. Nevertheless, it has been difficult to achieve a quantitative understanding of how the underlying mechanisms account for the energetics of catalysis, because of the complexity of enzyme systems and the absence of underlying energetic additivity.

Ground state destabilization from a positioned general base in the ketosteroid isomerase active site.

We compared the binding affinities of ground state analogues for bacterial ketosteroid isomerase (KSI) with a wild-type anionic Asp general base and with uncharged Asn and Ala in the general base position to provide a measure of potential ground state destabilization that could arise from the close juxtaposition of the anionic Asp and hydrophobic steroid in the reaction's Michaelis complex. The analogue binding affinity increased ~1 order of magnitude for the Asp38Asn mutation and ~2 orders of magnitude for the Asp38Ala mutation, relative to the affinity with Asp38, for KSI from two sources. The increased level of binding suggests that the abutment of a charged general base and a hydrophobic steroid is modestly destabilizing, relative to a standard state in water, and that this destabilization is relieved in the transition state and intermediate in which the charge on the general base has been neutralized because of proton abstraction.

Compound ice-binding site of an antifreeze protein revealed by mutagenesis and fluorescent tagging.

By binding to the surface of ice crystals, type III antifreeze protein (AFP) can depress the freezing point of fish blood to below that of freezing seawater. This 7-kDa globular protein is encoded by a multigene family that produces two major isoforms, SP and QAE, which are 55% identical. Disruptive mutations on the ice-binding site of type III AFP lower antifreeze activity but can also change ice crystal morphology.

Chemoselective peptidomimetic ligation using thioacid peptides and aziridine templates.

Chemoselective peptidomimetic ligation has been made possible using thioacid peptides and NH aziridine-terminated amino acids and peptides. In the course of this reaction, a reduced amide bond is incorporated into the backbone of a peptide. This process enables incorporation of reduced cysteine, reduced substituted cysteine, reduced phenylalanine, and reduced alanine.