I03-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Nicholas G. S.
Mcgregor
,
Chi-Lin
Kuo
,
Thomas
Beenakker
,
Chun-Sing
Wong
,
Wendy A.
Offen
,
Zachary
Armstrong
,
Bobby I.
Florea
,
Jeroen D.
Codee
,
Herman S.
Overkleeft
,
Hans
Aerts
,
Gideon
Davies
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[24948, 18598]
Open Access
Abstract: Exo-β-mannosidases are a broad class of stereochemically retaining hydrolases that are essential for the breakdown of complex carbohydrate substrates found in all kingdoms of life. Yet the detection of exo-β-mannosidases in complex biological samples remains challenging, necessitating the development of new methodologies. Cyclophellitol and its analogues selectively label the catalytic nucleophiles of retaining glycoside hydrolases, making them valuable tool compounds. Furthermore, cyclophellitol can be readily redesigned to enable the incorporation of a detection tag, generating activity-based probes (ABPs) that can be used to detect and identify specific glycosidases in complex biological samples. Towards the development of ABPs for exo-β-mannosidases, we present a concise synthesis of β-manno-configured cyclophellitol, cyclophellitol aziridine, and N-alkyl cyclophellitol aziridines. We show that these probes covalently label exo-β-mannosidases from GH families 2, 5, and 164. Structural studies of the resulting complexes support a canonical mechanism-based mode of action in which the active site nucleophile attacks the pseudo-anomeric centre to form a stable ester linkage, mimicking the glycosyl enzyme intermediate. Furthermore, we demonstrate activity- based protein profiling using an N-alkyl aziridine derivative by specifically labelling MANBA in mouse kidney tissue. Together, these results show that synthetic manno-configured cyclophellitol analogues hold promise for detecting exo-β-mannosidases in biological and biomedical research.
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Dec 2021
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I02-Macromolecular Crystallography
I03-Macromolecular Crystallography
I04-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Gideon J.
Davies
,
Rhianna J.
Rowland
,
Yurong
Chen
,
Imogen
Breen
,
Liang
Wu
,
Wendy A.
Offen
,
Thomas
Beenakker
,
Qin
Su
,
Adrianus M. C. H.
Van Den Nieuwendijk
,
Johannes M. F. G.
Aerts
,
Marta
Artola
,
Herman S.
Overkleeft
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[13587, 18598]
Abstract: Gaucher disease (GD) is a lysosomal storage disorder caused by inherited deficiencies in β-glucocerebrosidase (GBA). Current treatments require rapid disease diagnosis and a means of monitoring therapeutic efficacy, both of which may be supported by the use of GBA-targeting activity-based probes (ABPs). Here, we report the synthesis and structural analysis of a range of cyclophellitol epoxide and aziridine inhibitors and ABPs for GBA. We demonstrate their covalent mechanism-based mode of action and uncover binding of the new N- functionalised aziridines to the ligand binding cleft. These inhibitors became scaffolds for the development of ABPs; the O6-fluorescent tags of which bind in an allosteric site at the dimer interface. Considering GBA’s preference for O6- and N -functionalised reagents, we synthesised a bi-functional aziridine ABP which we hoped would offer a more powerful imaging agent. Whilst this ABP binds to two unique active site clefts of GBA, no further benefit in potency was achieved over our first generation ABPs. Nevertheless, such ABPs should serve useful in the study of GBA in relation to GD and inform the design of future probes.
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Sep 2021
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I04-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Hermen S.
