Free-energy computations identify the mutations required to confer trans-sialidase activity into Trypanosoma rangeli sialidase.

Trypanosoma rangeli's sialidase (TrSA) and Trypanosoma cruzi's trans-sialidase (TcTS) are members of the glycoside hydrolase family 33 (GH-33). They share 70% of sequence identity and their crystallographic Cα RMSD is 0.59 Å. Despite these similarities they catalyze different reactions. TcTS transfers sialic acid between glycoconjugates while TrSA can only cleave sialic acid from sialyl-glyconjugates. Significant effort has been invested into unraveling the differences between TrSA and TcTS, and into conferring TrSA with trans-sialidase activity through appropriate point mutations. Recently, we calculated the free-energy change for the formation of the covalent intermediate (CI) in TcTS and performed an energy decomposition analysis of that process. In this article we present a similar study for the formation of the CI in TrSA, as well as in a quintuple mutant (TrSA5mut), which has faint trans-sialidase activity. The comparison of these new results with those previously obtained for TcTS allowed identifying five extra mutations to be introduced in TrSA5mut that should create a mutant (TrSA10mut ) with high trans-sialidase activity.