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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 282, Issue 15, 11291-11299, April 13, 2007
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-MANNOSIDASE, BtMan2A*
1
1
1

2
From the
Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences, Medical School, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH and the
Structural Biology Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5YW, United Kingdom
Received for publication, November 28, 2006 , and in revised form, January 29, 2007.
| ABSTRACT |
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-mannosidase in which substrate binding energy is provided principally by the glycone binding site, whereas aglycone recognition is highly plastic. The three-dimensional structure, determined to a resolution of 1.7Å, reveals a five-domain structure that is globally similar to the Escherichia coli LacZ
-galactosidase. The catalytic center is housed mainly within a (
/
)8 barrel although the N-terminal domain also contributes to the active site topology. The nature of the substrate-binding residues is quite distinct from other GH2 enzymes of known structure, instead they are similar to other clan GH-A enzymes specific for manno-configured substrates. Mutagenesis studies, informed by the crystal structure, identified a WDW motif in the N-terminal domain that makes a significant contribution to catalytic activity. The observation that this motif is invariant in GH2 mannosidases points to a generic role for these residues in this enzyme class. The identification of GH-A clan and GH2 specific residues in the active site of BtMan2A explains why this enzyme is able to harness substrate binding at the proximal glycone binding site more efficiently than mannan-hydrolyzing glycoside hydrolases in related enzyme families. The catalytic properties of BtMan2A are consistent with the flexible nutrient acquisition displayed by the colonic bacterium. | INTRODUCTION |
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GH2 contains over 700 sequences encoding enzymes with a wide spectrum of different exo-acting
-glycosidase activities including
-galactosidase (EC 3.2.1.23
[EC]
),
-mannosidase (EC 3.2.1.25
[EC]
),
-glucuronidase (EC 3.2.1.31
[EC]
), and exo-
-glucosaminidase (EC 3.2.1.-). Thus far, three-dimensional structures have only been reported for
-galactosidases, notably the Escherichia coli LacZ protein (7) (but recently also the Arthrobacter sp. C2-2 LacZ homolog (8)) and for the
-glucuronidase from Homo sapiens (9). All these three-dimensional structures reveal a catalytic (
/
)8 barrel, typical of the wider clan GH-A glycosidases (10), in which the catalytic acid/base and nucleophile involved in catalysis with net retention of anomeric configuration lie on strands
-4 and
-7, respectively, of the (
/
)8 barrel. The vast majority of GH2 sequences are extended, reflecting a complex modular architecture in which a number of non-catalytic domains are appended to the (
/
)8 barrel catalytic module. Thus far, there have been no structural reports of classical
-mannosidases from family GH2, although the structure of a GH5 exo-
-mannanase, which targets manno-oligosaccharides has been reported by Dias and colleagues in 2004 (11) and the structures of several GH5 and GH26 endo-
1,4-mannanases have been described (12-17).
The substrate specificities of B. thetaiotaomicron GH2 enzymes, exemplified by its
-mannosidases, are particularly intriguing as their target substrates are found both in plant structural polysaccharides and in the N-glycan decorations of human proteins. Within the plant cell wall mannose is located in mannans, the backbone of which consists of a homopolymer of
1,4-linked D-mannopyranose residues, and glucomannan where the backbone comprises a heterogenous sequence of
1,4-linked D-glucose and D-mannose sugars (18). Both mannan and glucomannan are frequently decorated with galactosyl residues linked
1,6 to the backbone mannosyl moieties, which may also be acetylated at O-2 and/or O-3 (18). As with other plant cell wall polysaccharides (displayed in Fig. 1), the degradation of mannans involves an enzymatic consortium in which endo-mannanases first break down the polysaccharide into smaller oligosaccharides that are themselves further broken down to mannose through the action
-mannosidases (11). The situation in human N-glycans is potentially more complex, in that a repertoire of
and
exo-acting glycosidases are required to strip the glycan down to its terminal three sugars in which a D-mannosyl residue is linked
1,4 to the GlcNAc-GlcNAc base of the core.