Overkleeft
,
Sybrin
Schröder
,
Wendy
Offen
,
Alexandra
Males
,
Yi
Jin
,
Casper
De Boer
,
Jacopo
Enotarpi
,
Gijs
Van Der Marel
,
Bogdan
Florea
,
Jeroen
Codée
,
Gideon
Davies
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[13587, 18598]
Abstract: There is a vast genomic resource for enzymes active on carbohydrates. Lagging far behind, however, are functional chemical tools for the rapid characterization of carbohydrate‐active enzymes. Activity‐based probes (ABPs) offer one chemical solution to these issues with ABPs based upon cyclophellitol epoxide and aziridine covalent and irreversible inhibitors representing a potent and widespread approach. Such inhibitors for enzymes active on polysaccharides are potentially limited by the requirement for several glycosidic bonds, themselves substrates for the enzyme targets. Here we show that non‐hydrolysable trisaccharide can be synthesized and applied even to enzymes with challenging subsite requirements. We find that incorporation of carbasugar moieties, which we accomplished by cuprate‐assisted regioselective trans‐diaxial epoxide opening of carba‐mannal we synthesised for this purpose, yields inactivators that act as powerful activity‐based inhibitors for a‐1,6 endo‐mannanases. 3‐D structures at 1.35 – 1.47 Å resolutions confirm the design rationale and binding to the enzymatic nucleophile. Carbasugar oligosaccharide cyclophellitols offer a powerful new approach for the design of robust endoglycosidase inhibitors, while the synthesis procedures presented here should allow adaptation towards activity‐based endoglycosidase probes as well as configurational isosteres targeting other endoglycosidase families.
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Apr 2021
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I02-Macromolecular Crystallography
I04-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Patrick
Weber
,
Martin
Thonhofer
,
Summer
Averill
,
Gideon J.
Davies
,
Andres Gonzalez
Santana
,
Philipp
Müller
,
Seyed A.
Nasseri
,
Wendy A.
Offen
,
Bettina M.
Pabst
,
Eduard
Paschke
,
Michael
Schalli
,
Ana
Torvisco
,
Marion
Tschernutter
,
Christina
Tysoe
,
Werner
Windischhofer
,
Stephen G.
Withers
,
Andreas
Wolfsgruber
,
Tanja M.
Wrodnigg
,
Arnold E.
Stütz
Open Access
Abstract: Glycosidase inhibitors have shown great potential as pharmacological chaperones for lysosomal storage diseases. In light of this, a series of new cyclopentanoid β-galactosidase inhibitors were prepared and their inhibitory and pharmacological chaperoning activities determined and compared with those of lipophilic analogs of the potent β-d-galactosidase inhibitor 4-epi-isofagomine. Structure-activity relationships were investigated by X-ray crystallography as well as by alterations in the cyclopentane moiety such as deoxygenation and replacement by fluorine of a “strategic” hydroxyl group. New compounds have revealed highly promising activities with a range of β-galactosidase-compromised human cell lines and may serve as leads towards new pharmacological chaperones for GM1-gangliosidosis and Morquio B disease.
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Sep 2020
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I04-1-Macromolecular Crystallography (fixed wavelength)
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Tessa
Keenan
,
Fabio
Parmeggiani
,
Julien
Malassis
,
Clement Q.
Fontenelle
,
Jean-Baptiste
Vendeville
,
Wendy
Offen
,
Peter
Both
,
Kun
Huang
,
Andrea
Marchesi
,
Alex
Heyam
,
Carl
Young
,
Simon J.
Charnock
,
Gideon J.
Davies
,
Bruno
Linclau
,
Sabine L.
Flitsch
,
Martin A.
Fascione
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[13587, 18598]
Abstract: Fluorinated sugar-1-phosphates are of emerging importance as intermediates in the chemical and biocatalytic synthesis of modified oligosaccharides, as well as probes for chemical biology. Here we present a systematic study of the activity of a wide range of anomeric sugar kinases (galacto- and N-acetylhexosamine kinases) against a panel of fluorinated monosaccharides, leading to the first examples of polyfluorinated substrates accepted by this class of enzymes. We have discovered four new N-acetylhexosamine kinases with a different substrate scope, thus expanding the number of homologs available in this subclass of kinases. Lastly, we have solved the crystal structure of a galactokinase in complex with 2-deoxy-2-fluorogalactose, giving insight into changes in the active site that may account for the specificity of the enzyme toward certain substrate analogs.
