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Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 
 
 

Rat guanidinoacetate methyltransferase. Effect of site-directed alteration of an aspartic acid residue that is conserved across most mammalian S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methyltransferases.

Most mammalian S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet)-dependent methyltransferases have a conserved aspartate residue in a sequence oDso (o denotes a hydrophobic amino acid and s denotes a small neutral amino acid). Rat guanidinoacetate methyltransferase has two aspartate residues (Asp-129 and Asp-134) conforming to the motif in close proximity to Tyr-136 that is photoaffinity- labeled by AdoMet (Takata, Y., and Fujioka, M. (1992) Biochemistry 31, 4369-4374). In order to investigate the role of these residues, we prepared variant forms of the enzyme by oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis. Conversion of Asp-129 to asparagine or alanine resulted in a functional enzyme. Alteration of Asp-134 to glutamate (D134E) and asparagine (D134N) decreased activity, and replacement with alanine (D134A) led to inactivation. Decreases of 3- and 120-fold were found for kcat values of D134E and D134N, respectively. The Km values of D134E for AdoMet and those for guanidinoacetate were increased about 160- and 80-fold over the respective values of wild type. The corresponding increases in D134N were 800- and 50-fold, respectively. Conservative changes of the residues flanking Asp-134 had little effect on activity. Guanidinoacetate methyltransferase obeys an ordered Bi Bi mechanism in which AdoMet binds first. Thus, the large decreases in kcat/Km values for AdoMet indicate that Asp-134 is crucial for binding AdoMet. Spectroscopic studies indicated that the amino acid substitutions of Asp-134 resulted in no significant changes in the secondary and tertiary structures, and urea denaturation experiments showed that the altered enzymes were not destabilized.[1]

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