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-mannosidase and glycoside hydrolases that cleave
-linked mannosides are particularly interesting as they may use an unusual catalytic itinerary involving a boat-configured transition state (22-25).
To start to unravel, both structurally and biochemically, the complex glycobiome of B. thetaiotaomicron we report here the cloning, expression, and enzymatic characterization of a GH2
-mannosidase from B. thetaiotaomicron, hereafter BtMan2A. The enzyme is shown to be a classical
-mannosidase, with high activity on mannobiose and aryl
-mannosides (in contrast to exo-
-mannanases (11)), although it is unable to accommodate the galactosyl decorations present on plant-derived mannans. The enzyme is also able to remove
-mannosides from Man-
1,4-GlcNAc, found in the core pentasacharide of human N-glycans, consistent with the diversity of mannose-containing polymers presented to the bacterium in the large bowel. The three-dimensional structure of the enzyme at a resolution of 1.7 Å reveals a multidomain enzyme in which the active site pocket is housed within the TIM-barrel domain. Site-directed mutagenesis in conjunction with sequence comparisons of GH2 enzymes reveals active site residues that confer specificity for terminal mannosides.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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-D-thiogalactopyranoside to a final concentration of 100 µM followed by incubation for a further 16 h at this lower temperature. The mannosidase was then purified by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography, using TALONTM as the column matrix, ion exchange chromatography using a Q12 column, and size exclusion chromatography employing an S200 column (as described in, for example, in Ref. 11).
To produce seleno-L-methionine BtMan2A the E. coli methionine auxotroph B834(DE3) containing pLT001 was cultured as described following a similar protocol to that described by Charnock et al. (26) using the induction regime described above. The recombinant protein was purified as described above except all buffers were supplemented with 5 mM
-mercaptoethanol. All proteins were homogenous, as judged by SDS-PAGE, and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometric analysis confirmed the incorporation of seleno-L-methionine into BtMan2A and that the enzyme had not been processed.
Construction of Site-directed VariantsSite-directed mutagenesis, employing a QuikChange kit (Stratagene), primers listed in supplementary information, and pLT001 as the template DNA, was used to construct mutants of man2A, encoding active site variants of BtMan2A. All mutants were sequenced using T7 forward and reverse and custom made primers to ensure that only the designed mutation had been introduced into the mannosidase gene.
Kinetic AnalysesThe activity of BtMan2A was determined at 37 °C in 43.5 mM sodium phosphate, 10 mM citric acid (PC) buffer, pH 5.6, containing 1 mg/ml bovine serum albumin and the appropriate amount of the substrate. Appropriate concentrations of BtMan2A were added to start the reaction, which was monitored at 400 nm during the linear initial phase (<5% of substrate hydrolyzed). The release of 2,4-dinitrophenolate (DNP) from 2,4-dinitrophenyl-
-D-mannopyranoside (DNP-Man) was monitored continuously. When using the substrate 4-nitrophenyl-
-D-mannopyranoside (PNP-Man) as the substrate, 4-nitrophenolate release (PNP) was measured discontinuously. At least four 200-µl aliquots were removed and the reaction was stopped by the addition of 800 µl of 1 M sodium carbonate that increased the pH to 12. The concentration of DNP and PNP produced was determined using a molar extinction coefficient of 15,000 and 10,000, respectively. For kinetic analysis at least six substrate concentrations that straddled the Km were employed and non-linear regression was used to estimate Km and kcat. The activity of BtMan2A against manno-oligosaccharides and mannose-containing polysaccharides (supplied by Megazyme International, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, except Man-
1,4-GlcNAc, which was provided by Dextra Laboratories, Reading, UK) was determined as described by Hogg et al. (14) except the reaction was carried out in PC buffer, pH 5.6. The rate of substrate hydrolysis was monitored by Dionex high performance anion-exchange chromatography (27) at a substrate concentration <Km (30 µM) enabling kcat/Km to be determined by measuring the rate of substrate hydrolysis. The kcat for mannan hydrolysis was measured using a substrate concentration of 2 mg/ml. To determine the pH optimum of BtMan2A a discontinuous assay was used and 30 µM PNP-Man as substrate and the following buffers: 50 mM sodium citrate, pH 3.3-6.5; 50 mM sodium phosphate, pH 6.0-7.5; 50 mM Bicine, pH 6.5-9.0; 50 mM CAPSO, pH 8.0-10.0; 50 mM CAPS, pH 9.5-11. Temperature and proteinase stability was determined as described by Andrews et al. (28). The Ki for bis-Tris propane and isofagomine lactam was determined by measuring the Km for PNP-Man at three different concentrations of inhibitor. The enzyme was preincubated with the inhibitor for 1 h prior to carrying out the enzyme assays.
