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Monomeric isocitrate dehydrogenases from psychrophilic bacteria, Colwellia maris and Colwellia psychrerythraea (CmIDH-II and CpIDH-M, respectively) are cold-adapted enzymes and show a high degree of amino acid sequential identity to each other (77%). However, maximum activity of CpIDH-M at optimum temperature is much less than that of CmIDH-II. In the C-terminal region 3 of these enzymes, which was suggested from previous study to be responsible for their distinct catalytic ability, several sequential differences of amino acid residue are present. Among them, ten amino acid residues were exchanged between them by site-directed mutagenesis and several properties of the mutated enzymes were examined in this study. The mutated enzymes of CmIDH-II substituted its Gln671, Leu724 and Phe735 residues with the corresponding residues of CpIDH-M (termed Q671K, L724Q and F735L, respectively) showed lower specific activity and thermostability for activity than the wild-type enzyme. Furthermore, the decreased specific activity was also observed in L693F. In contrast, the corresponding mutants of CpIDH-M, F693L, Q724L and L735F, showed the increased specific activity and thermostability for activity. The catalytic efficiency (k cat/K m) values of these mutated CmIDH-II and CpIDH-M were lower and higher than those of their wild-type IDHs, respectively. These results suggest that the Gln671, Leu693, Leu724 and Phe735 residues of CmIDH-II are important for exerting its high catalytic ability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The relationships between structure, activity, stability and flexibility of a cold-adapted aminopeptidase produced by a psychrophilic marine bacterium have been investigated in comparison with a mesophilic structural and functional human homolog. Differential scanning calorimetry, fluorescence monitoring of thermal- and guanidine hydrochloride-induced unfolding and fluorescence quenching were used to show that the cold-adapted enzyme is characterized by a high activity at low temperatures, a low structural stability versus thermal and chemical denaturants and a greater structural permeability to a quenching agent relative to the mesophilic homolog. These findings support the hypothesis that cold-adapted enzymes maintain their activity at low temperatures as a result of increased global or local structural flexibility, which results in low stability. Analysis of the thermodynamic parameters of irreversible thermal unfolding suggests that entropy-driven factors are responsible for the fast unfolding rate of the cold-adapted aminopeptidase. A reduced number of proline residues, a lower degree of hydrophobic residue burial and a decreased surface accessibility of charged residues may be responsible for this effect. On the other hand, the reduction in enthalpy-driven interactions is the primary determinant of the weak conformational stability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]