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Author: search.filters.author.Pleiss, JürgenSubject: search.filters.subject.540

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    The Bacteroidetes Aequorivita sp. and Kaistella jeonii produce promiscuous esterases with PET-hydrolyzing activity
    (2022) Zhang, Hongli; Perez-Garcia, Pablo; Dierkes, Robert F.; Applegate, Violetta; Schumacher, Julia; Chibani, Cynthia Maria; Sternagel, Stefanie; Preuss, Lena; Weigert, Sebastian; Schmeisser, Christel; Danso, Dominik; Pleiss, Jürgen; Almeida, Alexandre; Höcker, Birte; Hallam, Steven J.; Schmitz, Ruth A.; Smits, Sander H. J.; Chow, Jennifer; Streit, Wolfgang R.
    Certain members of the Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria are known to degrade polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Here, we describe the first functional PET-active enzymes from the Bacteroidetes phylum. Using a PETase-specific Hidden-Markov-Model- (HMM-) based search algorithm, we identified several PETase candidates from Flavobacteriaceae and Porphyromonadaceae. Among them, two promiscuous and cold-active esterases derived from Aequorivita sp. (PET27) and Kaistella jeonii (PET30) showed depolymerizing activity on polycaprolactone (PCL), amorphous PET foil and on the polyester polyurethane Impranil® DLN. PET27 is a 37.8 kDa enzyme that released an average of 174.4 nmol terephthalic acid (TPA) after 120 h at 30°C from a 7 mg PET foil platelet in a 200 μl reaction volume, 38-times more than PET30 (37.4 kDa) released under the same conditions. The crystal structure of PET30 without its C-terminal Por-domain (PET30ΔPorC) was solved at 2.1 Å and displays high structural similarity to the IsPETase. PET30 shows a Phe-Met-Tyr substrate binding motif, which seems to be a unique feature, as IsPETase, LCC and PET2 all contain Tyr-Met-Trp binding residues, while PET27 possesses a Phe-Met-Trp motif that is identical to Cut190. Microscopic analyses showed that K. jeonii cells are indeed able to bind on and colonize PET surfaces after a few days of incubation. Homologs of PET27 and PET30 were detected in metagenomes, predominantly aquatic habitats, encompassing a wide range of different global climate zones and suggesting a hitherto unknown influence of this bacterial phylum on man-made polymer degradation.
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    The triple variant K170D/N174L/D239A compensates the destabilizing effect of variant K170D/N174L in β-hydroxyacid dehydrogenase (βHAD) from Arabidopsis thaliana
    (2020) Schelle, Luca S.; Stockinger, Peter; Pleiss, Jürgen; Nestl, Bettina M.
    Chiral amines are essential building blocks in biologically active compounds, fine chemicals, agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. In the last ten years, various enzymes were identified as new biocatalysts for chiral amine synthesis. Promising enzymes for the synthesis of primary, secondary, and tertiary amines are NADPH-dependent imine reductases (IREDs). Bioinformatics analysis revealed that IREDs are closely related to β-hydroxyacid dehydrogenases (βHADs). In recent work, we engineered the βHAD from Arabidopsis thaliana (βHAD_At) into imine-reducing enzymes by a single amino acid exchange. The exchange of the proton-donor described lysine (K170) in βHAD_At by aspartic acid, the most common amino acid at this position in R-selective IREDs, led to a 12-fold increase in activity for the model substrate 2-methylpyrroline. At the same time, the activity for the natural substrate glyoxylic acid is reduced 885-fold, resulting in a total of 8200-fold change in catalytic activity through the exchange of an amino acid. At the same time, highly decreased soluble expression has been observed by exchanging asparagine at position 174 (N174) with leucine. We thus hypothesized, that the aspartic acid residue (D239) in near proximity to N174 will stabilize the underlying α-helix. Consequently, replacement of D239 with alanine should result in soluble expression of variants containing the N174 mutations. We generated variants K170D/D239A, as well as, and tested them on imine reduction of test substrates 2-methylpyrroline, 3,4-dihydroisoquinoline and 6-phenyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydropyridine. Due to loss of essential cofactor and precipitation of purified proteins during purification procedure, activities of variants were determined using cell lysates. Notably, variants N174L/D239A and K170D/N174L/D239A demonstrated soluble expression and imine-reducing activities of up to 98 mU per mg of variant.