Crystallization and Data CollectionPure proteins as judged by SDS-PAGE were concentrated to between 10 and 20 mg/ml and buffer exchanged into water (Sigma) using a Vivaspin 10-kDa cut-off concentrator. The protein was screened using the sitting drop vapor diffusion method together with the Hampton Crystal screen, Crystal screen 2, Hampton PEG/Ion (Hampton Research, Aliso Viejo, CA), the CSS Crystal screens I and II, and the PACT premier screen. The 100-nl droplets were formed by the mosquito® (TTP LabTech Ltd, Royston, Herts, UK) liquid handling robot, mixing 50 nl of protein with 50 nl of well solution. Initial crystals were obtained in the PACT premier screen conditions F2 and PEG/Ion screen G5. These conditions were optimized further to improve crystal quality resulting in conditions of either 0.15-0.35 M NaBr and 6-12% PEG 3350, 0.1 M bis-Tris propane, pH 7, or 0.08 - 0.2 M KSCN, and 8-15% PEG 3350,0.1 M bis-Tris propane, pH 7. A cryo-protectant solution was produced by supplementing the mother liquor with an additional 30% (v/v) glycerol. The lath-shaped crystals were harvested in rayon fiber loops then bathed in cryo-protectant solution prior to flash freezing in liquid N2. Selenomethionine crystals were produced in the same manner.
Data were collected at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) from single crystals at 100 K with a 
of 0.5°. Native data were collected at a wavelength of 0.97930 Å over an oscillation range of 200° on ID14-4 using an ADSC Q4R chargedcoupled device detector. Selenium derivative data were collected at a wavelength of 0.9795 Å over an oscillation range of 200° with 
of 0.5° on ID23 using a Marmosaic 225 charged-coupled device detector. The appropriate wavelength for data collection at the Se edge, optimized for the fl'' component of the anomalous scattering, was determined using a fluorescence scan.
Structure Solution and RefinementAll data were indexed and integrated in MOSFLM (29). All other computing was undertaken using the CCP4 suite unless otherwise stated. Native BtMan2A crystals were found to belong to the space group P21 with the approximate cell dimensions of a = 91.5 Å, b = 116.0 Å, c = 99.2 Å, and
= 113.4° with two molecules in the asymmetric unit. The structure was solved using single-wavelength anomalous dispersion methods. Selenium positions were determined using SHELXD (30) and phases subsequently calculated with MLPHARE from the CCP4 suite (31). Solvent flattening and phase improvement were carried out in DM (32) also from the CCP4 suite. 5% of the data were set aside for cross-validation analysis and the behavior of Rfree was used to monitor and guide the refinement protocols. ARP/wARP (33), in conjunction with REFMAC (34), was used to automatically build the sequence into the electron density. Refinement was undertaken in REFMAC with manual correction to the model using COOT (35). Coordinates and observed structure factor amplitudes have been deposited with the Protein Data Bank. Figures were drawn with MOLSCRIPT (36) and BOBSCRIPT (37).
