Research article

Conformational changes and loose packing promote E. coli Tryptophanase cold lability

Anna Kogan¹ , Garik Y Gdalevsky¹ , Rivka Cohen-Luria¹ , Yehuda Goldgur¹ , Robert S Phillips² , Abraham H Parola¹ and Orna Almog³

¹Department of Chemistry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, POB 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

²Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA

³Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

author email corresponding author email

BMC Structural Biology 2009, 9:65doi:10.1186/1472-6807-9-65

Published:	8 October 2009

Abstract

Background

Oligomeric enzymes can undergo a reversible loss of activity at low temperatures. One such enzyme is tryptophanase (Trpase) from Escherichia coli. Trpase is a pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)-dependent tetrameric enzyme with a Mw of 210 kD. PLP is covalently bound through an enamine bond to Lys270 at the active site. The incubation of holo E. coli Trpases at 2°C for 20 h results in breaking this enamine bond and PLP release, as well as a reversible loss of activity and dissociation into dimers. This sequence of events is termed cold lability and its understanding bears relevance to protein stability and shelf life.

Results

We studied the reversible cold lability of E. coli Trpase and its Y74F, C298S and W330F mutants. In contrast to the holo E. coli Trpase all apo forms of Trpase dissociated into dimers already at 25°C and even further upon cooling to 2°C. The crystal structures of the two mutants, Y74F and C298S in their apo form were determined at 1.9Å resolution. These apo mutants were found in an open conformation compared to the closed conformation found for P. vulgaris in its holo form. This conformational change is further supported by a high pressure study.

Conclusion

We suggest that cold lability of E. coli Trpases is primarily affected by PLP release. The enhanced loss of activity of the three mutants is presumably due to the reduced size of the side chain of the amino acids. This prevents the tight assembly of the active tetramer, making it more susceptible to the cold driven changes in hydrophobic interactions which facilitate PLP release. The hydrophobic interactions along the non catalytic interface overshadow the effect of point mutations and may account for the differences in the dissociation of E. coli Trpase to dimers and P. vulgaris Trpase to monomers.