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Jul 2020
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I04-1-Macromolecular Crystallography (fixed wavelength)
I04-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[13587, 18598]
Abstract: Alternatives to petroleum-based chemicals are highly sought-after for on-going efforts to reduce the damaging effects of human activity on the environment. Copper radical oxidases from Auxiliary Activity Family 5/Subfamily 2 (AA5_2) are attractive biocatalysts because they oxidize primary alcohols in a chemo-selective manner without complex organic cofactors. However, despite numerous studies on canonical galactose oxidases (GalOx, EC 1.1.3.9) and engineered variants, and the recent discovery of a Colletotrichum graminicola copper radical alcohol oxidase (AlcOx, EC 1.1.3.13), the catalytic potentials of very few AA5_2 members have been characterized. Guided by sequence similarity network and phylogenetic analyses, in this study we targeted a distinct paralog from the fungus C. graminicola as a representative member of a large uncharacterized subgroup of AA5_2. Through recombinant production and detailed kinetic analysis, we demonstrated that this enzyme is weakly active towards carbohydrates, but efficiently catalyzes the oxidation of aryl alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes. As such, this represents the initial characterization of a demonstrable aryl alcohol oxidase (AAO, EC 1.1.3.7) in AA5, an activity which is classically associated with flavin-dependent glucose-methanol-choline (GMC) oxidoreductases of Auxiliary Activity Family 3 (AA3). X-ray crystallography revealed a distinct multidomain architecture comprising an N-terminal PAN domain abutting a canonical AA5 seven-bladed propeller catalytic domain. Of direct relevance to biomass processing, the wild-type enzyme exhibits the highest activity on the primary alcohol of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a product of significant interest in the lignocellulosic bio-refinery concept. Thus, the chemoselective oxidation of HMF to 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF) by C. graminicola aryl alcohol oxidase (CgrAAO) from AA5 provides a fundamental building block for chemistry via biotechnology.
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Feb 2020
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I02-Macromolecular Crystallography
I03-Macromolecular Crystallography
I04-1-Macromolecular Crystallography (fixed wavelength)
I04-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[7864, 9948]
Abstract: The opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, has been a source of medicinal alkaloids since the earliest civilizations; ca. 3400 B.C. The benzylisoquinoline alkaloid noscapine is produced commercially in P. somniferum for use as a cough suppressant and it also has potential as an anticancer compound. The first committed step in the recently elucidated noscapine biosynthetic pathway involves the conversion of scoulerine to tetrahydrocolumbamine by 9-O-methylation, catalysed by O-methyltransferase 1 (PSMT1). We demonstrate, through protein structures (obtained through rational crystal engineering at resolutions from 1.5 to 1.2Å for the engineered variants) across the reaction coordinate, how domain closure allows specific methyl transfer to generate the product. SAM-dependent methyl transfer is central to myriad natural products in plants, analysis of amino-acid sequence, now taking the three-dimensional structure of PSMT1 and low identity homologs into account, begins to shed light on the structural features that govern substrate specificity in these key, ubiquitous, plant enzymes. We propose how “gatekeeper” residues can determine acceptor regiochemistry thus allowing prediction across the wide genomic resource.
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Mar 2019
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I03-Macromolecular Crystallography
I04-1-Macromolecular Crystallography (fixed wavelength)
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[13587]
Open Access
Abstract: Xyloglucan (XyG) is a complex polysaccharide that is ubiquitous and often abundant in the cell walls of terrestrial plants. XyG metabolism is therefore a key component of the global carbon cycle, and hence XyG enzymology is of significant fundamental and applied importance in biomass conversion. To facilitate structure–function analyses of XyG-specific endo-glucanases, we have synthesized a 2′,4′-dinitrophenyl 2-deoxy-2-fluoro-β-glycoside mechanism-based inhibitor based on the highly branched XyG repeating motif XXXG (Xyl3Glc4: ([α-D-Xylp-(1→6)]-β-D-Glcp-(1→4)-[α-D-Xylp-(1→6)]-β-D-Glcp-(1→4)-[α-D-Xylp-(1→6)]-β-D-Glcp-(1→4)-D-Glcp. Key steps in the chemo-enzymatic synthesis included selective enzyme hydrolysis of XyG polysaccharide to produce the core heptasaccharide, per-O-acetylation, α-bromination, reductive glycal formation, electrophilic fluorination, SNAr glycosylation, and Zemplen deprotection. The resulting compound, XXXG(2F)-β-DNP, specifically labelled the active sites of several endo-(xylo)glucanases by accumulation of a covalent glycosyl-enzyme intermediate, as revealed by intact protein mass spectrometry. Crystallography of a complex with a Cellvibrio japonicus Glycoside Hydrolase Family 5 (GH5) endo-xyloglucanase corroborated the covalent nature of the intermediate, and further revealed the anticipated specificity for the catalytic nucleophile of this anomeric-configuration-retaining glycosidase. This specificity complements that of an analogous XXXG N-bromoacetylglycosylamine inhibitor, which labelled the catalytic acid–base sidechain in the same enzyme [Attia, et al., Biotechnol. Biofuels, 2018, 11, 45]. We anticipate that these inhibitors may find continued use in mechanistic analyses of endo-(xylo)glucanases from diverse GH families.