| RESULTS |
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-MannosidaseTo identify a likely B. thetaiotaomicron GH2
-mannosidase, the sequences of known, characterized
-mannosidases were used for BLAST searches of the UniProt sequence data base. Open reading frame BT0458 (hereafter designated man2A), one of the 32 family GH2 sequences in this organism (identified by the CAZy data base Refs. 4 and 5), displayed significant sequence similarity with both characterized and putative GH2
-mannosidases, exhibiting 34 and 36% identity with the Thermotoga maritima and Thermatoga neopolitana
-mannosidases, respectively. The man2A gene comprises 2592 bp encoding a 864-amino acid protein (BtMan2A) with a Mr of 96,922 in which the 26 N-terminal residues are predicted to comprise a cleavable signal peptide. The man2A gene encoding mature BtMan2A was successfully expressed in E. coli, and the protein was purified by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography to electrophoretic homogeneity (data not shown). The protein had a Mr, determined by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometric analysis, consistent with the predicted size of the processed enzyme (data not shown) indicating that the enzyme was not proteolytically degraded during its expression or subsequent purification.
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-D-glucopyranoside but significant activity against PNP-Man. The enzyme displays no activity against
-D configured glycosides or any dyed polysaccharides. The data were entirely consistent with the designation of BtMan2A as a
-mannosidase displaying no endo-activity. The kinetic parameters of BtMan2A (Table 1 and Fig. 2) show that the enzyme is
100,000-fold more active against manno- compared with gluco-configured substrates. Analysis of the reaction products released by BtMan2A from a range of
1,4-linked manno-oligosaccharides showed that mannose and a manno-oligosaccharide with a degree of polymerization of n-1, where n is the degree of polymerization of the substrate, were the initial reaction products demonstrating that the enzyme displays classical exo-activity, releasing mannose from the non-reducing end of polymeric substrates. Even at a manno-oligosaccharide concentration of 1 mM BtMan2A produced equal amounts of mannose and the n-1 product; no oligosaccharides larger than the substrate were produced. Thus, under the conditions used, BtMan2A does not display significant transglycosylating activity, in contrast to many retaining glycosidases (extensively reviewed in Ref. (38)). This may indicate that the +1 subsite (39) does not bind mannose tightly and thus an activated water is more likely to be generated in the proximal aglycone region of the active site. The enzyme displays extremely low activity against 61-
-D-galactosyl-mannobiose and 61-
-D-galactosyl-mannotriose (
40-fold lower activity than against mannobiose and mannotriose, respectively), indicating that decoration of the aglycone region of the substrate located in the +2or +1 subsite can be tolerated, albeit poorly whereas no detectable hydrolysis of the doubly substituted 63, 64-
-D-galactosyl-mannopentaose (Fig. 3 and Table 1) was evident. The specificity of BtMan2A for linear unsubstituted mannans (Fig. 1) and its inability to exhibit any endo-activity explains why the enzyme is only able to produce small amounts of mannose from galactomannan or glucomannan (data not shown).
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Kinetic analysis of manno-oligosaccharide hydrolysis showed that BtMan2A hydrolyzed mannotriose
20-fold more efficiently than mannobiose, whereas the activity of the enzyme against mannotetraose and mannopentaose was similar to the trisaccharide (Fig. 3 and Table 1). These data indicate that BtMan2A has one glycone (-1) and two aglycone (+1 and +2) subsites that can accommodate
1,4-linked mannose residues. BtMan2A also hydrolyzes Man-
1,4-GlcNAc (kcat/Km 5.2 x 104 min-1 M-1) at a rate similar to mannobiose (kcat/Km 6.0 x 104 min-1 M-1), suggesting that the +1 subsite displays considerable plasticity in substrate specificity (Table 1 and Fig. 3). The biochemical properties of BtMan2A against aryl-
-glycosides are similar to the corresponding Cellulomonas fimi enzyme (41, 42), although the Bacteroides glycoside hydrolase does not display the substrate inhibition observed in the Cellulomonas
-mannosidase.
