Chagas’ disease, also known
as American trypanosomiasis,
is a lethal, chronic disease that currently affects more than 10 million
people in Central and South America. The trans-sialidase
from Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi, TcTS) is a crucial enzyme
for the survival of this parasite: sialic acids from the host are
transferred to the cell surface glycoproteins of the trypanosome,
thereby evading the host’s immune system. On the other hand,
the sialidase of T. rangeli (TrSA), which shares
70% sequence identity with TcTS, is a strict hydrolase and shows no trans-sialidase activity. Therefore, TcTS and TrSA represent
an excellent framework to understand how different catalytic activities
can be achieved with extremely similar structures. By means of combined
quantum mechanics–molecular mechanics (QM/MM, SCC-DFTB/Amberff99SB)
calculations and umbrella sampling simulations, we investigated the
hydrolysis mechanisms of TcTS and TrSA and computed the free energy
profiles of these reactions. The results, together with our previous
computational investigations, are able to explain the catalytic mechanism
of sialidases and describe how subtle differences in the active site
make TrSA a strict hydrolase and TcTS a more efficient trans-sialidase.