Deciphering the activity-conformation relationship of PTPase is of great interest to understand howPTPase activity is determined by its conformation. Here we studied the activity and conformational transitions of PTPase from thermus thermophilus HB27 in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). Activity assays showed the inactivation of PTPase induced by SDS was in a concentration-dependent manner. Fluorescence and circular dichroism spectra suggested SDS induced significant conformational transitions of PTPase, which resulted in the inactivation of PTPase, and the changes of α-helical structure and tertiary structure of PTPase. Structural analysis revealed a number of hydrophobic and charged residues around the active sites of PTPase may be involved in the hydrophobic and ionic bonds interactions of PTPase and SDS, which are suggested to be the major driving force to result in PTPase inactivation and conformational transitions induced by SDS. Our results suggested the hydrophobic and charged residues around the active sites were essential for the activity and conformation of PTPase. Our study promotes a better understanding of the activity and conformation of PTPase.Although we have discussed the conformational transitions and the inactivation of PTPase induced by SDS in detail, more experimental evidences such as the complex structure of PTPase-SDS and the dynamics of PTPase-SDS interactions are still required to clarify the details of molecular interaction. Our study is valuable toward the long-term goal to better understand the activity and conformation of PTPase.
Materials and MethodsReagents and materials. All chemicals used in this research such as para-nitrophenyl phosphate (pNPP), Isopropyl-β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG), Dithiothreitol (DTT), SDS and 1-anilinonaphtalene-8-sulfonate (ANS) were of the highest purity commercially available. PTPase from thermus thermophilus HB27 was cloned into pET-28a (+) vector (Novagen, Germany) and overexpressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3). PTPase was purified as described 12 . The concentration of recombinant PTPase was determined by BCA protein assay kit (Pierce, USA).PTPase activity assay. PTPase activity was assayed as described previously 25,44 . Briefly, pNPP (10 mM) and PTPase (2.4 μM) were added into 200 µL, 50 mM acetic acid-sodium acetate buffer (pH 3.8) plus 5 mM DTT. After incubation at 30 °C for 10 min, NaOH (1 M, 1 mL) was added into the mixture to terminate the reaction. The absorption change at 405 nm was recorded on a Helios-γ UV-VIS spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific, USA).