952
T. Utsumi et al. / Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 417 (2012) 951–955
study, the mechanism for substrate recognition of LGOX is
discussed.
with the equilibrium buffer. Then the enzyme was eluted using the
same buffer containing 10 mM maltose.
2.6. Maturation of LGOX and its variants by protease digestion
2. Materials and methods
The purified LGOX and its variants by Amylose resin were
single-chain LGOX precursor fused with maltose binding protein.
The digestion by metallo-protease from Streptomyces was neces-
sary for maturation of LGOX [22] (the mature form of LGOX has
2.1. Docking study
The docking study was performed using Internal Coordinate
Mechanics (ICM) software (Molsoft L.L.C., La Jolla, USA), a program
for comparative protein structure modeling and interactive dock-
a2b2c2 structure). To maturation of them, the purified enzymes
were treated with the metallo protease from Streptomyces griseus
(Sigma–Aldrich Corp., St. Louis, MO, USA) at 30 °C for 24 h. Then
it was heated at 50 °C for 30 min to inactivate the protease. After
centrifugation, the solution was loaded onto a column (DEAE-
Toyopearl 650; Tosoh Corp., Tokyo, Japan) equilibrated with
20 mM KPB (pH 7.4) containing 0.1 M NaCl. After the column
was washed with the same buffer, the bound protein was eluted
with 20 mM KPB (pH 7.4) containing 0.3 M NaCl. The eluate was
pooled and dialyzed against 20 mM KPB (pH 7.4); the dialysate
was used as the mature enzyme.
ing. The structure of
simulation of interactive docking was performed using the rigid
form of LGOX and flexible form of -glutamate. The simulation
was repeated 150 times with the calculation of total energy using
biased probability Monte-Carlo method as calculated before the
conformation was stored [20].
L-glutamate was built into the software, and
L
2.2. Enzyme assays
LGOX activity assay involved the determination of 2-ketoglutar-
ate formed with 3-methyl-2-benzothiazolone hydrazone hydro-
chloride as described previously (MBTH method) [21]. One unit
of LGOX activity was taken as the amount of the enzyme that
2.7. Biochemical studies
The substrate specificity of wild-type and mutant LGOXs were
liberated 1 lmol of 2-ketoglutarate per minute.
tested by the MBTH method with 0.5 mM
L-tyrosine, 1 mM
L
-tryptophan and -aspartate, 5 mM -leucine, and 10 mM other
L
L
2.3. Construction of an expression vector
substrates with the purified enzymes. Effects of pH on activity
were examined using Britton-Robinson buffer at a pH range of
4.0–12.0. The activities were measured by the MBTH method at
the corresponding pH.
The full-sized gene encoding LGOX was amplified using PCR
from the chromosomal DNA of Streptomyces sp. X-119-6 using
the following primers: 50-CCACACCGGGGCCGAATTCATGAACGA-
GAT-30 and 50-AGGTACTCGGCCACCCTGCAGGTC-30 (the underlined
regions are EcoR I and Pst I). The PCR product was separated by
agarose gel electrophoresis and digested by EcoR I and Pst I, then
subcloned into the EcoR I and Pst I gap of pMal-c2 (yielding
pGox-mal1).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Conformational simulation of L-glutamate in active site of LGOX
The overall structure and local structure around the active site
of LGOX resembles that of LAO [19]. A previous report by Pawelek
et al. of the crystal structure of LAO interacted with o-aminobenzo-
ate (AB) described that three AB molecules are visible within the
funnel of the LAO-AB complex [23]. Likewise, the structure of LGOX
interacted with ligand provide us with valuable information about
the mechanism of the substrate recognition of LGOX. However, the
LGOX structure interacting with a mimic of the natural substrate
was not analyzed because of the difficulty in obtaining crystals of
the LGOX–ligand complex. Therefore, we performed a docking
2.4. Site directed mutagenesis
Site-directed mutagenesis was conducted by inverse PCR using
a pair of oligonucleotide primers containing a point mutation (see
Table S1 in the supplemental material) and the pGOx-mal1. The
PCR program was as follows: 15 cycles of 10 s at 98 °C, 30 s at
65 °C, and 10 min at 68 °C. The PCR product was treated with DpnI
at 37 °C for 1 h. Then the PCR product was transfected into compe-
tent cell of Escherichia coli TOP10 according to the manufacturer’s
protocol. After the confirmation of the sequence, the extracted
plasmid was transformed into E. coli JM109.
study using the LGOX structure as a receptor and
gands to investigate the interaction of enzyme with a substrate.
By the simulation, we obtained numerous -glutamate binding
forms around the active site. The -glutamate molecules were
L-glutamate as li-
L
L
mainly present at three sites: the entrance to the active site, near
the active site, and the active center (see Fig. S1 in the Supplemen-
tal material). As shown in Fig. 1, the model at the active center
2.5. Expression and purification of the recombinant LGOX and its
variants fused with maltose binding protein E. coli
indicates that the hydrogen atom on C
ward to isoalloxazine ring of FAD, and the distance between C
of -glutamate and N5 of FAD is approximately 5 Å. Although this
is not sufficiently close for reaction, -glutamate, the residues sur-
rounding -glutamate, and the FAD should be allowed to be flexi-
ble. Because it has suitable space and adequate basic residues in
the model of -glutamate binding at the active center, LGOX might
have strict specificity for oxidation toward -glutamate.
a of L-glutamate points to-
JM109 cells harboring pGOx-mal1or the plasmid for mutant
LGOX expression were cultivated at 22 °C for 24 h in 3 l of 2ꢀ TY
medium. Expression of the LGOX was induced by incubation at
22 °C with 0.5 mM IPTG for 24 h. The harvested cells were sus-
pended in 20 mM potassium phosphate buffer (KPB) (pH 7.4),
and then disrupted by ultrasonication on ice. After removal of
the cell debris, the supernatant was brought to 40% saturation with
ammonium sulfate. The resultant supernatant was brought to 60%
saturation with ammonium sulfate. The resultant precipitate was
dissolved in 20 mM Tris–HCl buffer (pH7.4) containing 200 mM
NaCl and 1 mM EDTA. Next, the solution was loaded onto an Amy-
lose resin affinity column (New England Biolabs, Beverly, MA, USA)
equilibrated with the same buffer. The column was washed gently
a
L
L
L
L
L
3.2. Mutation of Arg305, His312, and Trp564 of LGOX with Ala
In the binding model, the side chains of Arg305 and His 312 might
produce hydrogen bonding with the side chain of L-glutamate. In