Inhibition of AmpC beta-lactamase through a destabilizing interaction in the active site
- NWU
{beta}-Lactamases hydrolyze {beta}-lactam antibiotics, including penicillins and cephalosporins; these enzymes are the most widespread resistance mechanism to these drugs and pose a growing threat to public health. {beta}-Lactams that contain a bulky 6(7){alpha} substituent, such as imipenem and moxalactam, actually inhibit serine {beta}-lactamases and are widely used for this reason. Although mutant serine {beta}-lactamases have arisen that hydrolyze {beta}-lactamase resistant {beta}-lactams (e.g., ceftazidime) or avoid mechanism-based inhibitors (e.g., clavulanate), mutant serine {beta}-lactamases have not yet arisen in the clinic with imipenemase or moxalactamase activity. Structural and thermodynamic studies suggest that the 6(7){alpha} substituents of these inhibitors form destabilizing contacts within the covalent adduct with the conserved Asn152 in class C {beta}-lactamases (Asn132 in class A {beta}-lactamases). This unfavorable interaction may be crucial to inhibition. To test this destabilization hypothesis, we replaced Asn152 with Ala in the class C {beta}-lactamase AmpC from Escherichia coli and examined the mutant enzyme's thermodynamic stability in complex with imipenem and moxalactam. Consistent with the hypothesis, the Asn152 {yields} Ala substitution relieved 0.44 and 1.10 kcal/mol of strain introduced by imipenem and moxalactam, respectively, relative to the wild-type complexes. However, the kinetic efficiency of AmpC N152A was reduced by 6300-fold relative to that of the wild-type enzyme. To further investigate the inhibitor's interaction with the mutant enzyme, the X-ray crystal structure of moxalactam in complex with N152A was determined to a resolution of 1.83 {angstrom}. Moxalactam in the mutant complex is significantly displaced from its orientation in the wild-type complex; however, moxalactam does not adopt an orientation that would restore competence for hydrolysis. Although Asn152 forces {beta}-lactams with 6(7){alpha} substituents out of a catalytically competent configuration, making them inhibitors, the residue is essential for orienting {beta}-lactam substrates and cannot simply be replaced with a much smaller residue to restore catalytic activity. Designing {beta}-lactam inhibitors that interact unfavorably with this conserved residue when in the covalent adduct merits further investigation.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 1006364
- Journal Information:
- Biochemistry-US, Vol. 40, Issue (27) ; 07, 2001; ISSN 0006-2960
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- ENGLISH
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