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    Impact of remote mutations on metallo-beta-lactamase substrate specificity : implications for the evolution of antibiotic resistance
    (2005) Ölschläger, Peter; Mayo, Stephen L.; Pleiss, Jürgen
    Metallo-beta-lactamases have raised concerns due to their ability to hydrolyze a broad spectrum of beta-lactam antibiotics. The G262S point mutation distinguishing the metallo-beta-lactamase IMP 1 from IMP 6 has no effect on the hydrolysis of the drugs cephalothin and cefotaxime, but significantly improves catalytic efficiency toward cephaloridine, ceftazidime, benzylpenicillin, ampicillin, and imipenem. This change in specificity occurs even though residue 262 is remote from the active site. We investigated the substrate specificities of five other point mutants resulting from single nucleotide substitutions at positions near residue 262: G262A, G262V, S121G, F218Y and F218I. The results suggest two types of substrates: type I (nitrocefin, cephalothin and cefotaxime), which are converted equally well by IMP-6, IMP-1, and G262A, but even more efficiently by the other mutants, and type II (ceftazidime, benzylpenicillin, ampicillin, and imipenem), which are hydrolyzed much less efficiently by all the mutants, with IMP-1 being the most active. G262V, S121G, F218Y, and F218I improve conversion of type I substrates, whereas G262A and IMP-1 improve conversion of type II substrates, indicating two distinct evolutionary adaptations from IMP-6. Substrate structure may explain the catalytic efficiencies observed. Type I substrates have R2 electron donors, which may stabilize the substrate intermediate in the binding pocket and lead to enhanced activity. In contrast, the absence of these stabilizing interactions with type II substrates may result in poor conversion and increased sensitivity to mutations. This observation may assist future drug design. As the G262A and F218Y mutants confer effective resistance to Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) cells (high minimal inhibitory concentrations), they are likely to evolve naturally.
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    The Lipase Engineering Database – a navigation and analysis tool for protein families
    (2003) Fischer, Markus; Pleiss, Jürgen
    The Lipase Engineering Database (http://www.led.uni-stuttgart.de) integrates information on sequence, structure, and function of lipases, esterases, and related proteins. Sequence data on 806 protein entries are assigned to 38 homologous families, which are grouped into 16 superfamilies with no global sequence similarity between each other. For each family, multisequence alignments are provided with functionally relevant residues annotated. Pre-calculated phylogenetic trees allow navigation inside superfamilies. Experimental structures of 45 proteins are superposed and consistently annotated. The Lipase Engineering Database has been applied to systematically analyze sequence-structure-function relationships of this vast and diverse enzyme class. It is a useful tool to identify functionally relevant residues apart from the active site residues, and to design mutants with desired substrate specificity.
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    How to find soluble proteins : a comprehensive analysis of alpha/beta hydrolases for recombinant expression in E. coli
    (2005) Koschorreck, Markus; Fischer, Markus; Barth, Sandra; Pleiss, Jürgen
    Background: In screening of libraries derived by expression cloning, expression of active proteinsin E. coli can be limited by formation of inclusion bodies. In these cases it would be desirable to enrich gene libraries for coding sequences with soluble gene products in E. coli and thus to improve the efficiency of screening. Previously Wilkinson and Harrison showed that solubility can be predicted from amino acid composition (Biotechnology 1991, 9(5):443-448). We have applied this analysis to members of the alpha/beta hydrolase fold family to predict their solubility in E. coli. alpha/beta hydrolases are a highly diverse family with more than 1800 proteins which have been grouped into homologous families and superfamilies. Results: The predicted solubility in E. coli depends on hydrolase size, phylogenetic origin of the host organism, the homologous family and the superfamily, to which the hydrolase belongs. In general small hydrolases are predicted to be more soluble than large hydrolases, and eukaryotic hydrolases are predicted to be less soluble in E. coli than prokaryotic ones. However, combining phylogenetic origin and size leads to more complex conclusions. Hydrolases from prokaryotic, fungal and metazoan origin are predicted to be most soluble if they are of small, medium and large size, respectively. We observed large variations of predicted solubility between hydrolases from different homologous families and from different taxa. Conclusion: A comprehensive analysis of all alpha/beta hydrolase sequences allows more efficient screenings for new soluble alpha/beta hydrolases by the use of libraries which contain more soluble gene products. Screening of hydrolases from families whose members are hard to express as soluble proteins in E. coli should first be done in coding sequences of organisms from phylogenetic groups with the highest average of predicted solubility for proteins of this family. The tools developed here can be used to identify attractive target genes for expression using protein sequences published in databases. This analysis also directs the design of degenerate, family- specific primers to amplify new members from homologous families or superfamilies with a high probability of soluble alpha/beta hydrolases.
