S. Wang et al. / Carbohydrate Research 413 (2015) 70e74
73
and GlcNAc-1-P substrates. Previous studies indicated that this
segment had significantly conformation changing during the
enzyme reaction. In order to demonstrate the role of this segment,
three mutants were constructed. Activity assay results indicated that
two mutants occurred on Tyr103 residue (Y103A and Y103F)
exhibited enhanced catalytic activities to form UDP-GlcNAc, espe-
cially Y103F, which had a 1.2 fold activity of the wide-type tGlmU.
Based on structure data, we presumed that it was the hydrophobic
characteristic of Tyr103 residue that affected the enzymatic reaction.
Substitution to other hydrophobic residues might contribute to
substrate-enzyme interactions, thus facilitating GlcNAc-1-P and UTP
to enter the uridyltransferase pocket. In contrast, the tGlmU D105A
mutant, which affected the adjacent hydrophobic interactions,
impaired its activity (two folds lower than the wide-type tGlmU).
target for antibiotic drug discovery. Based on our previous study,
we investigated the functional roles of several highly conserved
residues in the uridyltransferase domain of E. coli GlmU. Among
mutants constructed in our experiment, tGlmU Q76E mutant
exhibited a novel catalytic activity to convert CTP and GlcNAc-1-P
into CDP-GlcNAc. Two other mutants, Y103F and N169R, showed
enhanced activities toward the formation of UDP-GlcNAc. This
work deepens our understanding of the reaction mechanisms of
GlmU. The results further illuminate the relationship of highly
conserved residues and enzyme reaction. Most importantly, site-
directed mutagenesis provides
a prototypic template for a
structure-function analysis of the catalytic domains of uridyl-
transferases, which will benefit us to assess the roles of sequence-
conserved residues in the catalytic mechanism.
2.5. The secondary structure changes in tGlmU mutants
4. Experimental section
In order to fully understand the functional roles of the tGlmU
4.1. Material
mutants, we predicated the secondary structures by SWISS-MODEL
Workspace to calculate conformation changes (Table 1). The
predication results demonstrated that all the mutants did not affect
the secondary structures where the mutated residues located.
However, substitution of the corresponding residues had effect on
the secondary structures formed by the amino acids adjacent and
far way from these mutated residues.
E. coli BL21(DE3) strain hosting the E. coli K12 tGlmU gene was
16
constructed in our Lab previously. Fast Multi-site-mutagenesis kit
was from Transgen Biotechnology Company. Sugar-1-Ps and NTPs
were from Sigma.
4
.2. Site-directed mutagenesis
2.6. Enzymatic synthesis of unnatural CDP-GlcNAc by coupling of
Site-directed mutagenesis was carried out using the Fast Multi-
Q76E mutant and NahK
site-mutagenesis kit according to the protocol from the manufac-
turer. The primers used were shown in Table 2.
In order to demonstrate the application of tGlmU Q76E mutant
for unnatural sugar nucleotide preparation, we performed a one-
pot de novo CDP-GlcNAc synthetic reaction. To facilitate the
biosynthesis reaction, the N-acetylhexosamine 1-kinase from Bifi-
dobacterium longum (NahK), which could convert ATP and GlcNAc
into GlcNAc-1-P, was combined with tGlmU Q76E mutant. The
purified CDP-GlcNAc was identified by ESI-MS and compared with
the CDP-GlcNAc produced by CjGlmU in our previous work.18
4
.3. Protein expression of wide-type tGlmU and mutants
All mutants constructed were further confirmed by sequencing
and subsequently transformed into E. coli BL21(DE3) strain for
protein expression. The E. coli cells were cultured in LuriaeBertani
medium supplemented with 100
17
mg/mL ampicillin. When OD600
reached 0.6e0.8, isopropyl-1-thio-
b-D-galactopyranoside was
added to a final concentration of 1 mM. The induced culture was
ꢀ
3
. Conclusion
further incubated at 28 C for 3 h with shaking at 200 rpm. Cells
were harvested by centrifugation at 12,000 rpm for 5 min. Protein
In summary, GlmU is a key cytoplasmic enzyme involved in
prokaryotic UDP-GlcNAc biosynthetic pathway and an attractive
purification was performed utilizing Ni-NTA resin (Amersham)
according to the manufacturer's instructions at 4 C. The purified
ꢀ
Table 1
The secondary structure changes caused by tGlmU mutants
Mutant
Predicted amino acid residues related to changes of secondary structurea
Q76A
T29(E/H), L30(E/H), L71(E/C), F93(C/H)
Q76E
Q76P
T29(E/H), L30(E/C), L71(E/C), Y103(E/C), E145(C/E)
K25(H/C), E145(C/E)
T82Q
T82G
T82S
K25(H/C), T29(E/H), L30(E/H), L71(E/C), E145(C/E)
T29(E/H), L30(E/H), L71(E/C), T82(C/H), Y103(E/C), E145(C/E), Q164(C/H)
T29(E/H), L30(E/H), L71(E/C), T82(C/H), E195(C/E)
T29(E/H), L30(E/H), F93(C/H), Y139(C/E), G140(C/E), E145(C/E)
K25(H/C), T29(E/H), L30(E/H), F93(C/H), Y139(C/E), G140(C/E)
T29(E/H), L30(E/H), L71(E/C)
L71(E/C), L108(C/E), I109(C/E), R163(H/C)
T29(E/H), L30(E/H), L71(E/C), F93(C/H)
T29(E/H), L30(E/H), L71(E/C), E145(C/E)
L71(E/C), F93(C/H)
Y103A
Y103F
D105A
E154D
E154L
E154K
N169A
N169D
N169R
N169Q
L71(E/C), L108(C/E), I109(C/E)
L71(E/C), F93(C/H), R163(H/C)
K25(H/C), L71(E/C), E145(C/E)
C represents coil structure.
E represents extened/beta.
H represents helix.
a
The secondary structure changes were predicted by SWISS-MODEL Workspace.