Mutational analysis in the glycone binding pocket of Dalbergia cochinchinensis β-glucosidase to increase catalytic efficiency toward mannosides

Dalcochinase and Abg are glycoside hydrolase family 1 β-glucosidases from Dalbergia cochinchinensis Pierre and Agrobacterium sp., respectively, with 35% sequence identity. However, Abg shows much higher catalytic efficiencies toward a broad range of glycone substrates than dalcochinase does, possibly due to the difference in amino acid residues around their glycone binding pockets. Site-directed mutagenesis was used to replace the amino acid residues of dalcochinase with the corresponding residues of Abg, generating three single mutants, F196H, S251V, and M369E, as well as the corresponding three double mutants and one triple mutant. Among these, the F196H mutant showed increases in catalytic efficiency toward almost all glycoside substrates tested, with the most improved catalytic efficiency being a 3-fold increase for hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl β-d-mannoside, suggesting a preferred polar residue at this position and consistent with the presence of histidine at this position in two other GH1 glycosidases from barley and rice that prefer β-mannosides. In addition, the M369E mutation resulted in a small increase in catalytic efficiency for cleavage of p-nitrophenyl β-d-galactoside. By contrast, the multiple mutants were up to 8-fold less efficient than the recombinant wild-type dalcochinase, and displayed primarily antagonistic interactions between these residues. Thus, differences in catalytic efficiency between dalcochinase and Abg are therefore not primarily due to differences in the residues that directly contact the substrate, but derive largely from contributions from more remote residues and the overall architecture of the active site.

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► Dalcochinase and Abg are both GH1 β-glucosidases with 35% sequence identity.
► Abg shows much higher catalytic efficiencies than dalcochinase does.
► Different residues in the -1 subsite were probed by mutations.
► His is preferred at position 196 instead of Phe for hydrolysis of β-mannoside.
► Interactions of remote residues may affect the overall substrate specificity.