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Crystal structure of LeuA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a key enzyme in leucine biosynthesis.

ABSTRACT: The leucine biosynthetic pathway is essential for the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is a potential target for the design of new anti-tuberculosis drugs. The crystal structure of alpha-isopropylmalate synthase, which catalyzes the first committed step in this pathway, has been determined by multiwavelength anomalous dispersion methods and refined at 2.0-A resolution in complex with its substrate alpha-ketoisovalerate. The structure reveals a tightly associated, domain-swapped dimer in which each monomer comprises an (alpha/beta)(8) TIM barrel catalytic domain, a helical linker domain, and a regulatory domain of novel fold. Mutational and crystallographic data indicate the latter as the site for leucine feedback inhibition of activity. Domain swapping enables the linker domain of one monomer to sit over the catalytic domain of the other, inserting residues into the active site that may be important in catalysis. The alpha-ketoisovalerate substrate binds to an active site zinc ion, adjacent to a cavity that can accommodate acetyl-CoA. Sequence and structural similarities point to a catalytic mechanism similar to that of malate synthase and an evolutionary relationship with an aldolase that catalyzes the reverse reaction on a similar substrate.

SUBMITTER: Koon N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC420388 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Crystal structure of LeuA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a key enzyme in leucine biosynthesis.

Koon Nayden N Squire Christopher J CJ Baker Edward N EN

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20040524 22

The leucine biosynthetic pathway is essential for the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is a potential target for the design of new anti-tuberculosis drugs. The crystal structure of alpha-isopropylmalate synthase, which catalyzes the first committed step in this pathway, has been determined by multiwavelength anomalous dispersion methods and refined at 2.0-A resolution in complex with its substrate alpha-ketoisovalerate. The structure reveals a tightly associated, domain-swapped dimer in ...[more]

PMID: 15159544

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Project description:Tuberculosis constitutes today a serious threat to human health worldwide, aggravated by the increasing number of identified multi-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, its causative agent, as well as by the lack of development of novel mycobactericidal compounds for the last few decades. The increased resilience of this pathogen is due, to a great extent, to its complex, polysaccharide-rich, and unusually impermeable cell wall. The synthesis of this essential structure is still poorly understood despite the fact that enzymes involved in glycosidic bond synthesis represent more than 1% of all M. tuberculosis ORFs identified to date. One of them is GpgS, a retaining glycosyltransferase (GT) with low sequence homology to any other GTs of known structure, which has been identified in two species of mycobacteria and shown to be essential for the survival of M. tuberculosis. To further understand the biochemical properties of M. tuberculosis GpgS, we determined the three-dimensional structure of the apo enzyme, as well as of its ternary complex with UDP and 3-phosphoglycerate, by X-ray crystallography, to a resolution of 2.5 and 2.7 A, respectively. GpgS, the first enzyme from the newly established GT-81 family to be structurally characterized, displays a dimeric architecture with an overall fold similar to that of other GT-A-type glycosyltransferases. These three-dimensional structures provide a molecular explanation for the enzyme's preference for UDP-containing donor substrates, as well as for its glucose versus mannose discrimination, and uncover the structural determinants for acceptor substrate selectivity. Glycosyltransferases constitute a growing family of enzymes for which structural and mechanistic data urges. The three-dimensional structures of M. tuberculosis GpgS now determined provide such data for a novel enzyme family, clearly establishing the molecular determinants for substrate recognition and catalysis, while providing an experimental scaffold for the structure-based rational design of specific inhibitors, which lay the foundation for the development of novel anti-tuberculosis therapies.

Dataset Information

Crystal structure of LeuA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a key enzyme in leucine biosynthesis.

Publications

Crystal structure of LeuA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a key enzyme in leucine biosynthesis.

Similar Datasets

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