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Computational redesign reveals allosteric mutation hotspots of organophosphate hydrolase that enhance organophosphate hydrolysis

Journal Article · · Sandia journal manuscript; Not yet accepted for publication
OSTI ID:1427256
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [1]
  1. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States)
  2. Clemson Univ., SC (United States)
  3. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Organophosphates are widely used for peaceful (agriculture) and military purposes (chemical warfare agents). The extraordinary toxicity of organophosphates and the risk of deployment, make it critical to develop means for their rapid and efficient deactivation. Organophosphate hydrolase (OPH) already plays an important role in organophosphate remediation, but is insufficient for therapeutic or prophylactic purposes primarily due to low substrate affinity. Current efforts focus on directly modifying the active site to differentiate substrate specificity and increase catalytic activity. Here, we present a novel strategy for enhancing the general catalytic efficiency of OPH through computational redesign of the residues that are allosterically coupled to the active site and validated our design by mutagenesis. Specifically, we identify five such hot-spot residues for allosteric regulation and assay these mutants for hydrolysis activity against paraoxon, a chemical-weapons simulant. A high percentage of the predicted mutants exhibit enhanced activity over wild-type (kcat =16.63 s-1), such as T199I/T54I (899.5 s-1) and C227V/T199I/T54I (848 s-1), while the Km remains relatively unchanged in our high-throughput cell-free expression system. Further computational studies of protein dynamics reveal four distinct distal regions coupled to the active site that display significant changes in conformation dynamics upon these identified mutations. These results validate a computational design method that is both efficient and easily adapted as a general procedure for enzymatic enhancement.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1427256
Report Number(s):
SAND--2015-2826J; 581924
Journal Information:
Sandia journal manuscript; Not yet accepted for publication, Journal Name: Sandia journal manuscript; Not yet accepted for publication; ISSN 9999-0014
Publisher:
Sandia
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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