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Glucose oxidase (GOX; ␤-D-glucose:oxygen oxidoreductase) from Aspergillus niger is a dimeric flavoprotein with a molecular mass of 80 kDa/monomer. Thermal denaturation of glucose oxidase has been studied by absorbance, circular dichroism spectroscopy, viscosimetry, and differential scanning calorimetry. Thermal transition of this homodimeric enzyme is irreversible and, surprisingly, independent of GOX concentration (0.2-5.1 mg/ml). It has an apparent transition temperature of 55.8 ؎ 1.2°C and an activation energy of ϳ280 kJ/mol, calculated from the Lumry-Eyring model. The thermally denatured state of GOX after recooling has the following characteristics. (i) It retains ϳ70% of the native secondary structure ellipticity; (ii) it has a relatively low intrinsic viscosity, 7.5 ml/g; (iii) it binds ANS; (iv) it has a low Stern-Volmer constant of tryptophan quenching; and (v) it forms defined oligomeric (dimers, trimers, tetramers) structures. It is significantly different from chemically denatured (6.67 M GdmHCl) GOX. Both the thermal and the chemical denaturation of GOX cause dissociation of the flavin cofactor; however, only the chemical denaturation is accompanied by dissociation of the homodimeric GOX into monomers. The transition temperature is independent of the protein concentration, and the properties of the thermally denatured protein indicate that thermally denatured GOX is a compact structure, a form of molten globulelike apoenzyme. GOX is thus an exceptional example of a relatively unstable mesophilic dimeric enzyme with residual structure in its thermally denatured state.Glucose oxidase (GOX 1 ; ␤-D-glucose:oxygen oxidoreductase, EC 1.1.3.4) is a flavoenzyme that catalyzes oxidation of ␤-Dglucose by molecular oxygen to ␦-gluconolactone, which subsequently hydrolyzes spontaneously to gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. The enzyme contains one tightly, noncovalently bound FAD cofactor per monomer and is a homodimer with a molecular mass of 160 kDa, depending on the extent of glycosylation (1). Glucose oxidase from Aspergillus niger is glycosylated by neutral sugars (mostly mannose-like sugars) and by amino sugars (2). Several reports find that the sugar content may vary from 11 up to 30% (3-5).GOX is of considerable commercial importance. The enzyme has applications in the food and fermentation industry, in the textile industry, and as a molecular diagnostic and analytical tool in medical and environmental monitoring applications (6 -10).The study of GOX and its applications is limited by its conformational instability. A significant effort has been made to increase the stability of GOX. It is known that both the thermal stability and the dynamic properties of the enzyme depend on its redox state (11, 12). Protein glycosylation affects the conformational dynamics of the active site and thus the activity of the enzyme (13). However, the way in which glycosylation affects the stability of GOX is not known. On the other hand, modification of the glucose oxidase surface by artificial long polyethylene-glycol ...

The cis/trans isomerization of peptide bonds before proline (prolyl bonds) is a rate-limiting step in many protein folding reactions, and it is used to switch between alternate functional states of folded proteins. Several prolyl isomerases of the FK506-binding protein family, such as trigger factor, SlyD, and FkpA, contain chaperone domains and are assumed to assist protein folding in vivo. The prolyl isomerase activity of FK506-binding proteins strongly depends on the nature of residue Xaa of the Xaa-Pro bond. We confirmed this in assays with a library of tetrapeptides in which position Xaa was occupied by all 20 aa. A high sequence specificity seems inconsistent with a generic function of prolyl isomerases in protein folding. Accordingly, we constructed a library of protein variants with all 20 aa at position Xaa before a rate-limiting cis proline and used it to investigate the performance of trigger factor and SlyD as catalysts of proline-limited folding. The efficiencies of both prolyl isomerases were higher than in the tetrapeptide assays, and, intriguingly, this high activity was almost independent of the nature of the residue before the proline. Apparently, the almost indiscriminate binding of the chaperone domain to the refolding protein chain overrides the inherently high sequence specificity of the prolyl isomerase site. The catalytic performance of these folding enzymes is thus determined by generic substrate recognition at the chaperone domain and efficient transfer to the active site in the prolyl isomerase domain.folding catalysis ͉ folding helpers ͉ folding mechanism ͉ SlyD ͉ trigger factor T he cis/trans isomerization of peptide bonds before proline (Xaa-Pro or prolyl bonds; Fig. 1A) is an intrinsically slow reaction that depends on the nature of the amino acid Xaa (1-3). It determines the rates of many protein folding reactions (4-6), is used as a molecular switch (7-16), and is catalyzed by prolyl isomerases (17-21). Most of the prolyl isomerases that assist in cellular protein folding contain catalytic domains that are homologous to human FKBP12 (FK-506 binding protein of 12 kDa; Fig. 1B) and chaperone domains, which interact transiently with non-native proteins (Fig. 1B). The trigger factor (22-25) and SlyD [product of the slyD (sensitive-to lysis) gene, a cytosolic Escherichia coli chaperone] (26-29) belong to this family of folding enzymes. The chaperone domain of SlyD (the ''insertin-flap'' or IF domain) shows a unique fold (30) and is structurally not related to other chaperones. The chaperone domain of trigger factor shows similarities with prefoldin (31)and SurA (32). FkpA (periplasmic FKBP of E. coli) (33-35) of prokaryotes and FKBP52 of eukaryotes (36) display similar combinations of prolyl isomerase and chaperone domains.FKBP-type prolyl isomerases are highly specific with regard to residue Xaa before the proline (37-39). An initial characterization of human FKBP12 with various proline-containing tetrapeptides and a protease-coupled assay (17) indicated that it catalyzes isomerizati...

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To fully explore the substrate specificities of prolyl isomerases, we synthesized a library of 20 tetrapeptides that are labeled with a 2-aminobenzoyl (Abz) group at the amino terminus and a p-nitroanilide (pNA) group at the carboxy terminus. In this peptide library of the general formula Abz-Ala-Xaa-Pro-Phe-pNA, the position Xaa before the proline is occupied by all 20 proteinogenic amino acids. A conformational analysis of the peptide by molecular dynamics simulations and by NMR spectroscopy showed that the mutual distance between the Abz and pNA moieties in the peptides depends on the isomeric state of the Xaa-Pro bond. In the cis, but not in the trans form, there are significant chemical shift changes of the Abz and pNA moieties, because their aromatic rings are close to each other. This proximity also leads to a strong quenching of Abz fluorescence, which, in combination with a solvent jump, was used to devise a sensitive assay for prolyl isomerases. Unlike the traditional assay, it is not coupled with peptide proteolysis and thus can be employed for protease-sensitive prolyl isomerases as well. The peptide library was used to provide a complete set of P1-site specificities for prototypic human members of the three prolyl isomerase families, FKBP12, cyclophilin 18, and parvulin 14. In a second application, the substrate specificity of SlyD, a protease-sensitive prolyl isomerase from Escherichia coli, was characterized and compared with that of human FKBP12 as well as with homologues from other bacteria.