Design of Trypanosoma rangeli sialidase mutants with improved trans-sialidase activity

PLoS One. 2017 Feb 3;12(2):e0171585. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171585. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

A sialidase (EC 3.2.1.18) from the non-pathogenic Trypanosoma rangeli, TrSA, has been shown to exert trans-sialidase activity after mutation of five specific amino acids in the active site (M96V, A98P, S120Y, G249Y, Q284P) to form the so-called TrSA5mut enzyme. By computational and hypothesis driven approaches additional mutations enhancing the trans-sialidase activity have been suggested. In the present work, we made a systematic combination of these mutations leading to seven new variants of the T. rangeli sialidase, having 6-16 targeted amino acid mutations. The resulting enzyme variants were analyzed via kinetics for their ability to carry out trans-sialidase reaction using CGMP and D-lactose as substrates. The sialidase variants with 15 and 16 mutations, respectively, exhibited significantly improved trans-sialidase activity for D-lactose sialylation. Our results corroborate, that computational studies of trans-glycosylation can be a valuable input in the design of novel trans-glycosidases, but also highlight the importance of experimental validation in order to assess the performance. In conclusion, two of the seven mutants displayed a dramatic switch in specificity from hydrolysis towards trans-sialylation and constitute the most potent trans-sialidase mutants of TrSA described in literature to date.

MeSH terms

  • Catalytic Domain
  • Glycoproteins / genetics
  • Glycoproteins / metabolism*
  • Glycosylation
  • Kinetics
  • Lactose / metabolism
  • Mutation / genetics
  • Neuraminidase / genetics
  • Neuraminidase / metabolism*
  • Trypanosoma rangeli / enzymology*

Substances

  • Glycoproteins
  • trans-sialidase
  • Neuraminidase
  • Lactose

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the funding from Danish Dairy Research Foundation (Mejeribrugets Forskningsfond; www.ddrf.dk) (grant to JDM). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.