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    Insight into the mechanism of the IMP-1 metallo-beta-lactamase by molecular dynamics simulations
    (2003) Ölschläger, Peter; Schmid, Rolf D.; Pleiss, Jürgen
    Two models, a purely nonbonded model and a cationic dummy atom approach, were examined for the modeling of the binuclear zinc-containing IMP-1 metallo-beta-lactamase in complex with a mercaptocarboxylate inhibitor. The cationic dummy atom approach had substantial advantages as it maintained the initial, experimentally determined geometry of the metal-containing active site during molecular dynamics simulations in water. The method was extended to the modeling of the free enzyme and the enzyme in complex with a cephalosporin substrate docked in an intermediate structure. For all three systems, the modeled complexes and the tetrahedral coordination of the zinc ions were stable. The average zinc-zinc distance increased by about 1 Å in the substrate complex compared to the inhibitor complex and the free enzyme in which a hydroxide ion acts as a bridging ligand. Thus, the zinc ions are predicted to undergo a back and forth movement upon the cycle of hydrolysis. In contrast to previous assumptions, no interaction of the Asn167 side chain with the bound cephalosporin substrate was observed. Our observations are in agreement with quantum-mechanical calculations and experimental data and indicate that the cationic dummy atom approach is useful to model zinc-containing metallo-beta-lactamases as free proteins, in complex with inhibitors and in complex with substrates.
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    A model of the pressure dependence of the enantioselectivity of Candida rugosa lipase towards (±)-menthol
    (2001) Kahlow, Ulrich; Schmid, Rolf D.; Pleiss, Jürgen
    Transesterification of (±)-menthol using propionic acid anhydride and Candida rugosa lipase was performed in chloroform and water at different pressures (1, 10, 50, and 100 bar) to study the pressure dependence of enantioselectivity E. As a result, E significantly decreased with increasing pressure from E=55 (1 bar) to E=47 (10 bar), E=37 (50 bar), and E=9 (100 bar). In order to rationalize the experimental findings, molecular dynamics simulations of Candida rugosa lipase were carried out. Analyzing the lipase geometry at 1, 10, 50, and 100 bar revealed a cavity in the Candida rugosa lipase. The cavity leads from a position on the surface distinct from the substrate binding site to the core towards the active site and is limited by F415 and the catalytic H449. In the crystal structure of the Candida rugosa lipase, this cavity is filled with 6 water molecules. The number of water molecules in this cavity gradually increased with increasing pressure: 6 molecules in the simulation at 1 bar, 10 molecules at 10 bar, 12 molecules at 50 bar, and 13 molecules at 100 bar. Likewise, the volume of the cavity progressively increased from about 1864 ų in the simulation at 1 bar to 2529 ų at 10 bar, 2526 ų at 50 bar, and 2617 ų at 100 bar. At 100 bar, one water molecule slipped between F415 and H449, displacing the catalytic histidine side chain and thus opening the cavity to form a continuous water channel. The rotation of the side chain leads to a decreased distance between the H449-N and the (+)-menthyl-oxygen (non-preferred enantiomer) in the acyl enzyme intermediate, a factor determining the enantioselectivity of the lipase. While the geometry of the preferred enantiomer is similar in all simulations, the geometry of the non-preferred enantiomer gets gradually more reactive. This observation correlates with the gradually decreasing enantioselectivity E.
