Binding base catalysis

The metabolic breakdown of triacylglycerols begins with their hydrolysis to yield glycerol plus fatty acids. The reaction is catalyzed by a lipase, whose mechanism of action is shown in Figure 29.2. The active site of the enzyme contains a catalytic triad of aspartic acid, histidine, and serine residues, which act cooperatively to provide the necessary acid and base catalysis for the individual steps. Hydrolysis is accomplished by two sequential nucleophilic acyl substitution reactions, one that covalently binds an acyl group to the side chain -OH of a serine residue on the enzyme and a second that frees the fatty acid from the enzyme. 

Aleshin and coworkers (49) have reported the X-ray crystal structure at 2.2-A resolution of a G2-type variant produced by Aspergillus awamori. Meanwhile, an attempt was made to determine the amino acid residues that participate in the substrate binding and catalysis provided by G2 of A. niger (52). The results of the chemical approach indicated that the Asp-176, Glu-179, and Glu-180 form an acidic cluster crucial to the functioning of the enzyme. This conclusion was then tested by site-specific mutagenesis of these amino acid residues, which were replaced, one at a time, with Asn, Gin, and Gin, respectively (53). The substitution at Glu-179 provided an inactive protein. The other two substitutions affected the kinetic parameters but were not of crucial importance to the maintenance of activity. The crystal structure (49) supports the conclusion that Glu-179 functions as the catalytic acid but Asp-17 6 does not appear to be a good candidate for provision of catalytic base. Thus, there still exists considerable uncertainty as to how the disaccharide is accepted into the combining site for hydrolysis. Nevertheless, the kind of scheme presented by Svensson and coworkers (52) almost surely prevails. 

No large conformational changes occur in the enzyme during catalysis, but many small movements take place. The structural basis for the catalytic power of ribonuclease thus resides in several different features tight, specihc binding of a strained conformation of the substrate, general acid-base catalysis by His-12 and His-119, and preferential stabilization of the transition state by ionic interactions with Lys-41. 

Figure 7. Postulated structure of the CBH I molecule, based on binding and catalysis (22,24) and SAXS (20,21) studies, plus the calorimetric results presented in this paper, l e core and tail regions are described as having minimal interactions in terms of structural stabilization the two domains of the core region, however, interact veiy strongly (See Discussion).

In the postulated transition state, the y-phosphorus atom is penta-coordinated, whereby the ligands are configmed in the form of a triagonal bipyramid. Mg is indispensable for the catalysis it is needed for binding of substrate and product, as well as for the catalysis itself. Activation of the water molecule for nucleophilic attack at the y-phosphate requires involvement of side groups of the protein in the sense of a general base catalysis. 

The pH-rate profile for the action of the enzyme shows a typical pH maximum, with sharply lower rates at either higher or lower pH than the optimum these facts suggest that both an acidic and a basic group are required for activity (Herries, 1960). The two essential histidine residues could serve as these groups if, in the active site, one were protonated and the other present in its basic form. The simultaneous acid-base catalysis would parallel that of the model system (discussed below) of Swain and J. F. Brown. The essential lysine, which binds phosphate, presumably serves to bind a phosphate residue of the ribonucleic acid. These facts led Mathias and coworkers to propose the mechanism for the action of ribonuclease that is shown in (13) (Findlay et al., 1961). 

In heterogeneous catalysis we distinguish usually two mechanisms—the acid-base catalysis, which may be of the same type as the amino acid catalysis, and the catalysis by semiconductors and metals. The theory of this last type of catalysis was developed by T. T. Volkenstein in the U.S.S.R., by Germain in France, and by other scientists in Germany and in the United States. This theory is related to what you have indicated for MgO. It is assumed that an electron deficiency or electron excess is introduced as an impurity that creates, ultimately on the surface, a defect that can bind quasi-chemically electron donors or electron acceptors, respectively. 

For ribonuclease A the occurrence of conformational changes and the occurrence of acid-base catalysis has been well documented. The overall mechanism can be envisaged as follows. The enzyme exists in dynamic equilibrium between two forms differing in the structure of the active site groove. The substrate is bound almost as rapidly as it can diffuse to the active site. Binding of the substrate induces a conformational change that... 

Effective concentration 65-72 entropy and 68-72 in general-acid-base catalysis 66 in nucleophilic catalysis 66 Elastase 26-30, 40 acylenzyme 27, 40 binding energies of subsites 356, 357 binding site 26-30 kinetic constants for peptide hydrolysis 357 specificity 27 Electrophiles 276 Electrophilic catalysis 61 metal ions 74-77 pyridoxal phosphate 79-82 Schiff bases 77-82 thiamine pyrophosphate 82-84 Electrostatic catalysis 61, 73, 74,498 Electrostatic effects on enzyme-substrate association rates 159-161... 

---