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Oct 2018
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I03-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Sybrin P.
Schröder
,
Liang
Wu
,
Marta
Artola
,
Thomas
Hansen
,
Wendy A.
Offen
,
Maria J.
Ferraz
,
Kah-Yee
Li
,
Johannes M. F. G.
Aerts
,
Gijsbert A.
Van Der Marel
,
Jeroen D. C.
Codée
,
Gideon J.
Davies
,
Herman S.
Overkleeft
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[13587]
Open Access
Abstract: Gluco-azoles competitively inhibit glucosidases by transition-state mimicry and their ability to interact with catalytic acid residues in glucosidase active sites. We noted that no azole-type inhibitors described, to date, possess a protic nitrogen characteristic for 1H-imidazoles. Here, we present gluco-1H-imidazole, a gluco-azole bearing a 1H-imidazole fused to a glucopyranose-configured cyclitol core, and three close analogues as new glucosidase inhibitors. All compounds inhibit human retaining β-glucosidase, GBA1, with the most potent ones inhibiting this enzyme (deficient in Gaucher disease) on a par with glucoimidazole. None inhibit glucosylceramide synthase, cytosolic β-glucosidase GBA2 or α-glucosidase GAA. Structural, physical and computational studies provide first insights into the binding mode of this conceptually new class of retaining β-glucosidase inhibitors.
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Mar 2018
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I03-Macromolecular Crystallography
I04-Macromolecular Crystallography
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[9948]
Open Access
Abstract: Background:
Xyloglucan (XyG) is a ubiquitous and fundamental polysaccharide of plant cell walls. Due to its structural complexity, XyG requires a combination of backbone-cleaving and sidechain-debranching enzymes for complete deconstruction into its component monosaccharides. The soil saprophyte Cellvibrio japonicus has emerged as a genetically tractable model system to study biomass saccharification, in part due to its innate capacity to utilize a wide range of plant polysaccharides for growth. Whereas the downstream debranching enzymes of the xyloglucan utilization system of C. japonicus have been functionally characterized, the requisite backbone-cleaving endo-xyloglucanases were unresolved.
Results:
Combined bioinformatic and transcriptomic analyses implicated three glycoside hydrolase family 5 subfamily 4 (GH5_4) members, with distinct modular organization, as potential keystone endo-xyloglucanases in C. japonicus. Detailed biochemical and enzymatic characterization of the GH5_4 modules of all three recombinant proteins confirmed particularly high specificities for the XyG polysaccharide versus a panel of other cell wall glycans, including mixed-linkage beta-glucan and cellulose. Moreover, product analysis demonstrated that all three enzymes generated XyG oligosaccharides required for subsequent saccharification by known exo-glycosidases. Crystallographic analysis of GH5D, which was the only GH5_4 member specifically and highly upregulated during growth on XyG, in free, product-complex, and active-site affinity-labelled forms revealed the molecular basis for the exquisite XyG specificity among these GH5_4 enzymes. Strikingly, exhaustive reverse-genetic analysis of all three GH5_4 members and a previously biochemically characterized GH74 member failed to reveal a growth defect, thereby indicating functional compensation in vivo, both among members of this cohort and by other, yet unidentified, xyloglucanases in C. japonicus. Our systems-based analysis indicates distinct substrate-sensing (GH74, GH5E, GH5F) and attack-mounting (GH5D) functions for the endo-xyloglucanases characterized here.
Conclusions:
Through a multi-faceted, molecular systems-based approach, this study provides a new insight into the saccharification pathway of xyloglucan utilization system of C. japonicus. The detailed structural–functional characterization of three distinct GH5_4 endo-xyloglucanases will inform future bioinformatic predictions across species, and provides new CAZymes with defined specificity that may be harnessed in industrial and other biotechnological applications.
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Feb 2018
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