Molecular Dynamics of Organophosphorous Hydrolases Bound to the Nerve Agent Soman
The organophosphorous hydrolase (OPH) from Pseudomonas diminuta is capable of degrading extremely toxic organophosphorous compounds with a high catalytic turnover and broad substrate specificity. The potential use of this enzyme for the detection and detoxification of warfare nerve agents has spurred efforts to engineer mutants of enhanced catalytic activity and modified stereospecificity towards the most toxic forms of organophosphate nerve agents. Molecular dynamics simulations of the wild-type OPH and the complexes between the wild-type and the triple-mutant H254G/H257W/L303R forms and the substrate SpSc-soman have been carried out to enhance our molecular level understanding of its reaction mechanism. Comparison of the three simulations indicate that substrate binding induces conformational changes of the loops near the active site, suggesting an induced-fit mechanism. Likewise, the coordination of the zinc cations in the active site of the enzyme differs between the free enzyme and the complexes. In the absence of the substrate, the more exposed b-zinc is hexa-coordinated and the less exposed a-zinc is penta-coordinated. In the presence of the substrate, the b- zinc atom can be both penta- or hexa-coordinated while the a-zinc atom is tetra-coordinated. In addition, binding energies were calculated from electrostatic properties obtained by solution of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation combined with a surface area-dependent apolar contribution. The calculations indicate that the binding of SpSc-soman to OPH is driven by nonpolar interactions while electrostatic interactions determine binding specificity. These results provide a qualitative, molecular-level explanation for 2 the three-fold increase in catalytic efficiency of the triple-mutant towards SpSc-soman. Keywords: organophosphorous hydrolase, phosphotriesterase, nerve agents, soman, molecular dynamics, Poisson-Boltzmann equation, continuum electrostatics, metalloprotein.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab. (EMSL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 917960
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-53302; 20896; KJ0102000; TRN: US200817%%1047
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 3(4):1569-1579, Vol. 3, Issue 4
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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