The much higher activity (
500-fold) of BtMan2A for aryl-mannosides compared with disaccharides substrates reflects both the better leaving group abilities of PNP and DNP and perhaps also that the +1 subsite binds sugar molecules weakly and nonspecifically. The +2 subsite contributes a modest 1.5 kcal/mol to productive substrate binding. By contrast the Cellvibrio mixtus exo-mannanase, CmMan5A, is
30,000-fold less active than BtMan2A against PNP-Man highlighting the pivotal role of the glycone (-1) binding site in the Bacteroides enzyme, whereas the C. mixtus glycoside hydrolase derives much of its catalytic power from substrate binding to the aglycone subsites (11). Indeed, in considerable contrast to BtMan2A the GH5 enzyme is 100- and 10,000-fold more active against the
1,4-linked manno-oligosaccharides mannobiose and mannotriose, respectively, than PNP-Man. The importance of the -1 subsite in BtMan2A is further emphasized by its inhibition, relative to CmMan5A, by monosaccharide inhibitors. Isofagomine lactam, displays a Ki of 400 µM on CmMan5A (43) but binding is
36 times stronger to BtMan2A with a Ki value of 11 µM, essentially identical for the Ki of 9 µM reported for the classical snail
-mannosidase (44).
Structure of BtMan2AThe structure of BtMan2A was solved using selenomethionine single wavelength anomalous dispersion data to 2.8 Å in harness with native data to 1.7 Å (see experimental statistics in Table 2). The P21 crystal form contains a dimer, consistent with dynamic light scattering experiments and size exclusion chromatography (not shown) indicating that the protein is also a dimer in solution. BtMan2A consists of five clear domains (Fig. 4A) with the catalytic center the central of these. Such a modular organization is similar to that seen in some other GH2 enzymes such as the E. coli (7) and Arthrobacter sp. GH2
-galactosidase (8). Domain 1 (colored blue in Fig. 4A) consisting of residues 28-218, is a
sheet domain containing a five-stranded antiparallel
sheet, a four-stranded antiparallel
sheet, and an
helical region, reminiscent of carbohydrate-binding modules (reviewed in Ref. 45). Domains 2 (cyan) and 4 (yellow) are structurally very similar to domain 1, again displaying immunoglobulin/CBM-like folds, which, in this case, comprised residues 219-331 and 676-780, respectively. Both these domains consist of two antiparallel
sheets one containing four
strands and the other three. Domain 3 (green) contains the catalytic center and has the classical (
/
)8 "TIM" barrel fold consisting of residues 332-675, discussed below, whereas domain 5 (red) comprises residues 786-860. The first two residues of the C-terminal His tag are evident in one but not both subunits of the homodimer. The structure of BtMan2A differs from that of the E. coli LacZ
-galactosidase most significantly in the orientation of domain 5, which in LacZ is bent away from the active site giving the protein a more globular shape. The dimerization interface of BtMan2A is formed by interactions between domain 5 of both monomers, whereas in the E. coli
-galactosidase the equivalent domain also forms the basis of the interactions which lead to tetrameric oligomerization.
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-glucuronidase and the E. coli
-galactosidase with an root mean square deviation of 2.9 and 3.9 Å and Z scores of 24.5 and 23.0, respectively. Taking each of the five domains separately, reveals that domain 1 (residues 2-192) has the highest similarity to the N-terminal domains of both these proteins with a root mean square deviation of 2.8 Å and a Z score of 12.4 with the E. coli
-galactosidase and root mean square deviation = 2.9 Å and Z = 11.8 for the H. sapiens
-glucuronidase. Domains 2 (219-331) and 4 (676-780) both show most similarity with the equivalent domains of the E. coli
-galactosidase with Z = 12.7 and 10.3, respectively. Despite the general similarities between the E. coli and BtMan2A proteins the fifth domain is clearly significantly different. A DALI search carried out only on residues in this domain (758-834) results in none of the first hits being for the GH2 enzymes. The most similar structure (Z = 6.1) found during this search is to an appendage domain in mice involved in endocytosis. With almost the same Z score (5.9) an "immunoglobulin-like domain" in a sialidase from Micromonospora viri- difaciens shows distinct similarities in the
sheet regions although the intermediate loops are significantly different.
