• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.1249-1253
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• 2007

A hyperthermostable endoglucanase from Pyrococcus horikoshii with the capability of hydrolyzing crystalline cellulose was analyzed. A protein engineering study was carried out to obtain a reduced-size mutant. Five amino acid residues at both the N- and C-terminus were found to be removable without any loss of activity or thermal stability. Site-directed mutagenesis was also performed on R102, N200, E201, H297, Y299, E342, and W377, residues possibly involved in the active center or in the recognition and binding of a cellulose substrate. The activity of the resulting mutants was considerably decreased, confirming that the mutated residues were all important for activity. A reduced-size enzyme, as active as the wild-type endoglucanase, was successfully obtained, plus the residues critical for its activity and specificity were confirmed. Consequently, an engineered enzyme with a reduced size was obtained, and the amino acids essential for activity were confirmed by site-directed mutagenesis and comparison with a known three-dimensional structure.

• BMB Reports
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.547-553
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• 1999

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases are essential enzymes catalyzing the attachment of specific amino acids to cognate tRNAs. In the present work, the substrate analogue L-methionine hydroxamate was used to identify functional residues located in the active site of the E. coli methionyl-tRNA synthetase (MetRS). This compound inhibited bacteria, yeast, and human MetRS activities to a similar degree, suggesting a conserved active site structure and mechanism between MetRSs of different phylogenetic domains. Mutants of the E. coli MetRS resistant to methionine hydroxamate were also isolated. These mutants contained a substitution either at T10, Y15, or Y94. These residues are highly conserved among the different MetRSs and the mutants showed decreased aminoacylation activity, suggesting their functional and structural significances. The putative roles of these residues are discussed on a structural basis.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.228-235
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• 2008

Thiol-dependent redox systems are involved in regulation of diverse biological processes, such as response to stress, signal transduction, and protein folding. The thiol-based redox control is provided by mechanistically similar, but structurally distinct families of enzymes known as thiol oxidoreductases. Many such enzymes have been characterized, but identities and functions of the entire sets of thiol oxidoreductases in organisms are not known. Extreme sequence and structural divergence makes identification of these proteins difficult. Thiol oxidoreductases contain a redox-active cysteine residue, or its functional analog selenocysteine, in their active sites. Here, we describe computational methods for in silico prediction of thiol oxidoreductases in nucleotide and protein sequence databases and identification of their redox-active cysteines. We discuss different functional categories of cysteine residues, describe methods for discrimination between catalytic and noncatalytic and between redox and non-redox cysteine residues and highlight unique properties of the redox-active cysteines based on evolutionary conservation, secondary and three-dimensional structures, and sporadic replacement of cysteines with catalytically superior selenocysteine residues.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.173-177
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• 1997

Glycerol-3-phosphate cytidylyltransferase from Bacillus subtilis was modified with various chemical modifiers to determine the active sites of the enzyme. Treatment of the enzyme with group-specific reagents diethylpyrocarbonate, N-bromosuccinimide, or carbodiimide resulted in complete loss of enzyme activity, which shows histidine, tryptophan, and glutamic acid or aspartic acid residues are at or near the active site. In each case, inactivation followed pseudo first-order kinetics. Inclusion of glycerol-3-phosphate and/or CTP prevented the inactivation, indicating the presence of tryptophan and glutamic acid or aspartic acid residues at the substrate binding site. Analysis of kinetics of inactivation showed that the loss of enzyme activity was due to modification of a two histidine residues, single tryptophan residue, and two glutamic acid or aspartic acid residues.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.4 s.84
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• pp.593-598
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• 2007

Amino acids of histone tail are covalently modified in eukaryotic cells. Lysine residues in histone H3 and H4 are methylated at three levels; mono-, di- or trimethylation. Methylation in histones is related with transcription of the genes in distinct pattern depending on lysine residues and methylated levels. Relation between transcription and methylation has been relatively well understood at three lysines H3K4, H3K9 and H3K36. H3K4 is methylated in active or potentially active chromatin and its methylation associates with active transcription. H3K9 is generally methylated in heterochromatin or repressed gene, but trimethylation of this lysine occur in actively transcribed genes also. Methylation at H3K36 generally correlates with active chromatin/transcription, but the correlation of its dimethylation with transcription is controversial. All together methylation patterns of individual lysine residues in histone relate with activation or repression of transcription and may provide distinctive roles in transcriptional regulation of the eukaryotic genes.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.300-308
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• 1997

The catechol 2,3-dioxygenase (C23O) encoded by the Pseudomonas putida xylE gene was over-produced in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity. The activity of the C23O required the reduced form of the Fe(II) ion since the enzyme was highly susceptible to inactivation with hydrogen perocide but reactivated with the addition of ferrous sulfate in conjunction with ascorbic acid. The C23O activity was abolished by treatment with the chemical reagents, diethyl-pyrocarbonate (DEPC), tetranitromethane (TNM), and 1-cyclohexy1-3-(2-morpholinoethyl) car-bodiimidemetho-ρ-toluenesulfontate (CMC), which are modifying reagents of histidine, tyrosine and glutamic acid, respectively. These results suggest that histidine, tyrosine and glutamic acid residues may be good active sites for the enzyme activity. These amino acid residues are conserved residues may be good active sites for the enzyme activity. These amino acid residues are conserved residues among several extradion dioxygenases and have the chemical potential to serveas ligands for Fe(II) coordination. Analysis of random point mutants in the C23O gene derived by PCR technique revealed that the mutated positions of two mutants, T179S and S211R, were located near the conserved His165 amd Hos217 residues, respectively. This finding indicates that these two positions, along with the conserved histidine residues, are specially effective regions for the enzyme function.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.711-714
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• 2004