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    Mesoporous confinement enables activity boost in cooperative asymmetric catalysis in analogy to enzymes
    (2026) Rautenbach, Liam; Nandeshwar, Muneshwar; Goldstein, Elizabeth; Högler, Marc; Häußler, Max; Allgaier, Alexander; Bauer, Alina; Hornung, Dominik; Beck, Alexander; Franke, Claudia; Osterbrink, Johanna; Bruckner, Johanna R.; Kästner, Johannes; Fischer, Felix R.; Bauer, Matthias; Slageren, Joris van; Pleiss, Jürgen; Hansen, Niels; Buchmeiser, Michael R.; Peters, René
    Enzymes achieve substantial rate accelerations by combining cooperative functional group activation with confinement inside organized active sites, which reduce entropic costs and enforce productive orientations of activated substrates. Here, we translate these principles into artificial cooperative asymmetric catalysis using mesoporous confinement. Embedding a chiral bifunctional catalyst into ordered mesoporous silica creates a synthetic analogue of enzymatic pockets, in which cooperative activation and nanoscale confinement act synergistically. By such confinement, reaction half-lives could be reduced by up to 97% in asymmetric 1,4-additions. Kinetic analyses attribute this enhancement to entropic advantages of confinement, while molecular dynamics simulations reveal narrowing of the catalyst’s conformational space closely paralleling the enzymatic preorganization as a molecular origin. Unlike enzymes, however, the mesoporous framework remains tunable, allowing linker length and pore size to systematically adjust reactivity. This work establishes confinement engineering as a modular strategy to design “unnatural active sites” that merge enzymatic efficiency with synthetic catalyst flexibility. It could thus bridge the gap between nature’s precision and the versatility of synthetic chemistry.
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    Visual analysis of large‐scale protein‐ligand interaction data
    (2021) Schatz, Karsten; Franco‐Moreno, Juan José; Schäfer, Marco; Rose, Alexander S.; Ferrario, Valerio; Pleiss, Jürgen; Vázquez, Pere‐Pau; Ertl, Thomas; Krone, Michael
    When studying protein‐ligand interactions, many different factors can influence the behaviour of the protein as well as the ligands. Molecular visualisation tools typically concentrate on the movement of single ligand molecules; however, viewing only one molecule can merely provide a hint of the overall behaviour of the system. To tackle this issue, we do not focus on the visualisation of the local actions of individual ligand molecules but on the influence of a protein and their overall movement. Since the simulations required to study these problems can have millions of time steps, our presented system decouples visualisation and data preprocessing: our preprocessing pipeline aggregates the movement of ligand molecules relative to a receptor protein. For data analysis, we present a web‐based visualisation application that combines multiple linked 2D and 3D views that display the previously calculated data The central view, a novel enhanced sequence diagram that shows the calculated values, is linked to a traditional surface visualisation of the protein. This results in an interactive visualisation that is independent of the size of the underlying data, since the memory footprint of the aggregated data for visualisation is constant and very low, even if the raw input consisted of several terabytes.
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    Meta-analysis of viscosity of aqueous deep eutectic solvents and their components
    (2020) Gygli, Gudrun; Xu, Xinmeng; Pleiss, Jürgen
    Deep eutectic solvents (DES) formed by quaternary ammonium salts and hydrogen bond donors are a promising green alternative to organic solvents. Their high viscosity at ambient temperatures can limit biocatalytic applications and therefore requires fine-tuning by adjusting water content and temperature. Here, we performed a meta-analysis of the impact of water content and temperature on the viscosities of four deep eutectic solvents (glyceline, reline, N,N-diethylethanol ammonium chloride-glycerol, N,N-diethylethanol ammonium chloride-ethylene glycol), their components (choline chloride, urea, glycerol, ethylene glycol), methanol, and pure water. We analyzed the viscosity data by an automated workflow, using Arrhenius and Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann-Hesse models. The consistency and completeness of experimental data and metadata was used as an essential criterion of data quality. We found that viscosities were reported for different temperature ranges, half the time without specifying a method of desiccation, and in almost half of the reports without specifying experimental errors. We found that the viscosity of the pure components varied widely, but that all aqueous mixtures (except for reline) have similar excess activation energy of viscous flow Eexcessη= 3-5 kJ/mol, whereas reline had a negative excess activation energy (Eexcessη= - 19 kJ/mol). The data and workflows used are accessible at https://doi.org/10.15490/FAIRDOMHUB.1.STUDY.767.1.