title: Construction of an additional metal-binding site in human metallothionein-2.
abstract: We have constructed a new metal-binding site in the human metallothionein-2 (hMT-2), using the protein as a scaffold to investigate the structure and function of metal-binding. Potential metal-binding sites were designed within hMT-2 on the basis of structures generated by homology modeling. Amino acid residues D11, C13, C26 and S28 in the beta-domain of hMT-2 (hMT-2beta) were found, by computer search, to form a potential tetrahedral Cys4 metal-binding site. Six mutant proteins were constructed with the following amino acid substitutions: D11C, S28C and D11C/S28C in hMT-2 and the same mutations in hMT-2beta, respectively. These single-mutant and double-mutant proteins bound one gram atom of cadmium or zinc ions per gram molecule of protein more than the corresponding wild-type proteins. The circular dichroism spectra suggested that the structures of the single-mutant proteins that bound Cd or Zn were similar to that of the D11C/S28C double-mutant proteins. To evaluate the metal-binding affinity of the mutant proteins, we performed pH titrations of wild-type and mutant proteins. The stability with changes in pH of all the mutant proteins was higher than that of the wild-type proteins, and that of the double-mutant D11C/S28C protein was highest. Consequently, it appears that we were able to create novel proteins that bound metal ions at high density and with high affinity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Yamadaoka 2-1, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.forename: Mitsutoshi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Toyama
authors.forename: Mariko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sasaki
authors.forename: Noriaki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hirayama
authors.forename: Yoshikatsu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Murooka
authors.forename: Mitsuo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yamashita
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites; D002104:Cadmium / Q000737:chemistry; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008668:Metallothionein / Q000737:chemistry*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016297:Mutagenesis, Site-Directed; D009154:Mutation; D015202:Protein Engineering; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D013237:Stereoisomerism; D015032:Zinc / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D002104:Cadmium; D008668:Metallothionein; D015032:Zinc