Peroxynitrite enters erythrocytes through band 3 anion exchanger and oxidizes cytosolic proteins therein. As a protein associated with band 3, carbonic anhydrase II may suffer from peroxynitrite-induced oxidative damages. Esterase activity of carbonic anhydrase II decreased as the concentration of peroxynitrite increased. Neither hydrogen peroxide nor hypochlorite affected the enzyme activity. Inactivation of the enzyme was in parallel with the release of zinc ion, which is a component of the enzyme's active site. SDS-PAGE of peroxynitrite-treated samples showed no indication of fragmentation but non-denaturing PAGE exhibited new bands with lower positive charges. Western analysis demonstrated that nitration of tyrosine residues increased with the peroxynitrite concentration but the sites of nitration could not be determined. Instead MALDI-TOF analysis identified tryptophan-245 as a site of nitration. Such modification of tryptophan residues is responsible for the decrease in tryptophan fluorescence. These results demonstrate that peroxynitrite nitrates tyrosine and tryptophan residues of carbonic anhydrase II without causing fragmentation or dimerization. The peroxynitrite-induced inactivation of the enzyme is primarily due to the release of zinc ion in the enzyme's active site.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.381-385
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• 1999

Taq DNA polymerase from Thermus aquaticus has been shown to be very useful in a polymerase chain reaction. Taq DNA polymerase has a domain at the amino terminus (residues 1 to 290) that has 5'-3' exonuclease activity and a domain at the C-terminus that catalyzes the polymerase reaction. Taq DNA polymerase is classified into the Pol I family, which is represented by E. coli DNA polymerase I. The alignment of amino acid sequences for the 5'-3' exonuclease domains of the Pol I family DNA polymerases shows ten highly conserved carboxylic amino acids. Crystallographic studies suggested that six of the carboxylic amino acids are clustered within a 7 $\AA$ radius by chelating three metal ions in the active site. Those six carboxylic residues are mutagenized to alanines in order to better understand their function. All six carboxylic residues, Asp l8, Glu1l7, Asp1l9, Asp120, Asp142, and Aspl44, are crucial for catalysis of 5'-3' exonuclease.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.277-287
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• 2003

Acetolactate synthase (ALS, EC 4.1.3.18; also referred to as acetohydroxy acid synthase) catalyzes the first common step in the biosynthesis of valine, leucine, and isoleucine in microorganisms and plants. Recently X-ray structure of yeast ALS was available. Pair-wise alignment of yeast and tobacco ALS sequences revealed 63% sequence similarity. Using Deep View and automatic modeling on Swiss model server, we have generated reliable models of tobacco ALS based on yeast ALS template with a calculated pair-wise RMSD of 0.86 Angstrom. Functional roles of four residues located on the subunit interface (H142, El43, M350, and R376) were examined by site-directed mutagenesis. Seven mutants were generated and purified, of which three mutants (H142T, M350V, and R376F) were found to be inactivated under various assay conditions. The H142k mutant showed moderately altered kinetic properties. The E143A mutant increased 10-fold in K$_m$ value while other parameters remained unchanged. The M350C mutant was strongly resistant to three tested herbicides, while the R376k mutant can bind with herbicide carder at similar affinity to that of wild type enzyme, as determined by tryptophan quenching study. Except M350V mutant, all other mutants were ate to bind with cofactor FAD. Taken together, it is likely that residues H142 and E143 are located at the active site, while residues M350 and R376 are possibly located at the overlapping region of active site and herbicide binding site of the enzyme. Our data also allows us to hypothesize that the interaction between side chains of residues M350 and R376 are probably essential for the correct conformation of the active site. It remains to be elucidated that, whether the herbicide, upon binding with enzyme, inactivates the enzyme by causing change in the active site allosterically, which is unfavorable for catalytic activity.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.2981-2984
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• 2012

Active site mapping has been done for ${\Delta}^5$-3-ketosteroid isomerase (KSI) by analyses of paramagnetic effect on $^1H-^{15}N$ HSQC spectra using 4-hydroxyl-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyl-1-oxy (HyTEMPO) and an intermediate analog (equilenin). Our result revealed that residues in hydrophobic cavity of KSI, particularly active site region, mainly experienced a high line-broadening effect of NMR signal with HyTEMPO, while they experienced full recovery of a lineshape upon the addition of equilenin. The mapped region was very similar to the active site of KSI as described by the crystal structure. These observations indicate that a combined use of paramagnetic reagent and substrate (or analog) could rapidly identify the residues in potential active site of KSI, and can be applied to the analysis of both active site and function in unknown protein.