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)8-fold that contain a conserved catalytic apparatus and hydrolyze the glycosidic bond by a double displacement or "retaining" mechanism) with DALI Z-scores of Z = 23.5 to the human GH2
-glucuronidase, Z = 19.7 with the exo-mannanase CmMan5A, and Z = 17.7 to the E. coli
-galactosidase. The catalytic residues, implicated as Glu-462 and Glu-555, lie on strands 4 and 7, respectively, of the (
/
)8 barrel as expected, and the active site comprises a deep pocket. Comparison of the active site of BtMan2A with that of the E. coli
-galactosidase shows that in the case of the former domain 2 plays no role in the formation of the catalytic site, whereas in the
-galactosidase a loop from domain 2 forms part of the
barrel. There are substantial differences between the active sites of the two proteins where strands 7, 8, 1, and 2 lie in similar orientations and the remaining strands in BtMan2A are shifted such that they occupy the same regions as occupied by the domain 2 loop in the E. coli
-galactosidase. Notably, in both E. coli
-galactosidase and BtMan2A, aromatic residues derived from domain 1 contribute to the base of the active site pocket and thus to the "exo" activity of the enzymes (discussed further below). The active center of BtMan2A reveals unambiguous electron density for a single molecule of bis-Tris propane in the active site from the crystallization conditions (Fig. 4B). Tris itself has been observed in a number of glycosidase structures (19) and bis-Tris propane binds similarly here, with one of the Tris moieties occupying the -1 subsite such that its amino group lies approximately in the position expected for the positive charge on the transition state during catalysis and with the hydroxyl groups lying close to the positions expected for the mannoside hydroxyls of the true substrate. Bis-Tris propane indeed acts as a competitive inhibitor of the enzyme with a Ki determined to be 100 µM at pH 7 (see "Materials and Methods). Thus far, we have been unable to crystallize the protein in a bis-Tris propane-free form for ligand-binding studies.
Comparison of the active site of BtMan2A with the GH5 exo-mannanase CmMan5A reveals significant similarity between the -1 subsite of these two enzymes (Fig. 5) suggesting that there is some conservation in mannosyl binding machinery in these proteins. The position and orientation of the two catalytic carboxylates in the retaining mechanism, Glu-462 and Glu-555 in BtMan2A, are essentially identical to the corresponding residues, Glu-215 and Glu-330, respectively, in CmMan5A (Fig. 5). Consistent with the roles of these residues, the E462A and E555A mutants display catalytic efficiencies
103- and 105-fold lower, respectively, than the wild type enzyme (Table 1 and Fig. 2). Indeed, the acid-base catalytic function of Glu-462 is supported by the Km of E462A for DNP-Man, which is
30-fold lower than the wild type enzyme (Fig. 2 and Table 1). The decrease in this kinetic parameter indicates that the mutation has had a larger influence on k3, the deglyco-sylation step, than glycosylation (k2) in which protonation of the glycosidic oxygen is not critical when the leaving group has apKa significantly lower than the pH of the reaction (pKa of DNP is 3.5). Detailed biochemical analysis of wild type and site-directed mutants of the related C. fimi GH2
-mannosidase (41, 42), and other clan GH-A glycoside hydrolases, including GH10 xylanases, GH26 endo-
1,4-mannanases, and GH53 endo-
1,4-galactanses demonstrate that the equivalent residues to BtMan2A Glu-462 and Glu-555, in these related enzymes, fulfill the same catalytic functions.
