8492
Biochemistry 1995,34, 8492-8498
Proton Transfer by Histidine 67 in Site-Directed Mutants of Human Carbonic Anhydrase III? Xilin Ren,' Chingkuang Tu,# Philip J. Laipis,§ and David N. Silverman*,* Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida 3261 0-0267 Received January 31, 199.5; Revised Manuscript Received April 24, 199.5@
ABSTRACT: The ability of a histidine residue at position 67 in human carbonic anhydrase I11 to transfer protons in the catalytic pathway for the hydration of COZ was investigated for a series of site-specific mutants. Wild-type carbonic anhydrase I11 has an arginine at this position with the C a of residue 67 about 9.4 8, from the zinc. The active-site cavity contains no other residues capable of facile proton transfer. Rate constants for proton transfer from His 67 to the zinc-bound hydroxide were determined from the rate constants for the exchange of l S 0 between COZand water measured by mass spectrometry. A range of values for the pKa of zinc-bound water was achieved by replacement of phenylalanine with leucine and aspartate at position 198 adjacent to the zinc. Application of Marcus rate theory showed that intramolecular proton transfer involving His 67 had an intrinsic energy barrier of 1.3 k 0.3 kcal/mol and a thermodynamic work function for a preceding unfavorable equilibrium of 10.9 f 0.1 kcal/mol. We previously showed that proton transfer from histidine 64 in carbonic anhydrase I11 could be described by Marcus rate theory [Silverman, D. N., Tu, C. K., Chen, X., Tanhauser, S . M., Kresge, A. J., & Laipis, P. J. (1993) Biochemistry 32, 10757-107621. In comparison, proton transfer from His 67 must overcome a more unfavorable preceding equilibrium (a larger work function) that probably represents an energy requirement for proper alignment of donor and acceptor groups plus the intervening hydrogen-bonded water. Once this alignment is achieved, the intrinsic energy barrier appears the same for His 67 or His 64.
The catalysis of the dehydration of HC03- by carbonic anhydrase occurs in two separate and distinct steps (Silverman & Lindskog, 1988). The first is the conversion of HC03- into COz at the zinc, leaving zinc-bound hydroxide at the active site. HC00"O-
+ EZnH,O
EZn"0H- -I-CO,
+ H,O (1)
In the second step, the zinc-bound water is regenerated by a series of proton transfer steps originating from buffer in solution. In the most efficient of the carbonic anhydrases, isozyme 11, these steps involve both intramolecular and intermolecular transfer; the intramolecular transfer is rate determining in the presence of ample buffer (Steiner et al., 1975). The His 64 side chain in isozyme I1 is the predominant intramolecular shuttle transferring protons from buffer in solution to the zinc-bound hydroxide in the dehydration direction (Tu et al., 1989). H+His 64-EZn180HHis 64-EZn'80H,
&t
H2O
His 64-EZnH2O -t H2180 (2)
' This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (GM25154). *Address correspondence to this author at Box 100267, Health Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610-0267. Fax: (904) 392-9696. E-mail:
[email protected]. Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 0 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Abstract published in Advance ACS Abstracts, June 15, 1995. @
In the least efficient of the carbonic anhydrases, isozyme 111, position 64 is occupied by a lysine which is too basic to be an efficient proton donor. This accounts in part for the slower activity of this isozyme. The replacement of Lys 64 with His by site-specific mutagenesis in human carbonic anhydrase I11 (HCA 111)' enhanced the maximum velocity of C02 hydration; the properties of this enhancement indicated that His 64 was also a proton shuttle, as it is in isozyme I1 (Jewel1 et al., 1991). Replacing phenylalanine at position 198, located near the metal center, with leucine or aspartate increased the pKa of the zinc-bound water with the resulting range of values of pKa varying from near 5 to 9 (LoGrasso et al., 1993). This allowed a better understanding of the function of His 64 in carbonic anhydrase by varying the pKa of the zinc-bound water and observing the change in rate of intramolecular proton transfer (Silverman et al., 1993). We now show how these features of proton transfer change when the proton donor is at a different position in the activesite cavity. Using site-specific mutagenesis, we have prepared a number of variants of HCA I11 with histidine at position 67, occupied by arginine in the wild-type enzyme. In the structure of wild-type bovine CA I11 the C a positions of residues 64 and 67 are about equidistant from the zinc, Abbreviations: HCA 111, human carbonic anhydrase 111; R67H HCA 111, we use the single letter code in which this notation indicates the mutant of human carbonic anhydrase 111in which Arg 67 has been replaced with His; Ches, 2-(N-cyclohexylamino)ethanesulfonicacid; acid; Mes, 2-(NHepes, 4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic morpho1ino)ethanesulfonic acid; Mops, 3-(N-morpholino)propanesulfonic acid; Taps, N-tris(hydroxymethyl)methyl-3-aminopropanesulfonic acid.
