title: The crystal structure of Escherichia coli maltodextrin phosphorylase provides an explanation for the activity without control in this basic archetype of a phosphorylase.
abstract: In animals, glycogen phosphorylase (GP) exists in an inactive (T state) and an active (R state) equilibrium that can be altered by allosteric effectors or covalent modification. In Escherichia coli, the activity of maltodextrin phosphorylase (MalP) is controlled by induction at the level of gene expression, and the enzyme exhibits no regulatory properties. We report the crystal structure of E. coli maltodextrin phosphorylase refined to 2.4 A resolution. The molecule consists of a dimer with 796 amino acids per monomer, with 46% sequence identity to the mammalian enzyme. The overall structure of MalP shows a similar fold to GP and the catalytic sites are highly conserved. However, the relative orientation of the two subunits in E. coli MalP is different from both the T and R state GP structures, and there are significant changes at the subunit-subunit interfaces. The sequence changes result in loss of each of the control sites present in rabbit muscle GP. As a result of the changes at the subunit interface, the 280s loop, which in T state GP acts as a gate to control access to the catalytic site, is held in an open conformation in MalP. The open access to the conserved catalytic site provides an explanation for the activity without control in this basic archetype of a phosphorylase.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schinzel
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Palm
authors.forename: L N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D000494:Allosteric Regulation; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D002384:Catalysis; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D004789:Enzyme Activation; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D015971:Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic; D005964:Glucosyltransferases / Q000737:chemistry*; D006003:Glycogen / Q000378:metabolism; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009132:Muscles / Q000201:enzymology; D006005:Phosphorylases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D010766:Phosphorylation; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011817:Rabbits; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D006003:Glycogen; D005964:Glucosyltransferases; D006005:Phosphorylases; C033938:maltodextrin phosphorylase