title: Need for aromatic residue at position 115 for proteolytic activity found by site-directed mutagenesis of tryptophan 115 in thermolysin.
abstract: In thermolysin, tryptophan 115 seems to be at the S2 subsite. Trp-115 was replaced with tyrosine, phenylalanine, leucine, and valine during site-directed mutagenesis in order to evaluate the role of Trp-115 in the proteolytic activity of thermolysin. The mutant enzymes with Tyr-115 or Phe-115 had as much proteolytic activity as the wild-type enzyme, but the other two mutant enzymes had no activity. We found earlier that the substitution of Trp-115 with alanine, glutamic acid, lysine, and glutamine causes the enzyme to lose all activity, so an aromatic amino acid at position 115 seems to be essential for thermolysin.
authors.affiliation: Division of Applied Life Sciences, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Japan. inouye@kais.kais.kyoto-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Inouye
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mazda
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kubo
mesh_terms: D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D001411:Geobacillus stearothermophilus / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D016297:Mutagenesis, Site-Directed; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D013820:Thermolysin / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D014364:Tryptophan / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014364:Tryptophan; D013820:Thermolysin