title: Engineering of papain: selective alteration of substrate specificity by site-directed mutagenesis.
abstract: The S2 subsite specificity of the plant protease papain has been altered to resemble that of mammalian cathepsin B by site-directed mutagenesis. On the basis of amino acid sequence alignments for papain and cathepsin B, a double mutant (Val133Ala/Ser205Glu) was produced where Val133 and Ser205 are replaced by Ala and Glu, respectively, as well as a triple mutant (Val133Ala/Val157Gly/Ser205Glu), where Val157 is also replaced by Gly. Three synthetic substrates were used for the kinetic characterization of the mutants, as well as wild-type papain and cathepsin B: CBZ-Phe-Arg-MCA, CBZ-Arg-Arg-MCA, and CBZ-Cit-Arg-MCA. The ratio of kcat/KM obtained by using CBZ-Phe-Arg-MCA as substrate over that obtained with CBZ-Arg-Arg-MCA is 8.0 for the Val133Ala/Ser205Glu variant, while the equivalent values for wild-type papain and cathepsin B are 904 and 3.6, respectively. This change in specificity has been achieved by replacing only two amino acids out of a total of 212 in papain and with little loss in overall enzyme activity. However, further replacement of Val157 by Gly as in Val133Ala/Val157Gly/Ser205Glu causes an important decrease in activity, although the enzyme still displays a cathepsin B like substrate specificity. In addition, the pH dependence of activity for the Val133Ala/Ser205Glu variant compares well with that of cathepsin B. In particular, the activity toward CBZ-Arg-Arg-MCA is modulated by a group with a pKa of 5.51, a behavior that is also encountered in the case of cathepsin B but is absent with papain.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada, Montréal, Québec.
authors.forename: H E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Khouri
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vernet
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ménard
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Parlati
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Laflamme
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Tessier
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gour-Salin
authors.forename: D Y
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Storer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002417:Cattle; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D007700:Kinetics; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016297:Mutagenesis, Site-Directed; D010206:Papain / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D051381:Rats; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D010206:Papain