title: Identification of a glutamic acid and an aspartic acid residue essential for catalytic activity of aspergillopepsin II, a non-pepsin type acid proteinase.
abstract: Aspergillopepsin II from Aspergillus niger var. macrosporus is a non-pepsin type or pepstatin-insensitive acid proteinase. To identify the catalytic residues of the enzyme, all acidic residues that are conserved in the homologous proteinases of family A4 were replaced with Asn, Gln, or Ala using site-directed mutagenesis. The wild-type and mutant pro-enzymes were heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli and refolded in vitro. The wild-type pro-enzyme was shown to be processed into a two-chain active enzyme under acidic conditions. Most of the recombinant mutant pro-enzymes showed significant activity under acidic conditions because of autocatalytic activation except for the D123N, D123A, E219Q, and E219A mutants. The D123A, E219Q, and E219A mutants showed neither enzymatic activity nor autoprocessing activity under acidic conditions. The circular dichroism spectra of the mutant pro- and mature enzymes were essentially the same as those of the wild-type pro- and mature enzyme, respectively, indicating that the mutant pro-enzymes were correctly folded. In addition, two single and one double mutant pro-enzyme, D123E, E219D, and D123E/E219D, did not show enzymatic activity under acidic conditions. Taken together, Glu-219 and Asp-123 are deduced to be the catalytic residues of aspergillopepsin II.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0392, Japan.
authors.forename: X P
authors.initials: XP
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kagami
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Makabe
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takahashi
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D001224:Aspartic Acid / Q000032:analysis*; D016282:Aspartic Acid Endopeptidases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D020134:Catalytic Domain; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D018698:Glutamic Acid / Q000032:analysis*; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016297:Mutagenesis, Site-Directed; D011487:Protein Conformation; D017510:Protein Folding; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D001224:Aspartic Acid; D018698:Glutamic Acid; D016282:Aspartic Acid Endopeptidases; C022442:aspergillopepsin II