creators_name: Saxena, Rahul creators_name: Kanudia, Pavitra creators_name: Datt, Manish creators_name: Dar, Haider Hussain creators_name: Karthikeyan, Subramanian creators_name: Singh, Balvinder creators_name: Chakraborti, Pradip K type: article datestamp: 2011-12-08 19:38:03 lastmod: 2011-12-08 19:38:03 metadata_visibility: show title: Three consecutive arginines are important for the mycobacterial peptide deformylase enzyme activity. ispublished: pub subjects: QD full_text_status: restricted note: Copyright of this article belongs to ASBMB abstract: Genes encoding the peptide deformylase enzyme (def) are present in all eubacteria and are involved in the deformylation of the N-formyl group of newly synthesized polypeptides during protein synthesis. We compared the amino acid sequences of this enzyme in different mycobacterial species and found that they are highly conserved (76% homology with 62% identity); however, when this comparison was extended to other eubacterial homologs, it emerged that the mycobacterial proteins have an insertion region containing three consecutive arginine residues (residues 77-79 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis peptide deformylase (mPDF)). Here, we demonstrate that these three arginines are important for the activity of mPDF. Circular dichroism studies of wild-type mPDF and of mPDF containing individual conservative substitutions (R77K, R78K, or R79K) or combined substitutions incorporated into a triple mutant (R77K/R78K/R79K) indicate that such mutations cause mPDF to undergo structural alterations. Molecular modeling of mPDF suggests that the three arginines are distal to the active site. Molecular dynamics simulations of wild-type and mutant mPDF structures indicate that the arginines may be involved in the stabilization of substrate binding pocket residues for their proper interaction with peptide(s). Treatment with 5'-phosphothiorate-modified antisense oligodeoxyribonucleotides directed against different regions of def from M. tuberculosis inhibits growth of Mycobacterium smegmatis in culture. Taken together, these results hold out the possibility of future design of novel mycobacteria-specific PDF inhibitors. date: 2008-08-29 date_type: published publication: The Journal of biological chemistry volume: 283 number: 35 publisher: ASBMB pagerange: 23754-64 refereed: TRUE issn: 0021-9258 official_url: http://www.jbc.org/content/283/35/23754.full related_url_url: http://www.jbc.org/content/283/35/23754.full related_url_type: pub citation: Saxena, Rahul and Kanudia, Pavitra and Datt, Manish and Dar, Haider Hussain and Karthikeyan, Subramanian and Singh, Balvinder and Chakraborti, Pradip K (2008) Three consecutive arginines are important for the mycobacterial peptide deformylase enzyme activity. The Journal of biological chemistry, 283 (35). pp. 23754-64. ISSN 0021-9258 document_url: http://crdd.osdd.net/open/586/1/pradip07.pdf