Sequence and structure of epoxide hydrolases : a systematic analysis

Abstract

Epoxide hydrolases (EC 3.3.2.3) are ubiquitous enzymes which catalyze the hydrolysis of epoxides to the corresponding vicinal diols. Over 100 epoxide hydrolases (EH) have been identified or predicted, 3 structures are available. Although they catalyze the same chemical reaction, sequence similarity is low. To identify conserved regions, all EHs were aligned. Phylogenetic analysis identified 12 homologous families, which were grouped into 2 major superfamilies: the microsomal EH superfamily, which includes the homologous families of Mammalian, Insect, Fungal, and Bacterial EHs, and the cytosolic EH superfamily, which includes Mammalian, Plant, and Bacterial EHs. Bacterial EHs show a high sequence diversity. Based on structure comparison of 3 known structures from Agrobacterium radiobacter AD1 (cytosolic EH), Aspergillus niger (microsomal EH), and Mus musculus (cytosolic EH), and multisequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis of 95 EHs, the modular architecture of this enzyme family was analyzed. While core and cap domain are highly conserved, the structural differences between the EHs are restricted to only 2 loops: the NC-loop connecting the core and the cap and the cap-loop which is inserted into the cap domain. EHs were assigned to either of 3 clusters based on loop length. Using this classification, core and cap region of all EHs, NC-loops and cap-loops of 78% and 89% of all EHs, respectively, could be modeled. Representative models are available from the Lipase Engineering Database, http://www.led.uni-stuttgart.de.