In addition to the "catalytic" groups, the aromatic tryptophan platform "below" the -1 subsite is maintained in almost identical orientation between BtMan2A and CmMan5A (Fig. 5). In the case of BtMan2A Trp-645 provides this function, whereas the equivalent in CmMan5A is Trp-376. The importance of this residue in substrate binding, presumably via hydrophobic contacts with the mannosyl residue at the -1 subsite, is demonstrated by the W645A mutation causing a substantial increase in Km anda104-fold decrease in catalytic efficiency (Table 1). Mutagenesis studies also indicate that three other aromatic residues in the glycone binding site, Trp-198, Trp-200, and Trp-395 (the latter residue corresponds to Trp-137 in CmMan5A), contribute to substrate binding as the respective mutations W198A, W200A, and W395A significantly increase the Km and decrease the catalytic efficiency of the enzyme. By analogy to Trp-137 in CmMan5A, Trp-395 makes a major contribution to the pocket topology of the active site and hence the exo-activity of the enzyme, and is predicted to hydrogen bond to O-3 of the substrate (Fig. 5) (based upon a similar interaction mediated by a histidine, which is equivalent to Trp-395 in many GH-A clan enzymes). Significantly neither Trp-198 nor Trp-200 are in the central catalytic domain but are present in domain 1 that displays a CBM-like fold and contributes to the base of the active site pocket. Similarly the domain 1 residue Asp-199 also points into the active site (Fig. 5) and the carboxylic acid clearly makes a substantial contribution to both substrate recognition and transition state stabilization as the D199A mutation displays greatly reduced activity. Asn-461, whose orientation is stabilized through a bidentate hydrogen bond with Arg-391, is highly conserved in clan GH-A enzymes (although in GH26 it is a histidine), and by making a hydrogen bond with O-2 of the glycone sugar plays a key role in substrate binding and transition state stabilization. The low activity displayed by the mutant N461A is entirely consistent with the prominent role Asn-461 plays in catalysis contributing around 4.3 kcal/mol to catalysis, similar to that observed for the same interaction for enzymes acting on gluco-configured enzymes (6).
Comparison of BtMan2A with CmMan5A in complex with the inhibitor isofagomine lactam (43) allows identification of other residues in BtMan2A that will interact with substrate. Thus, Tyr-537 is predicted to make a hydrogen bond with substrate O-6 and, indeed, the Y537A mutation causes a 100-fold reduction in catalytic efficiency consistent with the importance of this tyrosine in catalysis. Whereas all of the functionalities in the CmMan5A active center are provided by its single (
/
)8 domain this is not true of BtMan2A because a loop from domain 1 protrudes into the catalytic center and donates a number of residues that would interact with the substrate in the -1 subsite such as Asp-199 (described previously), which is spatially (but not topologically) equivalent to Glu-404 of CmMan5A (Fig. 5).
| DISCUSSION |
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-1 with O-3 and O-4 of the substrate, respectively, interactions that are not replicated in CmMan5A (the nitrogen in Pro-401 is too distant from the substrate to make a hydrogen bond). Indeed the three residue WDW motif, is in a domain that is not present in the Cellvibrio enzyme and it is possible that one or more of these amino acids may make a substantial contribution to the higher activity displayed by BtMan2A compared with CmMan5A for substrates that rely on tight binding to the -1 subsite. Inspection of the sequence of GH2 mannosidases (both putative and experimentally demonstrated) show that the WDW motif is invariant, providing support for the key role these residues play in the activity and possibly the specificity of these enzymes, whereas Trp-536, which is conserved in >90% of these enzymes may also contribute to catalysis in these glycoside hydrolases. The recruitment of functional residues, from domain 1, to provide exo-catalytic activity upon what might have been an endo-catalytic framework is entirely consistent with proposals made by Jain and colleagues (9) in respect of the human
-glucuronidase. In the absence of domain 1, BtMan2A would also appear to have a vestigial "endo" substrate-binding cleft. In the family GH5 endo-mannanases from Hypocrea jecorina (formerly known as Trichoderma reesei), complexes are available with ligands in the aglycone sites (13). By inference the residues that are expected to bind the aglycone in the GH5 exo-mannanase CmMan5A are Trp-135 (+1 susbsite), Arg-217 (+2 subsite), and Trp-289 (+2 subsite) (11). In contrast, BtMan2A (reported here) has no equivalent tryptophan to Trp-135 in the predicted +1 subsite, instead having a cysteine residue at this position. Indeed, the topography of the cleft is quite different between the two enzymes that may contribute to the diverse specificity of BtMan2A consistent with a role in aiding glycan foraging by this glycosidase-rich organism. There is no direct equivalent to Arg-217, whose place is instead taken by Trp-444 in BtMan2A, whereas Trp-519 of the Bacteroides enzyme is roughly equivalent to Trp-289 of the Cellvibrio exo-mannanase. This divergence in distal aglycone binding sites is reflected in the binding energies of the subsites in that a +2 mannoside contributes only 1.5 kcal/mol of binding energy of BtMan2A, as opposed to 3.5 kcal/mol in CmMan5A (11).
