Bacterial L-asparaginases, enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of L-asparagine to aspartic acid, have been used for over 30 years as therapeutic agents in the treatment of acute childhood lymphoblastic leukemia. Other substrates of asparaginases include L-glutamine, D-asparagine, and succinic acid monoamide. In this report, we present high-resolution crystal structures of the complexes of Erwinia chrysanthemi L-asparaginase (ErA) with the products of such reactions that also can serve as substrates, namely L-glutamic acid (L-Glu), D-aspartic acid (D-Asp), and succinic acid (Suc). Comparison of the four independent active sites within each complex indicates unique and specific binding of the ligand molecules; the mode of binding is also similar between complexes. The lack of the alpha-NH3(+) group in Suc, compared to L-Asp, does not affect the binding mode. The side chain of L-Glu, larger than that of L-Asp, causes several structural distortions in the ErA active side. The active site flexible loop (residues 15-33) does not exhibit stable conformation, resulting in suboptimal orientation of the nucleophile, Thr15. Additionally, the delta-COO(-) plane of L-Glu is approximately perpendicular to the plane of gamma-COO(-) in L-Asp bound to the asparaginase active site. Binding of D-Asp to the ErA active site is very distinctive compared to the other ligands, suggesting that the low activity of ErA against D-Asp could be mainly attributed to the low k(cat) value. A comparison of the amino acid sequence and the crystal structure of ErA with those of other bacterial L-asparaginases shows that the presence of two active-site residues, Glu63(ErA) and Ser254(ErA), may correlate with significant glutaminase activity, while their substitution by Gln and Asn, respectively, may lead to minimal L-glutaminase activity.

An X-ray structure of L-asparaginase from Erwinia chrysanthemi (ErA) has been refined at 1 A resolution to an R factor of below 0.1, using data collected on a synchrotron source. With four molecules of the enzyme consisting of 327 amino acids each, this crystal contains one of the largest asymmetric units of a protein refined to date at atomic resolution. Previously, structures of ErA and of related enzymes from other bacterial sources have been refined at resolutions not exceeding 1.7 A; thus, the present structure represents a very significant improvement in the quality of the available models of these proteins and should provide a good basis for future studies of the conformational variability of proteins, identification of subtle conformational features and corroboration of the stereochemical libraries, amongst other things. L-Asparaginases, which are enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of L-asparagine to aspartic acid, have been used for over 30 y as therapeutic agents in the treatment of acute childhood lymphoblastic leukemia, although the details of the enzymatic reaction and substrate specificity have not yet been completely elucidated. This atomic resolution structure is a step in that direction.

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