0006-2960/95/0434-8492$09.00/0 0 1995 American Chemical Society
Biochemistry, Vol. 34, N o . 26, 1995 8493
Proton Transfer in Carbonic Anhydrase 9.7 and 9.4 A, respectively (Eriksson & Liljas, 1993). In both cases their side chains extend into the active-site cavity with Lys 64 forming a salt bridge to Glu 4 and Arg 67 without apparent interactions with other residues. The rate constants for proton transfer from His 67 to zinc-bound hydroxide were determined from the rates of lS0exchange between C02 and water at chemical equilibrium determined by mass spectrometry. We have found that histidine at position 67 can transfer protons between the metal center and solution, but its maximal rate is about 4-fold less than for His 64. This difference is attributed by Marcus rate theory to the thermodynamic barrier required to attain alignment of donor and acceptor groups and intervening water for the transfer rather than to the intrinsic energy barrier for the proton transfer itself.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Enzymes. Bacterial expression vectors optimized for efficient site-directed mutagenesis and protein synthesis as described by Tanhauser et al. (1992) were used to prepare human carbonic anhydrase 111 and mutants. These vectors were derived from the T7 expression vectors of Studier et al. (1990) and contained a bacteriophage f l origin of replication for production of single-stranded DNA. Singlesite and cassette mutants were prepared with these vectors; expression ranged from 1 to 20 mg/L, depending on the mutant. All mutations were confirmed by DNA sequencing of the expression vector used to produce the mutant protein. Modified and unmodified carbonic anhydrases 111 were purified by gel filtration followed by ion exchange chromatography as described by Tu et al. (1986). The resulting enzymes were greater than 95% pure, determined by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Concentrations of wild-type HCA I11 and mutants were determined from the molar absorbtivity of 6.2 x lo4 M-lcm-' at 280 nm (Engberg et al., 1985). For mutants of HCA I11 with the replacement Phe 198 Leu, potent inhibition with acetazolamide was M). In this situation we were able to observed (KI < confirm the concentration of enzyme by titration with the inhibitor, using a Henderson plot (Segel, 1975), to within 10% of that determined from the absorption measurements. Oxygen-I8 Exchange. Mass spectrometry was used to measure the rate of catalyzed and uncatalyzed exchange of I8O between CO2 and water. This method is based on experiments of Mills and Urey (1940) and is described in its application to carbonic anhydrase by Silverman (1982). The advantage of the method is that the l S 0 exchange is measured at chemical equilibrium and hence requires no external buffers to maintain pH. External buffers can participate in proton transfer in the catalytic pathway of carbonic anhydrase and are best avoided in measurements of intramolecular proton transfer. The kinetic equations for the redistribution of l80from the C02-HC03- system to water were solved to obtain two rates in the l 8 0 exchange catalyzed by carbonic anhydrase (Silverman et al., 1979; Koenig & Brown, 1981). The first is R1 the rate of exchange of HCO3- and COZ,as shown in eq 1. The substrate dependence of RI is given by
-.
R,/[EI = ~,,""[s1/