The plasticity in substrate recognition displayed by BtMan2A is consistent with the colonic ecosystem of the bacterium. The organism utilizes both dietary and host glycans as major sources of nutrients. The substrate specificity of BtMan2A, which releases mannose from both
1,4-linked manno-oligosaccharides and from the Man
1,4GlcNAc
1,4GlcNAc stem of the core region of N-linked human glucans, reflects the nutrient sources presented to the prokaryote. Indeed man2A is part of an operon containing a sialidase, a sialic acid-specific 9-O-acetylesterase, and three
-hexoaminidase genes, which degrade mammalian glycans (2), and this genetic locus is up-regulated when host mice are fed diets lacking fermentable polysaccharides, enabling the bacterium to scavenge carbohydrates from the mammals glycoproteins (2). Thus the most common natural substrate for B. thetaiotaomicron is likely to be Man-GlcNAc derived from the host glycoproteins. By contrast, in CmMan5A the aglycone binding sites play a key role in substrate recognition and thus the enzyme displays much tighter specificity for mannose-containing homopolymers. Although it is currently unclear whether the plasticity in aglycone recognition displayed by BtMan2A is a general feature of GH2
-mannosidases (the activity of these enzymes are generally assessed using aryl-glycosides as substrates), it is interesting to note that the genome of B. thetaiotaomicron contains 32 GH2 open reading frames, and it is possible that tighter aglycone substrate recognition may confer more specialized roles for at least some of these enzymes. Indeed, the glycobiome of B. thetaiotaomicron, in which there has been a dramatic expansion in GH2 and GH43, which to date contain primarily exo-acting enzymes, but a paucity of enzymes in the families known to contain primarily endo-acting plant structural polysaccharidases, with no obvious candidate endo-
1,4-mannanases, may suggest that the bacterium specializes in scavenging sugars both from other oligosaccharides produced by endo-acting glycoside hydrolases, presumably expressed by colonic microorganisms, and from the diverse human glycans in the colonic milieu.
| FOOTNOTES |
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The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains supplemental Table S1. ![]()
1 These authors contributed equally to the results of this work. ![]()
2 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: h.j.gilbert{at}ncl.ac.uk.
3 The abbreviations used are: GH, glycosidase hydrolase; DNP, 2,4-dinitrophenolate; PNP, 4-nitrophenolate; CAPSO, 3-[(3-cholamidopropyl) dimethyl-ammonio]-2-hydroxy-1-propanesulfonic acid; Bicine, N,N-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)glycine; CAPS, 3-(cyclohexylamino)propanesulfonic acid; Bis-Tris, 2-[bis(2-hydroxyethyl)amino]-2-(hydroxymethyl)propane-1,3-diol; BtMan2A, B. thetaiotamicron Man2A; CmMan5A, C. mixtus Man5A. ![]()
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