homogeneous-glycoconjugate-produced-combined-unnatural-amino-acid

Homogeneous Glycoconjugate Produced by Combined Unnatural Amino Acid Incorporation and Click-Chemistry for Vaccine Purposes

Genetic code expansion is a powerful tool to introduce unnatural amino acids (UAAs) into proteins to modify their characteristics, to study or create new ...

Université de Nantes, CNRS, Unité Fonctionnalité et Ingénierie des Protéines (UFIP), UMR 6286

Glycoside hydrolases are particularly abundant in all areas of metabolism as they are involved in the degradation of natural polysaccharides and glycoconjugates. These enzymes are classified into 133 families (CAZy server, http://www.cazy.org) in which members of each family have a similar structure and catalytic mechanism. In order to understand better the structure/function relationships of these enzymes and their evolution and to develop new robust evolved glycosidases, we undertook to convert a Family 1 thermostable β-glycosidase into an exo-β-N-acetylglucosaminidase. This latter activity is totally absent in Family 1, while natural β-hexosaminidases belong to CAZy Families 3, 20 and 84. Using molecular modeling, we first showed that the docking of N-acetyl-d-glucosamine in the subsite -1 of the β-glycosidase from Thermus thermophilus (TtβGly) suggested several steric conflicts with active site amino-acids (N163, E338) induced by the N-acetyl group. Both N163A and N163D-E338G mutations induced significant N-acetylglucosaminidase activity in TtβGly. The double mutant N163D-E338G was also active on the bicyclic oxazoline substrate, suggesting that this mutated enzyme uses a catalytic mechanism involving a substrate-assisted catalysis with a noncovalent oxazoline intermediate, similar to the N-acetylglucosaminidases from Families 20 and 84. Furthermore, a very efficient trans-N-acetylglucosaminidase activity was observed when the double mutant was incubated in the presence of NAG-oxazoline as a donor and N-methyl-O-benzyl-N-(β-d-glucopyranosyl)-hydroxylamine as an acceptor. More generally, this work demonstrates that it is possible to exchange the specificities and catalytic mechanisms with minimal changes between phylogenetically distant protein structures. 

De novo design of a trans-β-N-acetylglucosaminidase activity from a GH1 β-glycosidase by mechanism engineering.

A large number of retaining glycosidases catalyze both hydrolysis and transglycosylation reactions. In order to use them as catalysts for oligosaccharide synthesis, the balance between these two competing reactions has to be shifted toward transglycosylation. We previously designed a semi-rational approach to convert the Thermus thermophilus β-glycosidases into transglycosidases by mutating highly conserved residues located around the -1 subsite. In an attempt to verify that this strategy could be a generic approach to turn glycosidases into transglycosidases, Geobacillus stearothermophilus α-galactosidase (AgaB) was selected in order to obtain α-transgalactosidases. This is of particular interest as, to date, there are no efficient α-galactosynthases, despite the considerable importance of α-galactooligosaccharides. Thus, by site-directed mutagenesis on 14 AgaB residues, 26 single mutants and 22 double mutants were created and screened, of which 11 single mutants and 6 double mutants exhibited improved synthetic activity, producing 4-nitrophenyl α-d-galactopyranosyl-(1,6)-α-d-galactopyranoside in 26-57% yields against only 22% when native AgaB was used. It is interesting to note that the best variant was obtained by mutating a second-shell residue, with no direct interaction with the substrate or a catalytic amino acid. As this approach has proved to be efficient with both α- and β-glycosidases, it is a promising route to convert retaining glycosidases into transglycosidases. 

Semi-rational approach for converting a GH36 α-glycosidase into an α-transglycosidase.

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are recognized as benefiting breast-fed infants in multiple ways. As a result, there is growing interest in the synthesis of HMOs mimicking their natural diversity. Most HMOs are fucosylated oligosaccharides. α-l-Fucosidases catalyze the hydrolysis of α-l-fucose from the non-reducing end of a glucan. They fall into the glycoside hydrolase GH29 and GH95 families. The GH29 family fucosidases display a classic retaining mechanism and are good candidates for transfucosidase activity. We recently demonstrated that the α-l-fucosidase from Thermotoga maritima (TmαFuc) from the GH29 family can be evolved into an efficient transfucosidase by directed evolution ( Osanjo et al. 2007). In this work, we developed semi-rational approaches to design an α-l-transfucosidase starting with the α-l-fucosidase from commensal bacteria Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis (BiAfcB, Blon_2336). Efficient fucosylation was obtained with enzyme mutants (L321P-BiAfcB and F34I/L321P-BiAfcB) enabling in vitro synthesis of lactodifucotetraose, lacto-N-fucopentaose II, lacto-N-fucopentaose III and lacto-N-difucohexaose I. The enzymes also generated more complex HMOs like fucosylated para-lacto-N-neohexaose (F-p-LNnH) and mono- or difucosylated lacto-N-neohexaose (F-LNnH-I, F-LNnH-II and DF-LNnH). It is worth noting that mutation at these two positions did not result in a strong decrease in the overall activity of the enzyme, which makes these variants interesting candidates for large-scale transfucosylation reactions. For the first time, this work provides an efficient enzymatic method to synthesize the majority of fucosylated HMOs. 

Design of an α-L-transfucosidase for the synthesis of fucosylated HMOs.

To design a new system for the in vivo phosphorylation of proteins in Escherichia coli using the co-expression of the α-subunit of casein kinase II (CKIIα) and a target protein, (Nanofitin) fused with a phosphorylatable tag.

In vivo phosphorylation of a peptide tag for protein purification.

Agars are sulfated galactans from red macroalgae and are composed of a d-galactose (G unit) and l-galactose (L unit) alternatively linked by α-1,3 and β-1,4 glycosidic bonds. These polysaccharides display high complexity, with numerous modifications of their backbone ( presence of a 3,6-anhydro-bridge (LA unit) and sulfations and methylation). Currently, bacterial polysaccharidases that hydrolyze agars (β-agarases and β-porphyranases) have been characterized on simple agarose and more rarely on porphyran, a polymer containing both agarobiose (G-LA) and porphyranobiose (GL6S) motifs. How bacteria can degrade complex agars remains therefore an open question. Here, we studied an enzyme from the marine bacterium  (AgaC) that is distantly related to the glycoside hydrolase 16 (GH16) family β-agarases and β-porphyranases. Using a large red algae collection, we demonstrate that AgaC hydrolyzes not only agarose but also complex agars from s species. Using tandem MS analysis, we elucidated the structure of a purified hexasaccharide product, L6S-G-LA2Me-G(2Pentose)-LA2S-G, released by the activity of AgaC on agar extracted from  By resolving the crystal structure of AgaC at high resolution (1.3 Å) and comparison with the structures of AgaB and PorA in complex with their respective substrates, we determined that AgaC recognizes agarose via a mechanism different from that of classical β-agarases. Moreover, we identified conserved residues involved in the binding of complex oligoagars and demonstrate a probable influence of the acidic polysaccharide's pH microenvironment on hydrolase activity. Finally, a phylogenetic analysis supported the notion that AgaC homologs define a new GH16 subfamily distinct from β-porphyranases and classical β-agarases.

Charles Tellier

Université de Nantes, CNRS, Unité Fonctionnalité et Ingénierie des Protéines (UFIP), UMR 6286

Homogeneous Glycoconjugate Produced by Combined Unnatural Amino Acid Incorporation and Click-Chemistry for Vaccine Purposes