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Peptide deformylase catalyzes the deformylation reaction of the amino terminal fMet residue of newly synthesized proteins in bacteria, and most likely in Plasmodium falciparum, and has therefore been identified as a potential antibacterial and antimalarial drug target. The structure of P. falciparum peptide deformylase, determined at 2.8 A resolution with ten subunits per asymmetric unit, is similar to the bacterial enzyme with the residues involved in catalysis, the position of the bound metal ion, and a catalytically important water structurally conserved between the two enzymes. However, critical differences in the substrate binding region explain the poor affinity of E. coli deformylase inhibitors and substrates toward the Plasmodium enzyme. The Plasmodium structure serves as a guide for designing novel antimalarials.

Tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase (Tdp1) catalyzes the hydrolysis of a phosphodiester bond between a tyrosine residue and a DNA 3' phosphate. The enzyme appears to be responsible for repairing the unique protein-DNA linkage that occurs when eukaryotic topoisomerase I becomes stalled on the DNA in the cell. The 1.69 A crystal structure reveals that human Tdp1 is a monomer composed of two similar domains that are related by a pseudo-2-fold axis of symmetry. Each domain contributes conserved histidine, lysine, and asparagine residues to form a single active site. The structure of Tdp1 confirms that the protein has many similarities to the members of the phospholipase D (PLD) superfamily and indicates a similar catalytic mechanism. The structure also suggests how the unusual protein-DNA substrate binds and provides insights about the nature of the substrate in vivo.

The action of cholera toxin and E. coli heat-labile enterotoxin can be inhibited by blocking their binding to the cell-surface receptor GM1. We have used anchor-based design to create 15 receptor binding inhibitors that contain the previously characterized inhibitor MNPG as a substructure. In ELISA assays, all 15 compounds exhibited increased potency relative to MNPG. Binding affinities for two compounds, each containing a morpholine ring linked to MNPG via a hydrophobic tail, were characterized by pulsed ultrafiltration (PUF) and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). Crystal structures for these compounds bound to toxin B pentamer revealed a conserved binding mode for the MNPG moiety, with multiple binding modes adopted by the attached morpholine derivatives. The observed binding interactions can be exploited in the design of improved toxin binding inhibitors.

Autocatalytic proteolytic cleavage is a frequently observed post-translational modification in proteins. Cephalosporin acylase (CA) is a recently identified member of the N-terminal hydrolase family that is activated from an inactive precursor by autoproteolytic processing, generating a new N-terminal residue, which is either a Ser or a Thr. The N-terminal Ser or Thr becomes a nucleophilic catalytic center for intramolecular and intermolecular amide cleavages. The gene structure of the open reading frame of CAs generally consists of a signal peptide followed by the alpha-subunit, a spacer sequence, and the beta-subunit, which are all translated into a single polypeptide chain, the CA precursor. The precursor is post-translationally modified into an active heterodimeric enzyme with alpha- and beta-subunits, first by intramolecular cleavage and second by intermolecular cleavage. We solved the first CA precursor structure (code 1KEH) from a class I CA from Pseudomonas diminuta at a 2.5-A resolution that provides insight into the mechanism of intramolecular cleavage. A conserved water molecule, stabilized by four hydrogen bonds in unusual pseudotetrahedral geometry, plays a key role to assist the OG atom of Ser(1beta) to generate a strong nucleophile. In addition, the site of the secondary intermolecular cleavage of CA is proposed to be the carbonyl carbon of Gly(158alpha) (Kim, S., and Kim, Y., (2001) J. Biol. Chem., 276, 48376-48381), which is different from the situation in two other class I CAs.